Johnson County sheriff tells Las Vegas crowd his election fraud investigation continues

Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden told a “constitutional sheriffs” group in Las Vegas on Tuesday that he is continuing to investigate the county’s election results to determine whether any fraud occurred, despite repeated assurances from election officials that there was none.

“President Trump did not carry our county,” Hayden told a gathering of the Constitutional Sheriffs & Peace Officers Association. “First time since 1914 that Johnson County didn’t vote Republican.

“So I didn’t know anything about elections. We’re cops. So we’ve been educating ourselves about elections. I’ve sent my detectives through, I’ve got a cyber guy, sent him through, to start evaluating what’s going on with the machines.”

Hayden has put forward no evidence to substantiate suspicions of fraud. Kansas election officials have repeatedly vouched for the security of Johnson County elections.

Johnson County Election Commissioner Fred Sherman told The Star on Wednesday that he met with Hayden and his staff July 5, along with a representative of the county manager. No subpoenas or warrants have been issued to the Johnson County Election Office or its employees, he said.

“Our highest priority is to ensure every eligible ballot is counted accurately and election results reflect the voting decisions of the people we serve,” Sherman said in a statement.

“We stand by the integrity of Johnson County elections.”

Hayden could not be reached for comment on Wednesday. But Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Shelby Colburn said, “He is not a member of the CSPOA, but the organization is paying for the trip.”

She said the department could not discuss the election fraud probe. “We cannot comment on an active criminal investigation,” she said.

The two-term sheriff, who in the past has embraced right-wing causes, is in Las Vegas to speak on a panel Thursday afternoon about how to investigate election fraud. The session is called “2000 Mules: ‘Law Enforcement Has to Step in at This Point.’ Will Sheriffs Investigate?”

Participants include Richard Mack, founder and president of the far-right Constitutional Sheriffs & Peace Officers Association, and county sheriffs from Texas, Michigan and Wisconsin. Mack is a former board member of the Oath Keepers, an extremist organization that recruits its members from among law enforcement. He says he is no longer part of the group, many of whose members are accused of playing a key role in the Capitol riot, with nearly a dozen charged with seditious conspiracy.

The so-called constitutional sheriffs movement claims that county sheriffs are the supreme law of the land and their authority supersedes that of all others as long as they are protecting American citizens from enemies, foreign or domestic. That means they believe they don’t have to enforce laws or orders they deem unconstitutional.

Those who monitor extremist groups say the sheriffs’ movement raises serious concerns.

“If you’re worried about January 6, now we have the far right building up an insurrectionary force inside law enforcement,” said Devin Burghart, executive director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights.

“They want to make sure that next time, if they want to stop counting, or if they don’t like the way things are going, they can just get their county sheriff to roll up and grab the voting machines or grab the lock boxes, or anything else. That’s the insidious nature of this thing. It’s terrifying.”

Las Vegas event

Hayden’s panel on Thursday is part of FreedomFest, an annual event billed as “the largest liberty event in the world.” Running Wednesday through Saturday, it features more than 200 speakers, politicians and exhibits. This year’s speakers include former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and publishing executive Steve Forbes.

The title of Hayden’s panel is in reference to “2000 Mules,” a pro-Trump documentary that alleges to have evidence of massive voter fraud in the 2020 election. The film has been dismissed by many, including former Attorney General Willam Barr, who told the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol riot that he was “unimpressed” with the evidence and that the film’s premise was “indefensible.”

On Tuesday, Hayden and several other sheriffs from across the country spoke to a large group of CSPOA supporters gathered in advance of FreedomFest at what was called a press conference. He said Johnson County is a great place to live, and about 10,000 people move there each year.

“But they’re bringing some of their politics from the crummy place they live to my county,” he said. “And it’s not fun.”

When the COVID pandemic first hit, Hayden said, residents came to him with fears that he was going to enforce mask mandates, make them get vaccinated and confiscate all their guns.

“And on each occasion, I said, ‘Look, I work for you. I’m not a doctor. So I’m not gonna make you do any of these things. I know we’re not taking your guns because as long as I got mine, you’re gonna have yours.’” The audience erupted in applause.

Hayden said he is investigating concerns about the county’s voting machines — something he first made public in February.

“And the problems we’re having is none of us can find out if these machines were ever certified by a lab,” he said. “And we’re going to start doing our geodata and fencing. So we’re going to look into that, and the system we got goes back several years. My detectives are excited, and they are bird dogs. I have no question that we’re gonna get to the bottom of this and find it.”

The Kansas Secretary of State’s Office provided documents to The Star on Wednesday showing the voting systems used in Johnson County have been certified by both federal authorities and the Secretary of State’s Office.

Whitney Tempel, a spokeswoman for the Secretary of State’s Office, said it hasn’t received any inquiries from the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office. No warrants or subpoenas have been issued.

Asked whether Hayden’s investigation risks undercutting confidence in Kansas elections, Tempel said Schwab “always encourages civil discussion and curiosity of the electoral process.”

“The best way to learn about the process is by asking questions of trusted sources of election information such as county election offices or the Kansas Secretary of State’s office,” Tempel said in a statement. “However, Schwab’s priority is to ensure integrity in our elections, our systems must never be tampered with, as this is deemed critical infrastructure.”

In Las Vegas, Hayden acknowledged Tuesday that his efforts have stirred controversy.

“The president of the Republican Party and the Democrat Party have asked me to resign for looking at this so I know I’m getting close…,” he said. “You know, they always say when you get close to the target you kind of start catching flack, so I’m not afraid of that. I’m a little guy, but I got good backup.”

While it’s not entirely clear who Hayden was referring to, Kansas Republican Party chairman Mike Kuckelman told The Star he has never asked Hayden to resign. Hayden is a “great sheriff,” he said.

“If Sheriff Hayden has a person looking into it full time and there hasn’t been a single arrest it gives me a great degree of confidence in the election integrity in Johnson County,” Kuckelman said.

Others say, however, that Hayden’s investigation risks undercutting confidence in elections.

Mike Kelly, the mayor of Roeland Park and a candidate for chair of the Johnson County Commission, emphasized that Johnson County Election Commissioner Fred Sherman and Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab have both confirmed there’s no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the county.

“I don’t know if it’s that Sheriff Hayden doesn’t like the results, but he’s continuing on this wasteful and reckless campaign of partisan election discreditation,” Kelly said.

Group builds momentum

Another sheriff who addressed the group in Las Vegas on Tuesday was Dar Leaf, of Barry County, Michigan. Leaf made headlines in late 2020 when he filed a federal lawsuit seeking to seize voting machines to investigate claims of election fraud. That case was dismissed, and he’s now suing state and local authorities, saying that law enforcement is obstructing his investigation.

Right-wing watchdog groups say the constitutional sheriffs movement is building momentum, finding supporters among those who believe the presidential election was “stolen” from Donald Trump.

The Anti-Defamation League describes the Constitutional Sheriffs & Peace Officers Association as “a large anti-government extremist group whose primary purpose is to spread anti-government propaganda to, and recruit from, law enforcement personnel, especially county sheriffs and sheriff’s deputies.”

Mack, a former sheriff of Graham County, Arizona, has used CSPOA as a way to gain stature and influence within both the far right and the mainstream right, the ADL says.

The CSPOA’s language and structure is similar to that of the Posse Comitatus, a right-wing paramilitary organization active in the 1970s and 1980s whose members opposed taxes and fought state and federal authority. The group later evolved into the anti-government sovereign citizen movement.

The Constitutional Sheriffs & Peace Officers Association’s website invites officers to “join the CSPOA Posse.” Members can attend weekly webinars and get digital books on freedom, the Second Amendment, the proper role of law enforcement and “what we’re really supposed to be doing today in a peaceful and effective manner to take back our constitution.”

The website says that the county sheriff “stands as the upholder, defender, protector and servant to the liberties of the people within the county.”

“In addition to upholding the law, the sheriff is also charged with upholding the supreme law, the Constitution,” it says. “The law enforcement powers held by the sheriff supersede those of any agent, officer, elected official or employee from any level of government when in the jurisdiction of the county. The vertical separation of powers in the Constitution makes it clear that the power of the sheriff even supersedes the powers of the President.”

Burghart said opposition to COVID-related mandates and regulations has attracted people to the sheriffs’ movement.

“The COVID denial stuff has drawn a lot of people into this,” he said. “So here’s a prime example, where they’re going along this treadmill from the COVID denial stuff suddenly, bam, here they are in the crazy end of the election denial world.”

Burghart said Mack downplays his involvement with the Oath Keepers. But Burghart said Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, one of those charged with sedition in connection with the Capitol riot, was at the CSPOA’s 2019 convention.

And he said that the CSPOA’s national operations director had Rhodes on his online radio show on Jan. 5, 2021, the day before the insurrection.

“Stewart Rhodes said Trump had a duty to use the Insurrection Act and warned it would be a disaster for Trump if the act was not invoked to overturn the election,” Burghart said. “So here is a group that was transmitting that message to the world the day before the insurrection. And now they’re training local sheriffs.”

The Star’s Katie Bernard contributed reporting.