Roise spoke to the Minot City Council on Monday, June 1, and the Ward County Commission on Tuesday, June 2, regarding the verification of the voting machines’ accuracy.

On May 21, the Minot Young Republicans and Constitutional Platform Committee hosted an election integrity training with Rick Weible, a network engineer with 30 years of cybersecurity consulting experience. He is a Minnesota native who served 17 years in elected city offices and currently works for the campaign of Minnesota governor candidate Mike Lindell.

Roise said Weible looked into Ward County’s accuracy testing of election equipment and determined the tests were administered incorrectly.

“Therefore the election is compromised. We can’t know if it’s accurate or not,” Roise told the city council.

JILL SCHRAMM/MDN Sherry Hummel votes using one of the new privacy boxes available to voters during early voting at the Ward County Administration Building Tuesday, June 2. Early voting continues through Friday, June 5, and again on Monday, June 8, from 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Neither the city council nor county commission held any discussion and took no action after hearing Roise’s presentation of Weible’s assessment that the auditor’s office failed to follow all the necessary testing steps.

County Auditor Marisa Haman said there are two testing events conducted before an election. A public test is held in which voters can participate and witness testing of machines, and those tests are less extensive. Staff still conduct this testing even when no members of the public participate, as happened this election, she said.

Haman said staff separately conduct a four-day, extensive test involving each machine and ballot type. Those detailed tests take into consideration over-voted, under-voted, stray marks and other ballot situations. That testing information was not provided to Roise for Weible’s assessment, said Haman, who reported the test results found all voting machines in proper working order for an accurate count.

Roise has filed a public records request to obtain that information for Weible to conduct an additional assessment, asking the county commission to expedite the request.

“Because if the findings continue on this pattern and we find that the election integrity is not satisfactory, then we need to talk about an emergency meeting for a retesting of the machines with proper procedures, or a hand count,” Roise said.

Roise also noted Weible audited the 2024 election in Wyoming and found every county failed election integrity, and all counties in South Dakota failed but one that he was babysitting.

“These election machines are a matter of concern,” Roise said. “What he is recommending is that we have an emergency meeting of the county commissioners about administrating a new test, which he will monitor and make sure that they actually do it correctly.”