March 28, 2023 03:45 PM UTC

Oltmann Hosts John Tiegen's Election Pre-Denial Crew

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• by: Colorado Pols

This evening, Colorado’s premiere election conspiracy theorist and would-be mass political hangman Joe Oltmann is hosting a panel of nether-right election denialists, pastor Matthew Trewhella famous for calling violence against abortion providers “justifiable homicide,” and Colorado Springs mayoral candidate John “Tig” Tiegen to talk about being big bad tough guys who “stand in the gap” against…

In the case of discredited New Mexico professor David Clements, as the Washington Post reported last fall, the “gap” is local elections officials.

Clements’s strategy is to target his message locally: to county commissioners and clerks, jobs that are lower profile but that wield an outsize role in administering America’s decentralized election system. If local jurisdictions fail to certify their votes, it could throw the outcome of an election into chaos, raising doubt about the results and giving ammunition to losing candidates who refuse to accept their defeats.

Clements is one among a tightknit circle of Trump supporters who travel the country as self-appointed election fraud evangelists. [Pols emphasis] They embrace the instructions of leaders like former Trump adviser turned podcaster Stephen K. Bannon, who has urged election deniers to run for local races and sign up to be poll workers in what he calls his “precinct-by-precinct” takeover strategy.

It’s easy to laugh at what appears to be a traveling sideshow cashing in on lingering doubts among Republicans despite any evidence that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. But keep in mind how both the Colorado Republican Party and the local El Paso County GOP have been taken over by far-right activists who wholeheartedly agree. Clements’ “precinct-by-precinct” takeover looks very much the strategy adopted in Colorado by grassroots activists led by new chairman Dave “Let’s Go Brandon” Williams.”

Similarly, last summer NPR profiled Clements’ friend and frequent speaking tour circuit companion Seth Keshel:

On a quiet Tuesday night in Howard County, Md., dozens of people gather in a community center and listen to Seth Keshel’s 10-point plan.

“Captain K,” as he’s known in election fraud circles, is a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, and he is walking through his go-to presentation: comparisons of vote totals from the past few election cycles, which he falsely claims prove President Biden’s win in 2020 was illegitimate. His 10-point plan to “true election integrity” includes banning all early voting and requiring all American voters to re-register.

In short, on a stage in Colorado Springs you’ve got two devoted nationally-prominent election deniers, a pastor who says killing abortion providers is justifiable, and the local gun store owner who personally invented the Dominion Voting Systems conspiracy theory and fantasizes about building “gallows all the way from Washington, D.C., to California” to hang politicians in both parties he doesn’t like.

And a candidate for Mayor of Colorado Springs.

If this doesn’t make you at least a little worried about how militia commander John “Tig” Tiegen might respond to his likely defeat in next month’s city election, consider paying closer attention.