Hello, greetings, and howdy! Welcome to Monday, March 30, 2026. Today is National Doctors Day. It’s also National Virtual Vacation Day for those of us who can’t afford them.
1867: The United States buys Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000 (109 million in 2018 dollars), roughly 2 cents an acre.
1858: Pencil with attached eraser is patented by Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia.
1959: Dalai Lama flees China and is granted political asylum in India.
1981: President Ronald Reagan is shot and wounded in an assassination attempt by John Hinckley, Jr; three others, including press secretary James Brady, are also wounded.
Birthdays today: Robert Bunsen, inventor of the Bunsen burner; Vincent van Gogh; Ingvar Kamprad, founder of Ikea; Peter Marshall, Richard Dysart, John Aston, Warren Beaty and Robby Coltrane; The Moody Blues’ Graham Edge; Eric Clapton; Jim Mangrum of Black Oak Arkansas; MC Hammer; Tracy Chapman, Celine Dion, and TV’s Piers Morgan. If today is your day, make it a goodie.
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An interesting twist arrived in my inbox this morning. You may recall the Democrats making large boasts about flipping the Florida district surrounding Mar-a-Lago. Well, the story there, apparently, is HOW they managed to flip it:
🚨 HOLY CRAP!! A Palm Beach elections office volunteer just got arrested for STEALING an encrypted access key and computer equipment in the March 24 special election where the Democrat won by 800 votes
This is the district the includes Mar-a-Lago.
Investigators worry that the… pic.twitter.com/0mBPEFdxNK
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) March 29, 2026
WPTV in Palm Beach reports:
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — A volunteer who participated in a training session at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office was arrested for stealing sensitive computer equipment, authorities announced Sunday.
John Panicci was taken into custody Saturday at his home following an investigation into the theft of an encrypted access key from a voter registration terminal at the elections office.
[…]
The theft was reported to authorities on March 27, prompting an investigation by Palm Beach County detectives. After identifying Panicci as the suspect and establishing probable cause, investigators obtained both an arrest warrant and a residential search warrant.
During the search of Panicci’s home, detectives recovered the stolen items along with a substantial amount of electronic and digital storage devices. Panicci was transported to the Palm Beach County Jail and booked on charges.
He made his initial court appearance Sunday morning.
Online jail records show he is being held on a $6,000 bond.
The timeline makes all of this rather suspicious. The theft occurred on March 19, the election on March 24, and the arrest was four days later.
So, let’s recap before we move on: A Palm Beach volunteer, one John Panicci, who I see in public records as being a registered Democrat in Palm Beach County, gets arrested for stealing an encrypted election key and other election computer equipment, days before a Democrat wins by a razor-thin 800 votes. I’m seeing notes from other volunteers, which makes me wonder about this even more. An example:
I am not surprised. I live in Palm Beach & trained on these machines. Nobody checks the pre loaded jump drives which are uploaded via internet and then self driven to the main facility. We were also instructed to block all cameras. Disgusting
— Leticia Lallier (@leticia_lallier) March 29, 2026
Gee, and after places like CNN and MSNBC telling us for years that there’s no fraud in our election systems. Totally normal, nothing noteworthy, nothing suspicious at all.
Now, admittedly, some reports at the moment suggest that live voting data couldn’t be accessed using the key he stole. And yet, his intentions seem clear, given some of his other public rants, such as this one:
@votepalmbeach This guy should be removed immediately as a poll worker. His name is John Panicci pic.twitter.com/3H3lXk99yf
— RBJchik (@RBJchik) August 19, 2024
Also, even election officials there in Palm Beach are concerned. From National Today, which is obviously (by virtue of several different reports containing exactly the same wording) fed from a sheriff’s office press release:
While the key was only configured for training databases, authorities are concerned that a knowledgeable individual could potentially reverse engineer the encryption and reintroduce it into an active voter registration kiosk for malicious purposes.
Indeed. I can tell you from personal experience, from years of working in IT at a bank (you know, the big building where the money is), that those systems are not invulnerable to tampering. Given enough time and enough computer savvy, it can be done. Even assuming that the key would not work on the live databases without tampering, he had the thing in his possession for a couple of days before the election and two days afterward as well. More than enough time to do the deed. And his understanding of the systems in question is not the only concern. since we haven’t established whether others had access to that hardware.
Also, the number of storage devices that they found at the house suggests to me the guy had a fair amount of knowledge about computer systems, and quite possibly had enough understanding to make changes or a circle of friends who could. Panicci describes himself in his online antics as a “tech nerd.” Interesting.
Oh, and for whatever this is worth, he’s not been very active on X since October of 2022. Yeah, that was just the timeframe Elon Musk bought the place. Seems like a clue.
The discovery phase of any ensuring trial is going to be interesting, I think. Because at the moment, these are questions that we’re not getting answers to, which does nothing to quell the concerns. Rather, they are amplified.
The County Elections Supervisor there, one Wendy Sartoy Link, a Democrat, stated in an interview, shortly after Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed her, and after assuming the role, that her goal was to “keep our elections out of the news”. A laudable stated goal, given the electoral dysfunction we saw in the 2000 election.
Sadly, whatever else comes out of this, and her stated intentions aside, the obvious verdict is: FAIL. The Palm Beach County Board of Elections is making headlines again. Gov. Ron DeSantis, take note.
I’ll be watching this case closely. In the meantime, take care of yourselves today. I’ll see you here tomorrow.
Thought for the day: Lord knows I’m not perfect, but at least my sarcasm is usually on point.
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