Damschroder was pleased with the preview story on EVEREST in the December 13 paper and told Niquette so. The next day, when EVEREST was released, Damschroder and the Ohio Association of Election Officials released a statement indicating they were withholding comment.
“While some of our members have been intimately involved with this study, it is premature to offer a position on it,” Damschroder said in the statement.
But neutrality in this statement was either disingenuous or did not appear to last very long. On Monday December 17, he emailed Niquette around noon:
“Am picking up that some of the advocacy groups/VRI members are not happy that the SOS is proposing changes to the entire voting system architecture that are perhaps too dramatic. You might want to call Candace Hoke at Cleveland State… I don’t know where other folks like Donita Judge from the Advancement Project or the NAACP might come down on these kinds of sweeping changes that might be an invitation for administrative error.”
Niquette confirmed a December 18 press conference and forwarded information about it. And none other than Gene Pierce, former Ohio GOP Secretary of State Ken Blackwell’s political guru, soon emailed Damschroder asking, “Who is behind this news conference” and Damschroder identified voting rights groups such as the Brennan Center of NYU Law School and Candace Hoke a well-known election law scholar at Cleveland State University.
December 17 was a busy day for Damschroder. Having held fire on the 14th when lobbyist Aaron Ockerman had sent numerous emails to the 12 appointees on the committee and Association members, the 12 Committee members abruptly backed away from EVEREST – in both a carefully worded Association email and a more blunt mea culpa email to Ohio GOP headquarters.
“I want to make it clear to all of you that our group of “12” were never asked to endorse Brunner’s “novel ideas”. We did offer many, many, suggestions to the Secretary and her staff concerning our views… We concluded on Wednesday; and her report came out Friday,” wrote Jeff Wilkinson of the Richland County Board.
More pointed was the email Wilkinson wrote for Ohio Republican Party leaders that went to Deputy Chairman Kevin DeWine, Keith Cunningham, lawyer Jonathan Gormley; Executive Director Jason Mauk and the only non- ORP employee, Matt Damschroder.
“Jeff Matthews is correct. We did review the Everest reports and vetted, however we never voted as a group on her “novel” ideas. We didn’t see the final news release until everyone else did. Ms. Brunner assured us that both leaderships in the house and senate were by her side.”
If Secretary Brunner had intended for buy-in from the BOEs, and Damschroder and his Association had wanted to cooperate, the whole exercise seemed moot because there was no BOE position on EVEREST. Wilkinson, meanwhile, was put on the defensive in his email to partisan ORP officials.
On December 18, the Dispatch had a not-so flattering Editorial on EVEREST, prompting Blackwell operative Gene Pierce to lead off his day with an email to Damschroder:
“Gotta love the Dispatch editorial, though. That’s probably the one issue Mike Curtin is most personally invested in. I could see the clenched hands and grinding teeth behind the calm, composed prose.”
The day ends with an email from the Franklin Board’s communication director, Ben Piscatelli, who told a Plain Dealer reporter,“we are willing to work with her [Brunner’s] office.”
There would be no doubt where the Dispatch Editorial page would land and Damschroder was there to stoke the fires. The morning of December 19th, Rudell would email Damschroder:
“In your view, how serious are the security flaws identified in the EVEREST report? And can they be easily fixed? Are we supposed to throw out millions of dollars in new equipment because computer scientists can detect ways to attack the systems?
All pretenses of working with Secretary Brunner seemed to fall by the wayside in Damschroder’s response. Whether he purported to be representing the Association or his Board of Elections, Damschroder cast aside all pretenses about EVEREST, writing:
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