New Solano group cancels Vacaville event with election denier after inquiry

VACAVILLE – A new group in Solano County that appears to be tied to a national extremist movement canceled an event with Douglas G. Frank, a former math and science teacher who has spread false claims about the 2020 election, a day after receiving questions about the event from the Vallejo Sun.

The “Solano Committee of Safety,” which intended to host Frank for a speaking engagement in Vacaville, also took down its website late Wednesday. It’s unclear who is behind the newly-formed group, which is not a registered organization with the state of California and identified its officers only by their first names. After the Sun inquired about their identities, the leadership’s photos were removed from the website and the group declined to provide their last names before the entire site was taken down. The website domain name was registered anonymously in March.

Frank has spread unsubstantiated, misleading and false theories about the 2020 election in a series of speaking engagements across the country and appears to be under investigation by the FBI after data was illegally taken from a local government office. Frank has worked for MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, an ally of former President Donald Trump, who has extensively spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

The Aug. 10 event with Frank at the Vacaville Veterans Hall would have been the group’s second event after an initial outreach event in July. The event was canceled Wednesday without explanation after the Sun asked about whether the group had any concerns that Frank’s rhetoric would inappropriately erode confidence in the county’s voting systems and about a recent incident when Frank appeared to call for violence.

The group also appears to be affiliated with the National Liberty Alliance, a group which encourages people to start local “Committees of Safety,” organize militias and seek commitments from local sheriffs to follow “constitutional sheriff” ideology — a fringe view that asserts that sheriffs have ultimate power in enforcing the U.S. Constitution. The Solano committee claimed on its website that Solano County Sheriff Tom Ferrara said that he subscribes to these views, which Ferrara has since disputed.

Frank has traveled the country speaking to small audiences and meeting with election officials. The Solano Committee of Safety said that Frank, who was formerly a math and science teacher in Ohio, has appeared at more than 300 speaking engagements over the last year.

His conclusions — including that an algorithm created by unknown conspirators determines the result of U.S. elections using large numbers of phantom voters — have been amplified by Lindell. Frank has also spoken at Trump rallies.

During a recent appearance in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, Frank even seemed to incite violence. "If Antifa comes to town, what's your instinct? Call the sheriff? Wrong,” he said. “If Antifa comes to town, you get your AR and you call your neighbors and you meet them on the street and you take care of business. You call the sheriff the next day to clean up the mess."

He went on, "If you have a problem, you don't call your legislator, you fix it. Maybe the legislature will fix it three years later. If you're waiting for legislation you're going to be waiting... nothing's going to happen. You're going to have to fix it."

During the same talk in Pennsylvania, Frank claimed he was working with sheriffs across California and would soon expose massive voter fraud. He implied that if voter rolls increase faster than population growth, that suggests fraudulent voters have been added, despite that changes in demographics, successful registration drives or a popular election may boost registration. He also repeatedly falsely said that local election officials are not in charge of counting ballots.

Justin Grimmer, a political science professor at Stanford University, has extensively researched Frank’s claims and created a website that refutes Frank’s claims of fraud. Grimmer said that Frank often claims he has volunteers canvassing to find voter fraud, but that they have turned up nothing.

"I have spent a lot of time investigating his claims, and I have not seen a single individual case of voter fraud that he has surfaced,” Grimmer said. "He has claims but at no point has he ever shown that there is voter fraud."

Grimmer said that Frank’s lectures are typically long on autobiographical descriptions of his expertise and short on specifics and evidence, and often are overly complex presentations that present predictable outcomes as anomalies or rely on incorrect assumptions.  "He's going to make a claim about voter fraud and his ability to make an exact prediction. It turns out that claim is a very creative way to show the following unsurprising fact: Age groups who have more people in a county have more people who turn out to vote," Grimmer said.

In particular, Grimmer said that Frank has no evidence that his analysis indicates fraud and will say that his evidence exists elsewhere while never actually providing it.

In an invitation to the event sent to the Sun, the Solano Committee of Safety wrote that Frank is “an amazing patriot and the knowledge he provides is what leads to the citizen canvassing engagement required to collect the evidence which is then provided to the Sheriff and Board of Supervisors to justify getting rid of the machines.”  

But in a series of emails, the chair of the Solano Committee of Safety, who would identify herself only as Jennifer, characterized Frank’s talk as an educational talk about the voting process and civics.

“We have no foreknowledge of the results of Dr. Frank's analysis of Solano County voter data,” she said. “That said, we are certain there is a lot to learn about the voting process, and this is an excellent exposure to civics in action for any attendee.”

When asked if she was concerned that Frank may spread false information that inappropriately erodes trust in the country’s voting mechanism, Jennifer refused to answer.

“We are non-partisan and have read many negative and positive reports on Dr. Frank — unfortunately due to heavily opinionated reporting, we find it necessary to hear presentations on all areas of our government for ourselves, be it it left or right leaning,” she wrote.

Later, the event page was edited to state that “the content of the speakers presentations are not necessarily the views of Solano COS.” The organization’s website was taken offline late Wednesday and the event with Frank was canceled.

While the group only started a few months ago, its leaders have already met with Sheriff Tom Ferrara. On its website, the committee posted a picture of him, three other senior members of the sheriff’s office, and members of the committee’s leadership, proclaiming that Ferrara is a “constitutional sheriff,” saying that he is “the last line of defense when it comes to upholding and defending the Constitution” and asserting that he had a duty to protect citizens from threats to to their Constitutional rights, “whether it is a terrorist from Yemen or a city councilman from Solano County."

Calling Ferrara a “constitutional sheriff” suggests that he associates with the Constitutional Sheriff and Peace Officers Association, a fringe group founded by former Graham County, Arizona, Sheriff Richard Mack, who was also a board member for the national militia group the Oath Keepers. Mack’s group asserts that “county Sheriffs have the authority and duty to enforce the constitution and to protect their citizens from the overreach of an out-of-control federal government.” Mack has claimed that as many as 300 sheriffs nationwide are members.

Ferrara previously responded to implications of extremist ideology in his agency after several deputies displayed support for the Three Percenter movement. After that, Ferrara said the deputies intended to show support for the Second Amendment, and since then he said he added information on extremist movements to his deputies' regular training.

Sheriff’s Capt. Bill Elbert in an interview disputed that Ferrara subscribed to the ideology described on the committee website. Elbert said that Ferrara was invited to meet with the group once and declined to meet with them again. He said that Ferrara was not aware that his likeness and the sheriff’s logo would be used on the organization’s website. He said that Ferrara is not a member of the Constitutional Sheriff and Peace Officer Association and that he does not think he has the power to unilaterally declare a law unconstitutional or unenforceable.

Jennifer, the chair of the Solano Committee of Safety who declined to give her last name, denied that the group endorses constitutional sheriff ideology or was affiliated with any radical group.

But the description of a constitutional sheriff provided on the committee’s webpage was adapted almost verbatim from the National Liberty Alliance website, which states, “It is the duty of the sheriff to protect their counties from those that would take away our freedoms, both foreign AND domestic – whether it is a terrorist from Yemen or a bureaucrat from Washington, DC.”  

The National Liberty Alliance encourages people to start local Committees of Safety, organize militias and seek commitments from local sheriffs to follow constitutional sheriff ideology. The Solano Committee of Safety’s website stated that its organizing handbook was written by National Liberty Alliance Co-Founder John Darash.

Jennifer refused to answer questions about the content of the group's website or the group’s association with the National Liberty Alliance.