(The Center Square) – A Missouri state senator plans to refile legislation creating the “Office of Election Crimes and Security” within the secretary of state’s office, a position he’s running for.
Sen. Denny Hoskins, a Republican from Warrensburg, said the General Assembly should continue focusing on election integrity. He sponsored Senate Bill 350 last session, a five-page bill to review election complaints and conduct investigations into alleged violations of election law. It died in committee.
“This will create, basically, an election audit task force to look before the election, on election day after after the election for any abnormalities or irregularities in Missouri elections,” Hoskins said in an interview last month with The Center Square. “I’ve been talking to my constituents and it’s very popular.”
Hoskins attended Mike Lindell’s Election Crime Bureau Summit held in Springfield in August, according to one of his social media posts. Lindell, an avid supporter of former President Trump and the founder and chief executive officer of My Pillow, contends voter fraud – unproven in the 2020 election – prevented Trump from remaining president.
Hoskins said Lindell’s claims are legitimate.
“Mike Lindell has a lot of interesting facts that I believe relate to the 2020 election,” Hoskins said. “And he can point out some of the abnormalities as well as irregularities when it comes to voting in other states, whether it’s voting in Georgia. We’ve seen video of ballot drop boxes, in my opinion, being abused where there’s people taking suitcases and duffel bags and shoving all those ballots into an election drop box all at once. So I think Mike Lindell definitely has some valid points.”
Hoskins, who is term limited, has one opponent to date in next year’s Republican primary for secretary of state, according to Ballotpedia. Shane Schoeller, the Greene County clerk, announced his candidacy in February.
Schoeller previously served the Springfield area as a member of the House, was speaker pro tem and briefly served as speaker in 2011. He unsuccessfully ran for secretary of state in 2012, losing the Republican nomination to Jason Kander.
Current Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft is running for the Republican nomination for governor in 2024.
Hoskins praised recent Missouri laws passed banning ballot drop boxes and “Zuckerbucks,” referring to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s funding of the Center for Technology and Civic Life to pay for election administration costs. However, foreign influence remains a concern.
“We’re kidding ourselves if we don’t think that China and Russia and our foreign adversaries are trying to hack into our election machines and election systems every day,” Hoskins said. “We want to make sure that we have the most secure elections in the United States and the world. I mean, everybody’s had a laptop, iPad or cell phone that’s had a virus. Well, that virus is not created just by magic. It’s somebody on the other end that created that virus and most likely they could have been one of our foreign adversaries that actually planted that virus on mechanical or electronic devices.”
Hoskins said he’s observed some election irregularities.
“There have been some cases that I’ve seen where there were some abnormalities, as far as all of a sudden election ballots going one way or another that did not seem statistically possible,” Hoskins said. “I think, like I said, our foreign adversaries are trying to hack into our election systems every day and into our machines.”
