Campbell County Judge Daniel Zalla certified the recount in the Senate District 24 Republican primary election between Jessica Neal and Shelley Funke Frommeyer.
The opinion from Zalla said that after the recount Neal definitely lost the election – and the opinion also said it also showed that what some election fraud theorists say publicly is drastically different from what they say under oath.
Neal finished second in a three-way race which Shelley Funke Frommeyer narrowly won. Frommeyer will face Democrat and Highland Heights city council member Rene Heinrich in November.
Neal, a member of the Campbell County Republican Party’s election integrity committee, has pushed conspiracy theories about elections in Kentucky and their potential for fraud.
“It was a pretty close race, and I firmly believe in making sure we have secure elections,” Neal said in May on her reasoning for a recount. Secretary of State Michael G. Adams, also a Republican, has called Neal’s efforts “frivolous.”
So Neal took to the courts to seek a recount following her 3% loss, where she was asked to pay more than $57,000 for the full recount.
“Judge Zalla’s order confirmed the obvious: We run fair, free, and honest elections in Kentucky,” Adams said.
Neal got another hearing after a recount didn’t change the election’s outcome. The recount started on Aug. 10 and concluded on Aug. 11. Campbell County Clerk Jim Luersen said the machines behaved as they were supposed to and, in all four counties, there was only an issue with one vote due to an “overvote.”
An overvote is when a voter marks a ballot in such a way that the machine has trouble reading the ballot. The machine spits the ballot back out, and the voter has a chance to redo their vote. However, in the case of Campbell County, the voter chose not to recast their vote for the senate race. However, when hand-counting the ballots, they were able to take that vote into consideration.
In a motion filed in August, Neal said there were issues with how the voting machines were sealed. Zalla presided over the recount case and set a hearing at 11 a.m. for Friday, Aug. 19.
“It is important to note that the machine’s seals will not be broken before the team is ready for counting that particular machine,” the motion reads. “Machines that arrived to the court with seals already broken cannot be verified as to whether their contents reflect the same contents exactly as appeared on election night at 6:00 p.m. May 17.”
But, Zalla’s motion, based on testimony from Luersen, said that these seals are not integral to the integrity of the voting machines and aren’t required by law. The yellow seals in question were placed on the scanner portion of the machines voluntarily.
“We don’t have to put on the seals, but I did because of all the craziness around elections,” Luersen said during the hearing.
Along with Neal, Stephen Knipper, an Erlanger City Councilman and former chief of staff to former Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton, and who also co-runs the “Restore Election Integrity Tour” with Sen. Adrienne Southworth (R-Anderson), testified in that hearing. Southworth previously testified during another hearing in the recount.
When questioned under oath, both Neal and Knipper said there isn’t any evidence of impropriety in the election.
Campbell County Attorney Steve Franzen questioned Knipper.
“Do you believe that the recount of the petitioner’s election was inaccurate,” Franzen asked.
“No,” Knipper replied.
“And you have no evidence to bring to this court today that the recount was inaccurate, is that correct,” Franzen asked.
“I have no evidence, no,” Knipper said.
Further, Neal suggested that the Order for Recount for Procedures was not enforced by the recount chairman, Jack Porter. But, in her testimony, she said it was conducted fairly.
“Do you think he conducted the recount in an unfair manner,” Franzen asked.
“I don’t think it was unfair how he did it,” Neal said under oath.
Southworth and Knipper recently went on Mike Lindell’s Moment of Truth Summit and suggested that the ballots in Campbell County were stuffed. Neal was also in attendance. Lindell is the founder of My Pillow and a vocal proponent of overturning the 2020 U.S. Presidential election results in which then-President Trump was defeated.
“If the machines are doing stuff, they’re going to have to stuff ballots in order to get the recounts to work, and we watched it,” Southworth said, reiterating the false claim about the seals. “She (gesturing toward Neal) walks in the very first morning on recount day, almost half the machines – busted seals.”
Adams said via Twitter that what these recount petitioners say in public vs. what they say under oath is vastly different.
Adams said he hopes these election integrity deniers “stop the insanity.”
“These frivolous recount efforts continue to cost taxpayers, disrupt the work of election officials, and threaten our ability to prepare for the November election,” Adams said. “We checked the tech, and it works. Stop the insanity.”
