Chair Jones and Dr. Frank Think Shasta County Voters are Stupid and Lazy. Let’s Prove Them Wrong.

 

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics,” Mark Twain famously wrote in the late 19th century. The phrase didn’t originate with Twain, but he’s the writer who popularized it, and it still applies today.

Consider the work of Dr. Douglas Frank, one of the primary players in My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell’s efforts to prove Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic voting machines were manipulated by some unknown actor, perhaps China or Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, cheating former President Donald Trump out of the 2020 election victory.

According to a Los Angeles Times profile last July, before the 2020 election, Dr. Frank, who has a doctorate in surface analytical chemistry, was a high school teacher in Cincinnati, where he chaired the math and science departments at a private school. Now he’s known as the “Johnny Appleseed of Election Fraud.”

‘Fictitious Frank’, ‘Frank the Fraud’, or perhaps ‘Dr. Dissembler’ might be sounder sobriquets. For the past three years, Dr. Frank claims he’s traveled to 800 counties in 48 states, pushing an election fraud theory that uses statistical slight of hand to “prove” election fraud occurs wherever he goes.

He’s blown right through lies and damned lies and gone straight through to the statistics.

Fortunately, we have the Democracy and Polarization Lab, located in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute, where Justin Grimmer and other election fraud scholars have been “Evaluating a New Generation of Claims About Vote Manipulation,” the title of a research paper submitted for peer review earlier this year.

Grimmer & Co. take an in-depth look at two documented cases of fake election fraud claims, the contest for Las Vegas sheriff in 2020 and the false statistical claims made by Dr. Frank on his journeys across the United States.

We’ll focus on Dr. Frank here, since District 4 Supervisor Patrick Jones has once again invited the debunked election denier to spread more election fraud lies at a town hall meeting at the Red Lion Inn at 6 p.m. on Saturday.

Reviewing numerous online videos of Dr. Frank’s talks, the Stanford report narrows down Frank’s bogus election fraud theory to three steps.

First, Dr. Frank asserts that a pool of “phantom voters” exists in every state. These might be voters who have moved, died or never existed at all, but are still on the rolls. Dr. Frank alleges, with no evidence, that these phantom voters are inserted into the vote count by unnamed forces at the state level to control the outcome of every election.

Second, Dr. Frank claims that every state has an algorithmic “key” based on the rate of voter turnout statewide for groups of registered voters ages 18-100. He claims this statewide key is used to determine the number of voters from each age group in every county in every state prior to the election.

Third, Dr. Frank alleges that unnamed conspirators at the county level apply the statewide key to county election results and adjust accordingly, using the statewide pool of phantom voters to fit the predetermined results.

I can’t stress this fact enough: Dr. Frank provides no evidence for his claims.

The best way to understand the fraud Dr. Frank is committing is to go to the Democracy and Polarization Lab’s website, electioninsights.org, where you’ll be greeted by the following warning:

“This website examines the claims of Dr. Douglas Frank. On the Learn page we explain why Frank’s claims of voter fraud fail, demonstrating his claims fail under basic logic, empirical analysis, and statistical scrutiny. On the Find a County page we provide a county-level analysis for 42 states that shows how Frank’s claims fail in every county where we have sufficient data to analyze the results.”

Using publicly available data, the website singles out one county in Tennessee to show how Dr. Frank’s gimmickry works. First, we’re shown the statewide voter turnout by age groups, represented by 83 dots (the number of individual age groups between 18 and 100) per county.

As can be seen in the Stanford report’s diagram below, there’s a great deal of variation between counties.

 

The red line represents the state average turnout rate; Dr. Frank claims unnamed state-level actors use this average for the key to insert phantom votes yielding predetermined election results in every county in Tennessee (and by extension every county in every state of the nation works the same way).

Dr. Frank wrongly assumes there’s no variation in rates between the counties and the state average, even though the wide dispersion of age groups can plainly be seen on the diagram.

The second chart zooms in on Union County, Tennessee. Dr. Frank uses the statewide turnout rate to predict the actual turnout rate in Union County. As noted, turnout rates for age groups at the county level vary from the statewide turnout, as can be seen by the dispersion of the dots around the 45-degree line. The correlation between predicted and the actual turnout rate is .57, which is relatively low.

 

 

But here’s where a statistical “sleight of hand” slips into Dr. Frank’s act. Instead of using the above chart, which contradicts his own theory, Dr. Frank switches from measuring the turnout rate to measuring the turnout count.

Compared to the chart above, this chart appears to show a strong correlation between predicted turnout count and actual turnout count, nearly a perfect 1.0.

Dr. Frank asserts, wrongly, that this strong correlation is unusual and indicative of election fraud. He’s found it in every single county he’s analyzed in the United States (which also proves his theory wrong, since counties where no fraud occurred failed his test too!).

In fact, as the Stanford report points out, the seemingly strong correlation is not only meaningless in terms of fraud it is the artifact of an error in Dr. Frank’s fabulist formulations.

Since his predicted turnout count is based on the statewide turnout rate, he’s correlating a variable with itself. It’s a statistics 101 error but still makes a convincing diagram if the audience isn’t as familiar with lies, damned lies and statistics as Mark Twain.

“In his work, Frank proposes a test for vote manipulation,” the Stanford report concludes. “While Frank asserts that the test is truly diagnostic, in reality it shows nothing. Rather, Frank’s test for voter manipulation fails due to construction. As we have explained, this is because Frank’s test confuses variation in the number of individuals across age groups in counties with evidence of an unnatural manipulation of ballots.”

“Not only is Frank’s test for vote manipulation worthless, but a key principle on which it is based—that various precinct-level turnout rates are constant within and across countries—is wrong. In short, Frank’s finds have no implications at all for the presence of vote manipulation in the United States.”

Strong words, and they deserve a response. Grimmer & Co. say they shared their research with Dr. Frank and invited his comment last year. So far, he hasn’t responded.

Dr. Frank appeared via a phone interview on the Jefferson State of Mine radio show last Sunday to pump Saturday’s town hall with Chair Jones. He immediately compared his boots-on-the-ground approach to Jesus Christ.

“What do I mean by that? Well, he started the most successful movement in the history of the world and he didn’t send emails! Hah!”

Neither did Jesus fly in airplanes, but that’s what Dr. Frank was doing last week in Alaska, where he spread his phony election fraud theory from Juneau to Fairbanks and back again.

“They got me flying all around the state and it’s pretty rainy and kind of gloomy,” he told host and State of Jefferson separatist Terry Rapoza.

When Dr. Franks says, “they’ve got me going here and there,” it’s not exactly clear who “they” are. Who’s footing the bill?

He’s one of Lindell’s most trusted election fraud confidants; Step 1 in Dr. Franks’ 7-step plan is: Get connected with CauseOfAmerica.org, CSPOA.org (the fascist Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officer Association), LindellTV.com, Frank (Lindell’s failing social media site) and PatriotForceCA.org.

Dr. Frank has been on Lindell’s platforms hundreds of times. But is he getting paid by Lindell, now that the pillow guy is going bankrupt defending defamation lawsuits against Dominion and Smartmatic?

Rapoza thanked Dr. Frank for not being a “P-A-Y-triot” meaning one of the thousands of grifters who’ve emerged from the woodwork charging exorbitant prices to share their wisdom about things they knew virtually nothing about three years ago.

Chair Jones begs for money to host ‘free’ events

No. Dr. Frank isn’t one of those grifters. He does it all for free. Well, not exactly. While he doesn’t have a set charge for speeches, the people who invite him to speak, Chair Jones in this case, agree to pay his expenses. He gets to stay in nice hotels for no charge, eat at fancy restaurants for free and spread divisive lies and disinformation wherever he goes with no consequences, because he doesn’t live there.

On a related note, in July, Jones also hosted election-denier Jeffrey O’Donnell — aka ‘The Lone Raccoon’ — at a so-called town hall meeting at the Holiday Inn that announced numerous pre-event rules. One rule not mentioned on the poster was that no questions would be allowed.

Like Jones’ upcoming Saturday event, on the one hand Jones pitches the meeting as free to the public, but on the other hand he simultaneously cries poor and pushes hard for donations to cover his costs.

There’s no telling how much money Jones earns from these “free” events.

But back to Frank, and his mission to spread his election-denier gospel. It’s nice work if you can get it, and according to Rapoza’s secessionist radio program, Dr. Frank has developed quite the bond with Chair Jones as they schemed together to destroy Shasta County’s election infrastructure over the past three years.

“Patrick Jones is the one,” Dr. Frank told Rapoza, as if PHJ was Neo in The Matrix. “I so respect his approach. The whackadoodle conspiracy theorist comes to town—that’s me!—and I show him the fraud in his election and he didn’t go oh my goodness the sky is falling! No! He investigated it! He looked at the law he entered into a process. He and I had hours of phone calls for months. He made rational logical moves forward. … He contacted me again now that I’m in town. He wants to plan strategy.”

To repeat the Democracy and Polarization Lab’s findings, Dr. Frank has failed to prove widespread systemic voter fraud happened anywhere in the United States ever. It’s just swell that he and Chair Jones have been exchanging pillow talk for three years.

Supervisor Crye’s election-denier ties

Speaking of pillows, no Shasta County politician has closer ties to MyPillow CEO Lindell than District 1 Supervisor Kevin Crye, whose messages to Lindell have included scriptures and requests for Lindell to check out Crye’s promotional videos.

Earlier this year, Crye flew to Minnesota, where he says Lindell agreed to pay Shasta County’s legal fees if it got sued for scrapping its contract with Dominion.

In fact, Crye and Lindell are so close that they were texting one another during the Board of Supervisors meeting’s vote to decide whether to banish Dominion voting machines from Shasta County, which was exactly what happened in a 3-2 decision.

This insanely stupid behavior is exactly why Crye is being recalled. Plus, he’s just unlikeable. Who the hell picks on one of Shasta County’s leading philanthropists for being too old?

Although a radio commercial by Jones promises a “blockbuster” at the Saturday pseudo town hall, expect Dr. Frank to instead present a vigorous defense against Crye’s recall.

“First let’s step up and defend Kevin,” he told Rapoza. “To do that we’re going to need the people in the community aware of what happened, why it happened and the importance of keeping the majority on your county commission, so the recall effort doesn’t succeed.”

OK, here’s what happened, maybe. Dr. Frank whispered sweet nothings into Chair Jones’ ear and the next thing you know Los Tres Pendejos voted to scrap the county’s election system, disenfranchising the electorate, costing local taxpayers millions and earning Shasta County the scorn of the nation.

Exactly one local Republican has stood up to this juggernaut of ignorance consistently, District 3 Supervisor Mary Rickert. She’s no RINO, a Republican in name only. She’s still a Republican. Her opponents are MAGA insurrectionists who bear no resemblance to members of what was once known as the Republican Party.

Rapoza’s milquetoast radio sidekick Win Carpenter is running against Rickert in the March primary. Just what we need; another secessionist.

Businessman Corkey Harmon, who lost to Les Baugh in a 2010 race for District 5 (prior to the redistricting that put him in District 3), is also campaigning for Rickert’s seat.

I don’t count District 2 Supervisor Tim Garman as a reliable Republican because he voted to fire the public health officer during a pandemic and voted to approve Chair Jones’ gun range after conducting his own private noise study he has never released.

It’s hilarious that Dr. Daniel Sloan, the former head of the Shasta County Republican Central Committee, is running for Garman’s current District 2 seat in the March primary.

The District 2 race is complicated by the recent redistricting that shifted Garman’s previous District 2 residence to District 5, currently held by Supervisor Chris Kelstrom, who’s up for re-election in 2026.

Sloan now pretends like he’s Woodrow Wilson, but who can forget this shrill Karen’s outburst when Garman dared wear a “Recall Kevin Crye” T-shirt in board chambers?

Where was Dr. Sloan when Rapoza was calling recalled Republican District 2 supervisor Leonard Moty a minion of Gov. Gavin Newsom?

In addition to Sloan, the other candidates vying for the District 2 supervisors seat are Jefferson State of Mine co-host Win Carpenter, election-denier extremist Laura Hobbs, former police officer Allen Long, and education field representative/community organizer Susanne Baremore.

I look forward to candidate Baremore winning District 2.

Freaky Dr. Frank

Quite frankly, there’s something a little freaky about Dr. Frank. Frankly freaky Dr. Frank! Frank’s a freak, frankly! I wish I were kidding.

With great glee on Rapoza’s show, Dr. Frank recalled a dance ball organized by supermoms in his home state of Ohio in 2020. They opposed COVID mandates and danced all night, hugging and kissing and slobbering all over each other like kids at a chicken pox party, during the height of the pandemic, when people were dying in droves.

What the hell’s wrong with these bastards?

Ohio has legal open and concealed carry weapon policies, like 44 other states. We can talk about the increased gun death rates in those states some other time; meanwhile here’s how Dr. Frank goes grocery shopping in Cincinnati.

According to Dr. Frank, he straps a “big old 45” to the side of his hip when he goes to the grocery story. On Rapoza’s show, he shared a fantasy about seeing a young boy with his mom in the store who’s startled by his large weapon. He tells his mom the man’s huge instrument of death scares him. She tells her son the man, Dr. Frank, is a hero.

I’ll let the armchair Freudians in the audience sort that out in the comments section.

In cases of “discernment” Dr. Frank carries a concealed .380 handgun, because “there are people who want to kill me” which is entirely plausible considering how much damage he’s done to our election systems.

“The bowtie is just a disguise for the Lone Ranger,” Rapoza praises.

Or maybe a drugstore cowboy. Is Dr. Frank on Adderall? Oxycontin? I’m just asking questions.

“You need to use all of your 1st Amendment weapons to their full extent, otherwise we’re going to end up using our 2nd Amendment weapons,” Dr. Frank advises. “We don’t want to do that.”

Well, no kidding you don’t want to do that! It’s called murder, Dr. Dufus!

I could go on, but I have little patience with people like Dr. Frank and Chair Jones who talk cavalierly about the 2nd Amendment at the same time they’re demonizing and dehumanizing their opponents.

Honestly, I don’t know how people lie so casually, as if the truth means nothing. I don’t trust people who hint they’ll turn guns on their political opponents.

There’s no question in my mind that these rightwing extremists represent the minority in Shasta County. I hope everyone else comes together in March and November next year to drive this fascist scourge out of our county government.

Enough is enough.

Vote accordingly.

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