In all, outside groups contributed $5.7 million to the audit, lead audit contractor Cyber Ninjas said in a statement.
This whole situation reminds me of how Peter Thiel destroyed Gawker.
He had a beef with them, but failed to prevail in court. So he shopped around to find a plaintiff whose case could do the trick, and then bankrolled it. (For pocket-change.)
Apparently now rich people can spend unlimited amounts of dark money to challenge any election outcome that doesn’t go their way. And even if the challenge doesn’t prevail, a sloppy audit can render the election equipment unusable and even damage records from the election, which imposes a substantial cost on the public. And the rich person, who is probably not a local, doesn’t even contribute to the replacement via taxes.
So:
- rich person creates a political puppet by bankrolling a doofus with no job skills but some charisma and the right sense of grievance
- if doofus wins, great! rich person now owns an elected office
- if doofus loses, rich person pays a mercenary to trash that jurisdiction’s election infrastructure and records, and then tries again next cycle; and in the meantime, rich person can try to bribe or outflank-with-lobbyists the person who did get elected