Researcher who has distorted voter data appointed to Homeland Security election integrity role

A blimpish predetermination researcher whose faulty findings connected elector information were cited by President Donald Trump arsenic helium tried to overturn his 2020 predetermination loss has been appointed to an predetermination integrity relation astatine the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Pennsylvania activistic Heather Honey is present serving arsenic the lawman adjunct caput for predetermination integrity successful the department's Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans, an organizational chart connected its website shows.

The governmental appointment, first reported by Democracy Docket, shows however self-styled predetermination investigators who person thrown themselves into election conspiracy theories since 2020 are present being celebrated by a statesmanlike medication that indulges their mendacious claims.

Her caller role, which didn't beryllium nether President Joe Biden, besides comes arsenic Trump has utilized predetermination integrity concerns arsenic a pretext to effort to springiness his medication power implicit however elections are run successful the U.S.

The president has ordered sweeping changes to predetermination processes and vowed to do distant with message ballots and voting machines to beforehand "honesty" successful the 2026 midterms, contempt a deficiency of law authorization to bash so. Trump's Department of Justice besides has demanded implicit authorities elector lists, raising concerns astir elector privateness and questions astir however the national authorities plans to usage the delicate data.

Neither Honey nor DHS instantly responded to requests for remark connected Tuesday.

Honey runs an investigations and auditing consulting steadfast called Haystack Investigations, according to interaction accusation provided connected her LinkedIn profile. Since 2020, she besides has led a assortment of predetermination probe groups whose flawed analyses of predetermination information person fueled right-wing attacks connected voting procedures, including successful battleground states Pennsylvania and Arizona.

In 2020, her predetermination probe misrepresented incomplete authorities elector information to falsely assertion that Pennsylvania had more votes reported than voters. Trump echoed the falsehood during his speech to supporters connected Jan. 6, 2021, saying Pennsylvania "had 205,000 much votes than you had voters." Shortly after, his supporters violently attacked the U.S. Capitol successful an effort to forestall Biden from becoming president.

In 2021, Honey was progressive successful the Arizona Senate's partisan audit of predetermination results successful Maricopa County, she confirmed successful a podcast interview with a GOP lawyer. That reappraisal successful the state's astir populous county, which spent six months searching for grounds of fraud, was described by experts arsenic riddled with errors, bias and flawed methodology. Still, it came up with a ballot tally that would not person altered the outcome, uncovering that Biden really won by much votes than the authoritative results certified successful 2020.

In 2022, Honey's enactment Verity Vote issued a study claiming that Pennsylvania had sent immoderate 250,000 "unverified" message ballots to voters who provided invalid recognition oregon nary recognition astatine all.

Officials successful Pennsylvania said the assertion flagrantly misrepresented the mode the authorities classified applications for mail-in and absentee ballots. The "not verified" designation did not mean the elector didn't supply close recognition information, nor did it mean their ID wasn't aboriginal verified.

Former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said helium received dozens of nationalist records requests related to elections from Honey during his clip successful office, which took up "scores of hours of unit time." He said helium was amazed to perceive she had been elevated to a presumption of specified "authority and responsibility."

From what helium saw, Richer said, she's "not a superior auditor."

Honey's hiring astatine the Department of Homeland Security comes amid reports that Trump's medication has met with respective different predetermination conspiracy theorists successful caller months. Mike Lindell, the laminitis of MyPillow and 1 of the astir salient predetermination conspiracy theorists, said successful an email to supporters successful June that helium had met with the president doubly successful the erstwhile 8 weeks. In June, a national assemblage successful Colorado recovered that Lindell had defamed a erstwhile idiosyncratic for a institution that makes predetermination instrumentality by making mendacious claims related to the 2020 election.

Seth Keshel, an predetermination modeler whose enactment connected the 2020 predetermination prompted challenges that were aboriginal dismissed, presented his probe to White House unit successful May, helium said connected his Substack account.

David Becker, enforcement manager of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, said DHS utilized to person existent credibility successful its advisory relation connected elections. Its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency had collaborated with states to enactment up their elections from overseas attacks and disinformation, helium said.

Now, the bureau has fired its "real experts" connected elections, helium said. Trump's medication besides has done distant with overmuch of its enactment tracking overseas power campaigns targeting voters, some astatine CISA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

"What I'm acrophobic astir is that it seems similar DHS is being poised to usage the immense powerfulness and megaphone of the national authorities to dispersed disinformation alternatively than combat it," Becker said. "It's going to truly harm DHS's credibility overall."