At an August event in Phoenix put on by True the Vote, Lamb told participants he saw so much fraud in the 2020 election “that I thought, this is something that we cannot let happen again.”Ī Pinal County Sheriff’s Office spokesman told CNN this week that deputies conduct “welfare checks” on ballot drop boxes as part of their routine patrols. Mack’s group has held events around the country, and Lamb has done other outreach to recruit sheriffs to their ideas.
#Color lines circle of contempt trial#
Mack is a former board member of the anti-government Oath Keepers, whose founder is currently on trial for seditious conspiracy in connection with the January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol. Neither Mack nor Lamb responded to CNN’s requests for comment. Mack’s group has called on sheriffs to investigate “election fraud” and wrongly asserts that, “The law enforcement powers held by the sheriff supersede those of any agent, officer, elected official or employee from any level of government when in the jurisdiction of the county.” Sheriff Lamb also has allied with Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff and founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), which claims about 250 members. The group also dismissed Brnovich’s letter to federal authorities, saying it “is false and smacks of retribution for the AG’s own decision to ignore suspicious voting activity.” “True the Vote attorneys are expediting an appeal seeking to have Englebrecht and Phillips released,” a spokesman for the group said in a statement, and quoted Engelbrecht asserting that the information sought by the court “was not covered under the terms” of the judge’s temporary restraining order. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich last month asked federal authorities to investigate True the Vote for potential tax-code violations tied to the use of false claims in its fundraising efforts. True the Vote’s leaders, Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips, were found in contempt of court and jailed Monday by a Texas federal judge for refusing to hand over information purportedly backing their accusations against an elections-software company, Konnech, that is suing them for defamation. True the Vote is well known for backing a thoroughly-debunked disinformation film, “2000 Mules,” that baselessly claimed to uncover widespread drop-box ballot fraud in 2020.
Group encourages law enforcement to get involved in elections
While they make up a tiny minority of sheriffs across the US, these law-enforcement officials could play a vital role in efforts to cast doubt on elections and make it easier for partisan officials to overrule voters’ choices this fall and in 2024. Some of them are aligned with so-called “constitutional sheriffs” groups that claim their members have the right to ignore or block federal or state laws they deem unconstitutional and to intervene in elections. Those sheriffs have been telling their constituents they plan to police the midterm elections - even though that is normally the duty of election officials. But there are others, and many of those efforts are tied to a fringe group of elected sheriffs influenced by former President Donald Trump’s repeatedly disproven claims of vote fraud. The scene playing out in Berks County may be one of the more visible examples of law-enforcement intervention in the 2022 voting process.
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