Defendant in election fraud lawsuit, County Clerk Dan Loomis.
On Friday, January 30, 2026, Josephine County Circuit Court Judge Matthew G. Galli presided over a hearing at the Douglas County Courthouse for the 2025 election fraud lawsuit (case #25CV37488) brought against Douglas County Clerk Dan Loomis.
This lawsuit may once and for all topple the three incumbent, anti-term limits county commissioners and their co-conspirators, enablers, and corporate sponsors, exposing the entrenched good-old boys’ network and unequal application of the law at the Douglas County Courthouse. The lawsuit forces discovery, exposing apparent commissioner–county clerk collusion.
Douglas County Clerk Dan Loomis’ attorney, John A. DiLorenzo, Jr., made four unsuccessful motions to have the case dismissed. But each motion was denied and, on October 8, 2025, a judge ordered lawsuit to proceed with discovery.
In anticipation of this decision, the county commissioners ordered an apparently unplanned demolition and remodel of the elections office in the Douglas County Courthouse. The office was stripped of all its contents, including the archive of original, chain-of-custody protected paper ballots from prior elections, formerly stored in the large walk-in safe.
Judge Galli, who has just taken on this case, is hearing the case because this lawsuit is so radioactive, for the first time in a decade, every single judge in Douglas County has recused themselves.
The plaintiff, Todd Vaughn, a logger from Tiller, Oregon, is represented by Stephen J. Joncus of Happy Valley, Oregon, a civil rights and intellectual property attorney. At the January 30, 2026, hearing, Joncus revealed damning evidence of ballot mishandling in the disputed May 20, 2025, Douglas County Special Election.
He told the court that 286 ballots that had been cast and received but were never counted—apparently enough to possibly change the election outcome.
He also explained that approximately 100 ballots from the same election were mailed to addresses that do not exist but they were somehow received and counted.
The ballots were mailed by subcontractor Bend Mailing Services.
But Loomis’ attorney, John A. DiLorenzo, Jr., claims that unless the plaintiff can prove that at least 238 of those aforementioned ballots would have gone to Vaughn, the lawsuit is moot.
Prior to bringing this lawsuit, a community election integrity group filed six requests to circulate a petition to find out if Douglas County voters wanted to hand-count ballots in Douglas County elections. But Loomis refused.
Subsequently, former Douglas County Republican committee executive board members Todd Vaughn, Terry Noonkester, and Michaela Hammerson, filed a seventh request to circulate, which was also denied.
But the most curious thing about the January 30 hearing was that the named defendant in the lawsuit, County Clerk Dan Loomis, never showed up for the hearing.
Inexplicably, he appeared via a ZOOM link on a computer monitor visible to everyone in the courtroom. Although the hearing lasted several hours, Loomis remained preternaturally motionless and eerily still on the screen throughout the proceedings, almost like a deepfake or AI generated image. For example, when plaintiffs’ attorney Joncus accused Loomis of election fraud and called him a “dirty cop,” Loomis didn’t even blink.
The lawsuit pertains to the May 20, 2025, Douglas County Special Election, in which plaintiff Todd Vaughn, ran for reelection as position #4 Director of the Umpqua Public Transportation District board. On the night of the election, Vaughn narrowly led his opponent Natasha Atkinson by 82 votes, approximately 1.1% of the votes counted at that time. This is significant because 1.1% exceeds the one fifth of 1%. threshold required for an automatic recount.
In previous elections, Loomis updated the vote tallies every 24 hours and sometimes more frequently. But prior to the May 2025 election, he curiously posted a notice on the county website stating he’d present election results on election day and then not again for eight days.
Eight days later, Loomis posted vote counts indicating Atkinson had surpassed Vaughn.
Then, on June 12, 2025—23 days after the election, Loomis announced that Atkinson had, in fact, won by 238 votes.
As part of the routine process, Loomis sent the elections results to the transit board for certification. But the transit board smelled a rat. They would not certify the election outcome, going so far as to refuse to pay the transit district’s share of election expenses suspecting possible racketeering, bribery, quid pro quo, election fraud, vote-by-mail fraud, or obstruction of justice.
Vaughn filed a June 24, 2025, petition for judicial review, disputing the election results.
Then, on August 26 he filed a 26-page second amended petition against Loomis and Atkinson, asserting that “Dan Loomis has been actively working to make sure that I do not win elections. He and other elected officials have what I would call a cabal, to keep themselves in power.”
Consequently, plaintiffs Todd Vaughn, Michaela Hammerson, and Terry Noonkester have recently filed yet another lawsuit against Loomis, charging petition denial. Their case, #25CV64772, will be heard next month in the Douglas County Courts. But once again, every judge in Douglas County has recused themselves from this case, so it has been assigned to Judge Galli of Josephine County, who is already hearing Vaughn’s election fraud lawsuit.
In 2022, when these plaintiffs and a number of other candidates were first elected to the executive board of the Douglas County Republican Central Committee, County Commissioner Chris Boice (whom many believe is one IRS audit away from a prison sentence) retaliated by demanding local Republican Party donors withhold contributions to the Douglas County Republicans. This reduced revenue to Boice’s own political party by 66%.
Six members of the executive board were investigating internal corruption, conflicts of interest, and alleged quid pro quo activities involving Douglas County commissioners Tim Freeman, Chris Boice, and Tom Kress, and Oregon State Senator David “Bejing” Brock Smith.
They were also investigating the questionble appointment process for Republican “Bejing” Brock Smith,” who, according to campaign finance records, spends a surprising amount of time in China, and secretly supported Joe Biden, Governor Kate Brown, and windmills off the Oregon coast.
To quash the investigation, the county commissioners arranged for an April 10, 2024, a letter to be sent to the PCPs of the Douglas County Republican Central Committee, urging the removal of the six executive board members, including lawsuit plaintiff Todd Vaughn, Terry Noonkester, and Michaela Hammerson.
The letter was signed by Douglas County Clerk Dan Loomis and his three county commissioner puppeteers, Tim Freeman, Chris Boice, and Tom Kress, along with Sheriff John Hanlin, County District Attorney Rick Wesenberg, County Assessor Heather Coffel, State Senator “Bejing” Brock Smith, and State Reps. Virgle Osborne, Court Boice, and Christine Goodwin.
They signed this letter voluntarily. That is to say, they’re were not required to do so.
In the end, the six Republican Party executive board members who were investigating the commissioners corruption from within their own party, were subsequently recalled and removed: Michaela Hammerson, Vice Chair; Todd Vaughn, Delegate 1; Cathye Dewhirst, Curreri Alternate Delegate; Steve Hammerson, Alternate Delegate; Terry Noonkester At Large; and Loretta Johnson.
This is why every judge in Douglas County has recused themselves from the lawsuit. They are acutely aware that, by signing the April 10, 2024, letter, these elected officials violated ethics laws, creating a conflict of interest and a legal quagmire that any judge in their right mind would avoid. These judges know that the six executive board members who were recalled, cannot get a fair trial in Douglas County because the local D.A., sheriff, and county clerk were foolish enough to put their signatures on so partisan a letter, polluting any possibility of impartiality.
The signatures of county officials on this letter, sent a chilling message. Plaintiff Todd Vaughn told the Republican Central Committee on April 18, 2024: “[I]t almost feels like a thinly veiled threat to me, to have this letter written this way…like maybe one day when I’m driving home, something bad might happen. I might get pulled over, or something might be found in my car… Or maybe the assessment on my property might go up…”
County commissioners are usually indemnified for actions within the scope of their official duties that were executed in good faith. But signing on to a politically motivated recall letter that targets elected political party members simply because they disagree, falls outside the realm of “official duties.”
The county already retains attorney Tiffany Podlesnik as county counsel.
So, why have they hired John A. DiLorenzo, Jr., a $1,500 an hour Portland, Oregon, attorney who specializes in government relations and elections, to represent County Clerk Dan Loomis?
The commissioners must be genuinely frightened that this lawsuit will unravel their political cabal.
In anticipation of the judge’s October 8, 2025 order for discovery, the three county commissioners embarked on a conspicuously sudden renovation of the elections office in the Douglas County Courthouse
Loomis claims the renovated election office will be equipped with bulletproof glass installed in the new removable walls.
One cannot help but wonder, why do they need bulletproof glass in an election office, in a state where everyone votes by mail?
The county elections office has been stripped of all its contents, which have allegedly been removed and relocated to two rooms across the hall, which Loomis claims are a humidity-controlled space. But the genealogical society has access to this room, raising questions about security, integrity, and ballot tampering.
That said, some fear the ballots from the May 2025 election are now sitting in the Salem, Oregon, office of the Douglas County Commissioners’ notorious public relation director Chuck Adams.
Curiously, there’s no mention of any planned remodel of the elections office in the minutes of any of the county commissioner meetings. Renovations at this kind are usually planned, approved, funded, and scheduled well in advance. However, there’s no public record showing when this remodel was authorized, what it’s going to cost, or why it’s even necessary.
Furthermore, these election office renovations weren’t not made public, not even in the News-Review, the local newspaper that serves as the county commissioner’s propaganda publication.
The paper is owned by commissioner Chris Boice’s longtime business partner, Patrick Markham. But Boice has gotten himself in so much hot water, allowing millionaires to have free dump privileges that created a $6 million landfill toxic leachate emergency, perpetrating apparent tax fraud, and getting himself embroiled in too many lawsuits, Markham took the legal precaution of dissolving their partnership in July 2025, one month after Todd Vaughn filed his lawsuit.
The election office remodel timeline coincides perfectly with Vaughn’s lawsuit, allowing Loomis and his county commissioners buddies to delay timely requests for discovery until after they are reelected.
Many readers are aware that on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, the C.I.A. seized 2020 election ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, where, on January 2, 2021, President elect Trump phoned to pressure Brad Raffensperger “to find 11,780 votes” from the November 2020 presidential election. As elections are always run by the state without any federal participation, this illegal seizure effectively contaminated the chain of custody that ensured the security and integrity of those ballots, rendering them inadmissible. Some suspect the county commissioners may have done the same thing with the ballots from the disputed May 2024 County special election.
Loomis’ attorney DiLorenzo wanted the plaintiff’s lawyer to provide him with all the evidence two weeks before the trial, so he’d have time to vet it. But plaintiff’s attorney Joncus politely declined his request.
DiLorenzo asked Judge Galli to dismiss Dan Loomis from Vaughn’s lawsuit so that Natasha Atkinson would be the sole remaining plaintiff. But Judge Galli made it clear that this wasn’t going to happen.
DiLorenzo repeatedly cited ORS 258.016 (grounds for contest on an Oregon election) and ORS 258.026 (when elections results may be set aside).
According to state law, an Oregon county clerk is not required to count cast ballots, cannot be forced to set aside an election, and cannot be prosecuted. That is to say, an election can only be overturned if candidates—and not the county clerk—violate election law.
Defendant Natasha Atkinson asked to be dismissed from the lawsuit, citing financial hardship. But Judge Galli said that no party to the case would be dismissed because or time of money.
But Loomis refuses to disclose who is paying DiLorenzo’s hefty legal fees. Douglas County taxpayers will likely get stuck with the tab for this costly legal imbroglio, like they always do—footing the bill for expensive outside “big city” council, brought in to address the consequences of a political act unrelated to the county clerk’s statutory duties.
Of course, it’s possible that Loomis is paying DiLorenzo out of the county clerk’s modest office budget, diverting election administration resources for personal legal defense. Perhaps a wealthy third-party is paying for Loomis’ legal fees, raising serious ethical concerns about political influence, conflict of interest, and undisclosed financial relationships.
There is widespread consensus among county voters that, considering these ongoing lawsuits, it’s a no-brainer that Dan Loomis should not be supervising the May 20, 2026, Douglas County election—and election in which all three commissioners are running for relecetion.
Loomis has publicly and repeatedly proclaimed his endorsement of the three incumbent county commissioners. Nevertheless, Loomis crossed a line when he excised poor judgement, displaying a lack of impartiality by signing a letter attacking his critics.
While it’s possible that Natasha Atkinson did win the May 20, 2025, election fair and square, damning evidence of Dan Loomis’ quid pro quo appointment to county clerk brings into question the entire 2018 election, as well as each subsequent election including the upcoming November election.
Keep your eye on the prize.
