The chairman of the county Republican Committee asked the county commissioners to include a committee document in their work on the new county Election Review Commission.

Chairman Al Lindsay presented a binder to the commissioners Wednesday that contained his committee's concerns regarding the 2020 November election.

He requested that the commissioners use the information in the binder during meetings with the election commission, which was formed by the commissioners last month to complete a comprehensive review of the 2020 election in the county.

Lindsay said the Republican Committee deployed “an army” of poll watchers to precincts throughout the county during the Nov. 3 election.

“We believe that our poll watchers have amassed evidence to prove that the 2020 election was rife with confusion on the part of the voters, the poll workers and indeed the election bureau,” according to the document in the binder, “and substantial inconsistency existed from polling place to polling place.”

Specific allegations in the binder are a lack of consistent procedures to surrender mail-in ballots, confusion on the use of provisional ballots, inadequate supplies of ballots at some polling places, insufficient training of poll workers, numerous changes in the instruction materials and guidelines given to election officials and poll book inaccuracies, including the names of deceased voters in the books.

Lindsay also raised questions regarding the procedures for poll watchers from the two political parties, their function and limitations at the polls, the number of poll watchers permitted at each poll, confusion caused by changed polling locations, voting machine issues, insufficient information from the elections bureau and the number of mail-in ballots sent out compared to the number returned to the elections bureau.

Lindsay said Republican poll watchers reported to him that there were people at some polls wearing lanyards that identified them as “voter protection.”

He said it remains unclear who these people were or what role they assumed at the precincts.

Regarding poll worker training, Lindsay said some poll workers reported receiving new rules the night before the election via email, in their poll bags or delivered to them on Election Day.

“When there is a substantial lack of confidence that the system is operating fairly and accurately, a fertile ground is created for allegations of fraud, which may or may not be true,” Lindsay said in his report's conclusion.

He added that the Republican Committee presumes the election process in the county “was as good as it was anywhere else.”

“Our position is that the county commissioners should take the electoral process as seriously as we do,” Lindsay wrote.

Leslie Osche, commissioners chairwoman, said she planned to contact 12 individuals of varying experience or expertise in county elections who expressed an interest in serving on the Election Review Board.

Along with the three county commissioners and Aaron Sheasley, the county's elections bureau director, the group will meet in five half-day sessions before issuing a report at the end of March.

She said Sheasley would outline the issues experienced in the November election, and an analysis of the entire effort would be conducted.

“It's all part of the entire process,” Osche said.

Sheasley said after the meeting that he was hired just a few months before the election, and the rules kept changing at the legislative and judicial levels.

“I would think that many of the things (in the binder) were already addressed internally,” Sheasley said.