SLO County GOP urges its members to vote in person to ‘bypass fraud.’ That’s horrible advice

The local Republican Party still doesn’t trust San Luis Obispo County to run a free, fair and accurate election — even though a recount conducted after the June primary was spot-on.

Now, the party is spreading gross misinformation about mail-in voting that could lead to lines at the polls on Election Day.

In an “urgent message” posted on Facebook and emailed to members, the local GOP is asking conservative voters to go to the polls on Nov. 8, where they should surrender their mail-in ballots and request an in-precinct ballot “in order to bypass the cheating machine algorithms.”

“We have to bypass the fraud that comes with voting early with a mail-in ballot; chain of custody issues, signature match issues, mail-in ballots being used to inject into the system ‘as needed,’ etc.,” the message states. “We HAVE to do this. Conservatives have to show up ON ELECTION day and overwhelm our precincts with our in-person vote.”

The author of the “urgent message” is a member of 4 The Republic, Central Coast, a Facebook group that limits membership to “God-loving PATRIOTS.”

County Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano called the information “entirely unfounded and false.”

“Voters may disagree with the way the law is written, but is my duty to ensure that I take all legally required steps to ensure a fair and accurate election. Spreading this type of misinformation can and will lead to confusion,” she wrote in an email.

The Republican Party also implies that voting in person will speed up the tabulation process.

“A vote-by-mail envelope containing your ballot — even if dropped in a box at the polling place — is not counted for at least 1-3 weeks AFTER Election Day,” it says on Facebook.

Actually, the best way to speed up the process is to return vote-by-mail ballots early, Cano said, so they can be counted prior to Election Day.

“Should voters want to wait until Election Day to vote at the polls, that is OK,” she wrote. “They just need to understand that the first round of results are that of vote-by-mail ballots that were counted prior to Election Day and that the processing and counting of the ballots remaining will continue throughout the canvass.”

It’s disappointing but no surprise that the Republican Party is disparaging our county election process and — indirectly — the good people who are in charge of it.

Following the defeat of Lynn Compton in the June primary, the GOP is desperately trying to hold on to its majority on the county Board of Supervisors by defeating Bruce Gibson in November.

First, it gerrymandered Gibson’s district to give Republicans a numerical edge.

Now it’s spreading lies about “cheating” voting machines.

Did local GOP members learn nothing from the recount in the Fourth District primary election?

That hand-count — paid for by members of the Republican Party — found not a single discrepancy. The tally was exactly the same as the original count: 10,769 votes for Democrat Jimmy Paulding and 10,130 for Compton.

Yet the GOP still insinuates that the vote-counting process is rigged against conservatives and that vote-by-mail balloting is in and of itself corrupt.

Never mind that voting by mail has grown steadily over the past decade and plenty of GOP candidates have been elected in San Luis Obispo County during that time.

Their reasoning is bogus, but if conservatives believe voting in person will give them an edge, so be it.

Let them try to “overwhelm” the precincts on Election Day, even if it means inconveniencing some of their members.

But be aware that their “urgent messages” about “cheating machine algorithms” are nothing but calculated lies intended to undermine faith in our democracy.

Pay it no mind.

Just be sure to vote — whether it’s by mail or in person — secure in the knowledge that San Luis Obispo County elections are free, fair and accurate.