REPUBLIC, WA– Republican candidate for governor, Loren Culp has reportedly lost his job after City Council members decided to contract with Ferry County for the town’s law enforcement needs.
The news to defund the police department came just a few days before Culp’s project loss in the effort to unseat Governor Jay Inslee.
Fresh off losing the Washington gubernatorial race, GOP candidate Loren Culp says he also recently lost his job as police chief of Republic, Ferry County.@Jim_Brunner: https://t.co/MBx52SSuMn
— The Seattle Times (@seattletimes) November 4, 2020
On Wednesday, November 4th, Culp addressed his social media followers from a car during a Facebook Live, which he coined, “Lunch with Loren,” spoke about the council’s decision. He said:
“The City Council had a special meeting and they voted to defund the police department, including my job. Incredible, right? Small minded people playing political games.”
According to reports, the minutes from the council’s special meeting shows that Republic Mayor Elbert Koontz and council members April Drennan, Rachel Siracuse, Loni Simone, and Jim Burnside were present for the session. The council voted 3-1 in favor of the county agreement.
Culp said that he has worked as a police officer for 10 years in the city, which has slightly more than 1,000 residents in Ferry County. According to Culp, he took a leave of absence in September to concentrate on his campaign and was told right before the election about the council’s decision to defund the police department. Culp said:
“Not even a letter of thank you, not a plaque for 10 years of service. They just voted to defund the police department and away with that went my job.”
He added:
“I love the city of Republic. It felt like a knife in the back.”
In a live video Wednesday, @LorenCulp — candidate for governor and police chief of Republic — said the city council voted to defund his police department. Culp was the only employee of the police department. #Election2020 #WAElex https://t.co/fq9W19q9Hp
— KIRO Radio 97.3 FM🎙 (@KIRORadio) November 4, 2020
Culp said that Republic has had its own police force for 120 years. He said:
“Think about that: 120 years tradition just voted on by four people on the city council to defund it and do away with it. It’s absolutely incredible. It’s unthinkable to me.”
Currently, the police department consists entirely of just Culp and a K9. According to reports, the Ferry County Sheriff’s Office had to take over answering 911 calls in Republic while Culp was on the campaign trail.
Breaking: One day after losing Washington’s race for governor, Loren Culp says the Republic City Council has voted to defund his police department, and he is now without a job. @kxly4news
He posted the video to his Facebook page. https://t.co/hxBCcXA32B
Here’s part of the clip: pic.twitter.com/UygpmqqQ8C
— Maher Kawash (@MaherKXLY) November 4, 2020
On Wednesday, November 4th, the Associated Press had called the governor’s race for Inslee, who had roughly a 60 percent lead over Culp, according to the first batch of voter returns released by the Washington Secretary of State’s Office.
However, during a rally in Tenino, Culp pointed out that he did not believe the race was over. He said to the crowd:
“We are not conceding. We are going to let everyone’s voice be heard and every vote be counted.”
Loren Culp loses police job in E. Washington, days before apparent loss in governor’s race https://t.co/6cy5JQ4ari
— Pamela M. Howard (@blackskagit) November 4, 2020
Allegedly, Culp said that the initial results were incomplete and that he is relying on a red wave of results to eventually come in from rural counties. He said:
“The good news is that King County has already counted about 80% of their ballots.”
According to a report from KOMO News, some supporters, with immense disappointment, accepted his defeat. One supporter said:
“Heartbreaking and sad that Washington state doesn’t see that we need a change.”
Culp, without providing any actual evidence, is claiming that their seems to be some “irregularities” with the voting results. He said during his Facebook chat:
“Something smells fishy. Yep. Imagine that.”
Unfortunately, the Washington State Republican Party has yet to echo Culp’s concerns over the election, which was supervised by Secretary of State Kim Wynman, a republican herself.
ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PA- A Pennsylvania country has perfectly illustrated the potential problem of mail-in voting by sending the wrong ballot to more than 29,000 of its voting residents.
The county’s solution to their mistake is setting aside the incorrect ballots and counting them after the election.
Allegheny County lies within Pennsylvania, a swing state that could prove to be essential in the upcoming presidential election. Unfortunately, this election cycle the county’s voters could be voting for nothing after a huge error by the Allegheny County Elections Division.
On Wednesday the division announced that 29,879 ballots that were registered in the state’s ballot tracker were incorrect.
The division explained that they were made aware of this issue on October 9 after approximately 20 voters reported receiving incorrect ballots. Allegedly there was a “ballot image mapping error” which caused each voter to receive a ballot with a different person’s information.
Elections Division manager David Voye made a statement on the mistake claimed that voters should be confident that their votes are “accurately counted and protected”:
“The integrity of our election system is of utmost importance to me as the Elections Division Manager and to our entire team. Voters in this county should be confident that their votes are accurately counted and protected.”
Nothing says accurately counted like sending out tens of thousands of incorrect ballots only weeks before the election. Further, nothing shows that your vote is protected quite like the elections division divulging your personal information to other voters within the county.
The division has now started working on a solution for the incorrect ballots. After printing new, and hopefully correct, ballots the division will begin mail them to voters again. Deliveries are expected to being on October 15 with most being delivered by the 19th.
Unfortunately this mistake will eat away at the voting period given to county residents. With voters receiving the correct ballots so close to the election they will be forced to rush in returning them.
But, what’s even more alarming is the elections division’s plan on dealing with the incorrect ballots that have already been mailed back.
The county has already admitted to receiving some of the wrong ballots. Those unfortunate voters will have their ballots segregated and counted after the election.
The Hill reports:
“Voye said that Elections Division staff were segregating ballots that were received from voters affected by the issue, and those will be set aside and reviewed following the election.”
This presents another large problem for Allegheny County voters. Should an incorrect ballot that’s segregated turn out to be faulty voters will have no opportunity to replace them and revote. In other words, thousands of votes could be thrown out the window because of an error by local government.
In a state like Pennsylvania an error this size could swing the election. In 2016 President Trump won the battleground state by only 0.7% or 45,000 votes. This county’s error alone nearly has the potential to swing the 2020 election. But Allegheny County isn’t the only area of Pennsylvania to meddle in the election.
On Saturday RedState reported on another county in Pennsylvania that saw a large amount of ballots disappear.
Westmoreland County is a Republican leaning area, so it should come as no surprise that almost 60,000 just happened to go undelivered to voters. Between this case and Allegheny County alone there could be enough missed votes to sway the entire state.
Of course, these are not the only two examples of ballot tampering in the state. LET reported on another example coming out of Pennsylvania just a few weeks ago. Read the report here:
LUZERNE COUNTY, PA – President Donald Trump and many Republicans have voiced concerns over voter fraud in terms of mail in and absentee balloting in the upcoming general election.
There have already been many reports of widespread voting fraud and some are saying that’s just what happened in Pennsylvania.
Now, what is reported as a small number of thrown out ballots in Pennsylvania is started quite a stir. Apparently, some votes that came in from military voters had been thrown into the trash. The claim is that these ballots were not thrown out intentionally, but rather by some type of administrative error on the part of a temporary employee.
The Luzerne County Manager, C David Pedri, claimed that they were unaware until recently which votes had been thrown out. Pedri claimed that the error was a result of a temporary employee which improperly discarded of the nine ballots. Seven of those ballots were cast for President Trump, the other two were unknown. Pedri said:
“Luzerne County Elections staff were unaware for whom the ballots were cast until the disclosure via Press Release of the United States Attorney on September 24, 2020.”
Elections officials noted that the temporary employee began working for them on September 14th. The fact that the ballots were improperly discarded was discovered by Luzerne County Elections Director Shelby Watchilla. Pedri said:
“Ms. Watchilla immediately began in internal inquiry and informed her direct supervisor. The temporary independent contractor was removed from service and informed not to return.”
Watchilla then contacted the Luzerne County Office of Law who looked into the facts of the case and properly determined that the incident needed to be reported to officials. Once the demand to notify was clear, authorities reported the incident to the local District Attorney’s Office.
Pedri claimed that all of the garbage that had accumulated from the time of the issue until they found it only occurred during a three day time period. As a result, all garbage from that time period was allegedly separated and secured. Pedri said:
“Each bag of garbage from the entire building in the dumpster was searched by the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the Luzerne County District Attorney’s Office, Pennsylvania State Police as well as Luzerne County staff.
“All items of concern were taken into custody by the Federal Bureau of Investigations.”
Pedri claims that the ballots in which were not opened cannot be until a canvass has ben completed. Pedri said:
“[Luzerne County] will attempt to contact the voters involved and process their votes.”
The county, in combination with the Pennsylvania Department of State will incorporate some type of extra training to all elections staff to ensure all rules and laws are followed. They have also installed a security video surveillance system which will allegedly ensure that the current rules and laws are followed.
A Justice Department official informed ABC news that the Attorney General, William Barr, had briefed President Trump on the issue. The President noted the issue and pointed out various credible allegations of voter fraud.
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