Investigation: RVCA co-founder and former pro surfer revealed as “expert witness” in claims of electoral fraud, “Conan Hayes is at the heart of the ‘Stop the Steal’ mania!”

Conan James Hayes, from conquerer of Cloudbreak to toy merchant to self-appointed electoral detective bringing truth to truthers!

(Editor’s note: Two weeks ago, we wrote about Conan Hayes’ new role as a minor celebrity in election fraud conspiracy circles. Here, our pretty little lawyer boy Cedar Hobbs goes deeper.)

Since the election of Joe Biden, heralded as “the most secure in American history,” conspiracies have sprouted up across the nation to justify Donald Trump’s loss.

Dead men voting, buried mail-in ballots, Dominion Voting Systems etc.

A grand conspiracy orchestrated by the Democrats (who actually lost seats in the House of Representatives and greatly underperformed in the election) to keep Donald Trump out of office.

Coined the Stop the Steal movement, it has resulted in myriad conspiracies, lawsuits (that were ultimately dismissed), and result confirming audits.

And, it appears that one of the movement’s prominent players is Conan Hayes himself, former professional surfer and RVCA co-founder.

In November of 2020 a lawsuit was filed in Michigan state court challenging the electoral results of Antrim County, Michigan, where Donald Trump won almost 2/3 of the county. The lawsuit proffered a conspiracy that Dominion voting tabulators switched votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.

As part of that litigation, Conan Hayes was designated as one of several expert witnesses on behalf of the plaintiff. According to filings, Hayes was expected to “testify as to application security, systems, process, generally accepted programming practices, standards of care, as it relates to application development of sensitive systems.”

The names of those experts, including Hayes, were not initially public.

Per The Record Eagle, the plaintiff in the case filed a motion for protective order to keep the names of the experts private, citing safety concerns, but the presiding judge denied that motion.

While in Michigan, Hayes, through his Twitter account @We_Have_Risen, reportedly (and improperly) tweeted photos of rolls of voter data.

Hayes would later contribute to a flawed report released by the Allied Security Operations Group (ASOG).

According to The Daily Beast, the lawyer for the plaintiff, Matthew DePerno, confirmed that Hayes had “helped with the collection of forensic information and the analysis of the info we put into the ASOG Report.”

That report asserted that the Dominion vote tabulators were “intentionally and purposefully designed with errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results.”

The report was met with wide spread criticism, notably because it confused Minnesota precincts with Michigan precincts in its analysis.

That suit was dismissed in May of 2021.

(For what it’s worth, I voted at least three times in Michigan, and every time I visited my polling place everything appeared well above board.)

Conan Hayes has been involved an Arizona audit as well, where Donald Trump has claimed that voting fraud cost him Arizona’s electoral votes.

Despite two audits that confirmed the results in the area, state legislators began a review of the ballots in April.

That review has been led by Cyber Ninjas, a computer security firm with no election experience prior to the 2020 election.

Hayes apparently has connections to Cyber Ninjas.

In a statement from Dave Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, the “DePerno Team” was recognized as providing “operational support and advice pivotal in executing the audit.” This may implicate Hayes, as he worked with DePerno during the Michigan electoral challenge.

In May 2021, Garrett Archer, a data analyst for ABC15 Arizona, confirmed that Hayes was on the Arizona audit floor acting as a subcontractor.

Additional information from Cyber Ninjas, including records related to fundraisers and communications, is expected soon. According to AZCentral, the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee instructed Cyber Ninjas to produce certain records by Friday, August 27th.

Results of the Arizona audit were expected Monday, August 23rd, but have been delayed “because three of the five members of the auditing team have tested positive for coronavirus,” according to the Arizona Republican Senate leader.

And most recently, Hayes has been implicated in an election scandal in Mesa County, Colorado.

According to Vice, earlier this year, county clerk Tina Peters allowed an individual to steal election data from the county. That data would later be shared at Mike Lindell’s (the MyPillow guy and notable conspiracy theorist), Cyber Symposium conference.

During the breach, surveillance cameras monitoring the equipment were shut off at the prompting by Peters.

In a statement from Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Gerald Wood was penned as an “unauthorized individual” who accessed the hard drives and data.

But it appears that Gerald Wood is a pseudonym used by Hayes..

During the Cyber Symposium, Ron Watkins, a major player in QAnon and who has been rumored to be Q himself, specifically named Hayes as possessing the data.

https://twitter.com/get_innocuous/status/1425566065413607427

Watkins stated live during the symposium: “I just learned that Conan James Hayes may have taken, without authorization, the actual hard drives, from the Mesa County, er, Mesa Colorado County clerk, and he needs to produce those hard drives immediately and return them to the clerk.”

Ty Clevenger, Watkins’ attorney, confirmed to Vice News that Hayes had provided the sensitive data.

Data from the leak also showed that it was accessed by an individual with the username “cjh,” according to Twitter user @get_innocuous.

Following the breach, the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, the Mesa County District Attorney, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have opened investigations.

According to a statement from FBI spokeswoman Courtney Bernal, “The FBI is working with the 21st Judicial District Attorney’s Office on the forensic review and analysis of county voting systems to determine if there was a potential federal criminal violation.”

Dan Rubinstein, the District Attorney for Mesa County, told CNN that he had been contacted by the Secretary of State’s Office and “was told that they believed that there were potential criminal matters which would be referred to my office for prosecution.”

Since the Cyber Symposium, Tina Peters is being housed in a safe house provided by Mike Lindell. Lindell told Vice News that Peters was “worried about her safety, these people are ruthless.”

There have not been any criminal charges filed.

Hayes’ Twitter account, @We_Have_Risen, has recently been deleted.

More as the story develops.