Guest Contributor, FreeState News
November 7, 2025
In light of the shocking recent charges against Jose “Joe” Ceballos – the illegal alien who was just reelected as Mayor of Coldwater, Kansas, a town of just 687 people – I wanted to interrupt the absurd victory lap by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab to highlight the abject failures they have facilitated and ignored over the last decade.
Ceballos, a Mexican national holding only legal permanent residency (a green card) but no U.S. citizenship, was charged on November 5, 2025 – just one day after his reelection – with six felonies: three counts of election perjury and three counts of voting without being qualified, for casting ballots in the 2022 general election, 2023 general election, and 2024 primary.
Yet, as independent journalist Earl F. Glynn revealed in his November 6, 2025, reporting for Watchdog Lab, voter history files show Ceballos brazenly voted in at least 29 elections dating back to November 2000 – long before his recent citizenship application in February 2025 raised any “red flags.”
This isn’t just one man’s fraud; it’s a damning indictment of Kansas’s utterly broken election system, where non-citizens can register, vote repeatedly for decades undetected, rise through the ranks to hold public office, and even win reelection – all while officials like Schwab tout “clean voter rolls” via half-measures, like the federal SAVE database.
How does a state with such glaring vulnerabilities – allowing foreign nationals to infiltrate local leadership unchecked – even pretend to safeguard democracy?
Kobach’s office claims this is a “real problem,” but with hundreds more cases allegedly in the pipeline, it’s clear the emperor has no clothes: Kansas elections are a sieve, wide open to manipulation at every level.
In the heart of Kansas, Johnson County – home to over 600,000 residents and the state’s most populous voting bloc – stands as a microcosm of America’s deepening election integrity crisis. Once a reliable Republican stronghold, the county flipped dramatically in 2020, delivering an 8.5% margin for Joe Biden despite a voter registration edge of approximately 195,000 Republicans to just 138,000 Democrats. This seismic shift, coupled with a 68,000-vote turnout surge where 85% favored Biden, defies statistical norms and demographic trends.
At the center of this anomaly lurks Konnech’s PollChief software, a tool that granted Chinese Communist Party (CCP) affiliates unprecedented access to sensitive election data. As detailed in J. Michael Waller’s explosive new bestseller Rigged: The Global Plot to Steal America’s Elections (Sentinel, September 2025), such vulnerabilities are no accident – they’re part of a decades-long foreign assault on U.S. democracy, with China leading the charge through compromised tech infrastructure.
Waller’s meticulously researched exposé, drawing on declassified documents and whistleblower accounts, reveals how adversaries like China, Venezuela, Russia, and Serbia have embedded backdoors in voting systems for over 20 years.
In Johnson County, PollChief’s role from 2016 to 2023 exemplifies this threat: The software, hosted on Microsoft Azure Cloud, funneled intellectual property (IP) and personally identifiable information (PII) from poll workers straight to servers in the People’s Republic of China. Konnech’s CEO, Eugene Yu, was arrested in October 2022 by Los Angeles County prosecutors for violating data privacy laws by granting Chinese nationals “super administrator privileges” over U.S. client databases—a breach that exposed millions of records nationwide. Yet, as Waller’s narrative unfolds, this wasn’t isolated incompetence; it was engineered infiltration, mirroring Chinese tactics in swing-state “ballot harvesting” and hardware trojans that Waller ties to broader election subversion.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has amplified these concerns, warning in July 2025 declassifications of cyber threats to U.S. elections, including “back doors” in electronic voting infrastructure exploited by foreign actors. In a September 15, 2025, letter to Senate committees, Gabbard addressed demands for election security briefings, emphasizing the Intelligence Community’s role in countering such vulnerabilities amid ongoing hacks.
President Donald Trump, echoing these alarms, reiterated on October 26, 2025, that the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen,” calling it the “biggest scandal in American history” and demanding a DOJ probe into the fraud.
Trump ally Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, has stated grand juries in Florida are being empaneled to pursue “sweeping” investigations into a “grand conspiracy” including 2020 election cheating, stating in an October 25, 2025, interview that perpetrators “tried to bankrupt Trump for non-fraud” and now face retribution.
Similarly, Ed Martin, acting Director of the Weaponization Working Group, formed an “election accountability” unit in March 2025 to probe 2020 irregularities.
Adding to these efforts, President Trump appointed election integrity lawyer Kurt Olsen as a Special Government Employee (SGE) in October 2025. Olsen, a former Trump campaign attorney who spearheaded multiple legal challenges to the 2020 results and played a key role in “Stop the Steal” initiatives, including direct communications with Trump on January 6, 2021, will now lead a White House-directed review of suppressed election fraud evidence, with duties centered on reexamining irregularities, coordinating interagency probes, and recommending federal safeguards to dismantle foreign-influenced vulnerabilities in future elections.
From Local Rollout to National Nightmare: Konnech’s Kansas Footprint – and China’s Shadowy Supply Chain
Johnson County’s embrace of PollChief in 2016-2017 coincided with its political realignment, a pattern Waller attributes to foreign actors exploiting “de minimis” software changes to evade certification.
By 2018, the county transitioned to Election Systems & Software (ES&S) machines amid a botched statewide rollout under then-Secretary of State Kris Kobach – now Kansas Attorney General – plagued by glitches and absentia from recertification after updates, including a critical “hash validation error” discovered in Texas in September 2020.
Fast-forward to October 2020: The county accepted over $856,000 in CTCL (“Zuckerbucks”) grants, funneling $200,000+ into Chinese-manufactured CradlePoint 4G cellular routers for polling sites – devices that enabled internet connectivity in violation of Kansas Statute 25-4406, which prohibits networked elections.
Ask yourself, why would elections that aren’t supposed to be connected to ANY network, need 4G Cellular Routers?
Recent revelations underscore the peril of this China-dependent ecosystem. Microsoft Azure, the cloud backbone for PollChief, suffered a major breach in July 2025 when Chinese state-backed groups exploited SharePoint vulnerabilities to access U.S. federal and state agency data, including election-related systems.
The Department of Defense responded swiftly, halting a decade-old Microsoft program in July 2025 that relied on China-based engineers for cloud support, citing espionage risks after ProPublica exposed how these “digital escorts” left sensitive data vulnerable.
CradlePoint’s 4G routers, sourced directly from Chinese factories as confirmed in product listings, join a laundry list of compromised gear: KnowInk electronic poll pads, deployed county-wide despite lacking full EAC certification for Kansas, are assembled in China; off-the-shelf Windows computers running election software are manufactured there and drop-shipped to Taiwan for rebranding; and even ES&S tabulators incorporate Chinese components.
To this day, Kansas election equipment remains certified only to the outdated Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) 1.0 from 2005 – predating the first iPhone by two years and ignoring modern cybersecurity standards deprecated by the EAC in 2023.
These ties extend to brazen CCP election meddling plots, such as the 2020 scheme uncovered by the FBI’s Albany Field Office: Chinese operatives allegedly produced thousands of fake U.S. driver’s licenses – using TikTok data for personalization – to facilitate fraudulent mail-in ballots favoring Joe Biden.
Declassified documents released by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley on July 1, 2025, reveal FBI headquarters suppressed this intelligence report to shield then-Director Christopher Wray from contradicting his September 24, 2020, congressional testimony denying coordinated voter fraud. Internal emails ordered the report recalled and destroyed the next day, with whistleblowers alleging retaliation for pushing back.
In Johnson County, these national threats hit home: PollChief’s backdoor enabled similar PII theft for years, while the 2020 voter rolls hit a suspicious ~99% registration rate – several standard deviations above national averages – before 33,000 names were abruptly purged in February 2021, with no tracking logs maintained, as admitted by Johnson County Elections Director Fred Sherman.
Additional China links include Hewlett-Packard affiliates (with CCP ties) supplying ES&S components and Azure’s confirmed exfiltration of election data, all while local officials ignored red flags from True the Vote’s nationwide alerts regarding Konnech and mail ballot harvesting.
Independent journalist Peter Bernegger, president of Election Watch Inc., has uncovered further infiltration: CradlePoint routers – used in ES&S and Dominion systems nationwide, including Johnson County – are manufactured in China with Chinese chips, violating the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) for critical infrastructure.
Bernegger briefed former DNI John Ratcliffe in person on these Chinese parts before Ratcliffe’s appointment, only to see no action taken (yet). His August 2024 report details how these routers at county clerk offices receive modem-transmitted results, rendering affected systems uncertifiable and null under federal law.
In Johnson County, this hardware, purchased with laundered CTCL funds, directly contravenes bans on
internet-connected elections, creating a CCP-monitored feedback loop via Swedish company Ericsson’s acquisition of CradlePoint and Huawei’s patent-sharing with the firm – giving foreign entities spectrum dominance over U.S. voting data.
Waller’s book contextualizes this as a “global cartel” operation: Chinese engineers, often via proxies like Hewlett-Packard affiliates, embed malware in U.S. systems, tested abroad to skirt federal oversight.
Johnson County’s saga – echoing Waller’s accounts of Antrim
County, Michigan’s 2020 glitches – highlights how local complacency enables national threats, with CCP access potentially flipping outcomes in key races.
ActBlue Laundering and Ballot Harvesting: The CCP’s Financial and Operational Infiltration of Johnson County
Johnson County’s China ties run deeper than hardware, weaving into a web of financial subversion and operational meddling that Bernegger and others have mapped as total CCP infiltration.
ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising behemoth, has funneled as much as $1 billion from Chinese sources into U.S. campaigns, per whistleblower estimates, with Kansas recipients on the radar of GOP probes.
In Johnson County, ActBlue’s money
laundering – flagging hundreds of suspicious transactions tied to foreign adversaries like China, Russia, and Iran – has bankrolled local races, enabling ballot harvesting schemes that exploit fake IDs and ghost voters.
House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil’s October 29, 2024, subpoena to ActBlue demands records on these illicit flows, which unwittingly laundered donations from China via straw donors, directly benefiting county-level operations.
This financial pipeline dovetails with on-the-ground harvesting: The FBI’s suppressed 2020 fake driver’s license plot – thousands of personalized fakes from China via TikTok data – targeted mail-in ballots in swing areas like Johnson County, where 99% registration rates and untracked purges scream manipulation.
How might this work?
CCP assets embed locally, for example, from a Chinese firm near New Century Airport pushing EV and solar agendas (bolstering China’s manufacturing dominance) to broader “equity” initiatives code for communist influence in government.
Tony Seruga, a former intel operative, warns of tens of thousands of CCP infiltrators at state and local levels, with Johnson County possibly being riddled by them – facilitating laundering, harvesting, and tech sabotage in one seamless operation.
The Political Assassination of Justice: Eric Neff’s Whistleblower Fight
Konnech’s national unraveling exposes a pattern of politically motivated suppression, as alleged in a tort claim filed by Eric Neff, the former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney who led Konnech CEO, Eugene Yu’s prosecution.
Arrested on October 13, 2022, Yu faced 23 felony counts for stealing LA County’s poll worker data and granting Chinese contractors unauthorized access – charges rooted in forensic evidence of data exfiltration to Shanghai.
Neff’s investigation, sparked by True the Vote’s tips, revealed Konnech’s contracts with over 200 U.S. jurisdictions, including Johnson County, routed sensitive data abroad.
But in April 2024, LA DA George Gascón abruptly dismissed all charges, a move Neff attributes to raw politics. In his lawsuit against the LA County, Neff claims Gascón spiked the case after then-President-elect Donald Trump praised the arrest on on Truth Social, fearing it would bolster Trump’s election fraud narrative. “For political reasons, DA George Gascon dismissed the criminal charges against Konnech CEO Eugene Yu,” Neff stated, alleging retaliation that cost him his career and led to a $5 million county settlement with Konnech in January 2024.
This mirrors Waller’s warnings of elite capture, where prosecutors prioritize optics over national security, allowing foreign meddlers to evade scrutiny.
In Kansas, former Johnson County Sheriff Hayden’s probe met similar sabotage: Despite current Kansas Attorney General, Kris Kobach’s December 2023 directive to preserve 2020 ballots beyond the 22-month retention period (K.S.A. 45-402) due to the active investigation, Johnson County officials shredded them in February 2024.
Johnson County Commission Chairman Mike Kelly, Johnson County Elections Director Fred Sherman and Secretary of State Scott Schwab coordinated the destruction, defying the AG’s order and Hayden’s pleas for a warrant. No federal seizure occurred, and Kobach has yet to pursue charges, leaving a trail of un-prosecuted obstruction.
Obstruction as Betrayal: When Cover-Ups Cross into Treasonous Territory
This isn’t mere bureaucratic foot-dragging – it’s potential criminal complicity in undermining American sovereignty.
Federal law treats election infrastructure as “critical” since DHS’s 2017 designation, making foreign interference akin to an act of war under Executive Order 13848.
Destroying evidence mid-probe violates 18 U.S.C. § 1519 (up to 20 years for tampering) and could escalate to seditious conspiracy (18 U.S.C. § 2384) if tied to aiding adversaries like the CCP.
Schwab’s November 2020 dismissal of fraud concerns as “domestic bad actors” and his role in the shredding – despite Kobach’s explicit override – suggests willful blindness at best, treasonous negligence at worst.
The Ceballos scandal only amplifies this rot: A non-citizen voting 29 times over 25 years, undetected by the very systems Schwab oversees, and ascending to mayor? It’s not oversight – it’s systemic collapse, where safeguards exist only on paper, and foreign influence festers unchecked.
As Mollie Hemingway details in her seminal Rigged: How the Global Elites Stole the 2020 Election (Regnery, updated 2025 edition), such local cover-ups form the backbone of a national hoax, where officials shield vulnerabilities to preserve power.
In Johnson County, the “just following orders” excuse crumbles under oath-bound duties; elected figures like Schwab, Sherman and Kelly prioritized retention laws over investigative imperatives,
echoing Neff’s plight in LA. Their newfound desire to comply with the 22-month destruction timeline is curious considering they also had ballots/election materials from 2019 – a non-federal election – which must only be kept for 6 months after the election.
However, once Sheriff Hayden started seeking a warrant for the 2020 election materials, it became imperative to destroy the evidence.
If ignorance were a defense, it failed at Nuremberg – here, it fails against Article III’s treason bar: adhering to enemies by concealing their aid.
A Call to Kansas Patriots: Demand Transparency Now
Johnson County’s Konnech fiasco isn’t ancient history – it’s a live wire in the 2026 midterms, with Waller’s revelations arming citizens to fight back. Former Johnson County Sheriff Hayden was a lone bulwark against the machine and deserves federal backup from AG Pam Bondi’s strike force.
Demand Kobach enforce his own order, subpoena Azure logs, and prosecute the shredders. As Waller warns, ignoring this “global plot” invites catastrophe; in Kansas, it’s already cost us trust in our votes – exemplified by a non-citizen mayor who gamed the system for decades.
Kansans, the chessboard is set – don’t let pawns like Schwab checkmate our Republic.
Contact your legislators, local and federal law enforcement demand accountability. Our state and our country deserve nothing less.
Sources: All claims grounded in primary documents, including LA County charging affidavits (2022), Kobach’s December 2023 preservation letter, and Johnson County destruction notices (February 2024).
For deeper dives, consult Waller’s Rigged and Hemingway’s works.
Additional sourcing from Kansas AG press release (Nov. 5, 2025) and
Earl F. Glynn’s Watchdog Lab analysis (Nov. 6, 2025).
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