A group of citizens set out to audit the audit performed by the Chicago Election Board and were horrified by what they saw while watching the audit take place.

The group has since voiced their concerns at the Chicago Election Board meeting on April 5, 2016. One of the “audit auditors” from the citizen group testified in front of the Election Board committee that she witnessed shocking altercations to the hand-counted tallies from voting machines by Chicago Election Board auditors, noting that the auditors were changing final tallies in a bid to ensure the results matched the machine counts even when they were off by a significant margin.

In one particularly concerning instance, the citizen group witnessed an auditor erase 21 Bernie Sanders votes and add 49 Hillary Clinton votes in order to ensure the audit matched the machine’s official count. This, according to the group, is proof that the Chicago Election Board is not performing a true audit, but rather performing a “fake” audit that hides the fact that hand-counted votes were significantly different from the machine counted votes in the Chicago area.

The State of Illinois requires an official audit of five percent of all votes by local election boards to ensure that electronic voting machines are working correctly. However, one group of citizens claims that the city of Chicago did not perform a real audit but rather manipulated audit results in such a way to ensure that all hand-counted votes matched the machine’s output and precinct totals from the election. Therefore, instead of identifying possible discrepancies in electronic voting machine totals, the auditors covered up the evidence by manipulating the data after performing the hand count.

At the Chicago Election Board Meeting on April 5, 2016, the group presented their audit concerns to the Board for consideration and the evidence was shocking. The video gets interesting at approximately the 24 minute mark and the bombshell is dropped at the 30 minute mark.

In the video, we see a member of the citizen group who audited the Election Board audit discussing discrepancies she personally witnessed as the auditors tallied hand-counted votes. According to the group, numerous members of their audit watch team witnessed with their own eyes, “auditors” changing tally marks after hand counting votes. The group claims that the tallies were changed in a bid to ensure the numbers matched that of the electronic voting machine totals and the official precinct totals released to the public.

However, as you can see at the 30 minute mark, the totals didn’t always legitimately match. Instead, the group says the tally marks were altered and were not a true representation of what was actually counted during the audit. One particularly concerning incident was witnessed by the speaker in which she details watching auditors remove 21 Bernie votes from the final tally while adding 41 tally marks to the Hillary Clinton total in order to force the audit results to match that provided by the machine. Therefore, the group says the audit is meaningless and not an audit at all.

Chicago Election Board Meeting – 2016-04-05 – something fishy about vote totals…:… https://t.co/ekdgyEWuZm pic.twitter.com/1B8wsNXj43 — IL9th Distr 4 Bernie (@IL9CD4Bernie) April 21, 2016

The Daily Kos points out that if the group’s accusations are true, it could change everything about the Chicago election as the hand counted votes would have shown Bernie Sanders winning a district secured by Hillary Clinton with 56.7 percent of the votes. However, due to the alleged manipulation by the Chicago Election Board, Sanders totals were dropped to 47.5 percent, which is an astonishing 18.4 percent swing from the audit hand count. Despite the alleged discrepancy, no recount was ordered by the Election Board, as the tally was altered to match the machine output instead of signaling a red flag to a potential problem with the electronic voting machine.

Chicago Election Board Meeting 2016-04-05 Showing It should be 56.7% for Bernie 18.4% Swing https://t.co/5ZO05gR94y — edmund katso (@ekatso) April 22, 2016

As law currently stands, citizens can not demand a recount, only a candidate can do that, and Bernie Sanders has since missed the deadline for such a count to take place. Therefore, a group of concerned voters have created a GoFundMe account to secure litigation funds in a bid to change the law to allow voters to request a recount when evidence such as this presents itself.

“We need money to file suit over possible violations of Illinois election law and a constitutional right to have your March 15, 2016, primary vote counted without being corrupted, stolen or disregarded by ‘black box’ vote machines. The money raised will be used for attorney fees, costs, legal research, legal filing fees, expert witness fees and costs and any other costs of the litigation. I am not the attorney for the matter but am helping us obtain the best legal representation for this matter.”

If the citizen group is able to prove their claims against the Chicago Election Board, should a recount be honored as the city would have failed to perform the state mandated five percent audit? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

[Photos by Ethan Miller/Getty Images]