|
Edited on Wed Sep-20-06 08:11 AM by Land Shark
Are American Elections “Free for the taking?”
Consider the following:
(1) THE SECRET BALLOT MEANS ELECTIONS ARE FUNDAMENTALLY UNAUDITABLE IN THE USUAL SENSE AND THEIR RELIABILITY THEREFORE HANGS BY A THREAD. Because a real audit involves tracing “final data” like election results back to original source “documents” like voters, once the secret ballot came along in the late 1800s American elections became fundamentally unauditable. With ballot secrecy often in state constitutions, nothing outside the ballots themselves is allowed to be evidence of voter intent, MAKING THE INTEGRITY OF THE BALLOTS ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL. Only a rigorous chain of custody and various safeguards against (a) ballot tampering, (b) deliberate over-voting ballots of disfavored candidates, or (c) substitution of ballots can ensure a reliable system.
(2) GIVEN THAT ELECTRONIC VOTING ADDS PROBLEMS OF (a) SECRET VOTE COUNTING, (b) INVISIBLE BALLOTS, (c) READILY CHANGEABLE BALLOTS (d) IMPOSSIBILITY OF VERIFYING UNALTERED CHAIN OF CUSTODY, ELECTIONS ONCE HANGING BY A THREAD OF RELIABILITY HAVE NOW COLLAPSED. The secret ballot all by itself drew a circle around the population of ballots and prohibited any kind of tracking of those ballots’ owners. The only way such a system could work is if the ballots were themselves difficult to destroy, easy to track, contained indelible marks of voter intent, and were subject to solid lock and key chain of custody controls. Electronic voting throws those out the window.
(3) AS A RESULT OF (1) and (2), THERE IS NO RATIONAL BASIS FOR CONFIDENCE IN AMERICAN ELECTION RESULTS. IT CAN NOT BE PROVEN THAT THE WINNERS ACTUALLY WON. Election results are at best inconclusive and almost inevitably lead to debates between various political parties.
(4) TO MAKE MATTERS FAR WORSE, ELECTIONS ARE FREE FOR THE STEALING FOR THE FOLLOWING REASONS:
(a) Elections officials are not trained in the computer forensics and security skills needed for protection of elections.
(b) Even if a well funded elections office was computer forensics and security skills in its office, it’s in the form of a specialist who rarely has detailed understanding of the nature of elections, which is also very necessary to protect elections.
(c) Even if an elections office has the requisite training and experience within the same person, that person is often without sufficient authority to do rigorous work.
(d) Even if the single person has sufficient authority to do rigorous work, election officials do not and can not identify “smoking guns” of election fraud. IF THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR, THEY WON’T FIND IT.
(e) Even if they found a smoking gun, ANY PLAUSIBLE REASON is enough for the elections officials as well as the press to look no further, because to continue to investigate would be “conspiracy theory.”
(f) Yet, if an election fraud is going to occur, any election criminal worth their salt is going to make the fraud look like a real election with plausible excuses for any minor irregularities, therefore, the election is inappropriately ended.
(g) Even if the election investigation were to continue, nobody is very good at blowing the whistle on themselves, and nobody can really audit themselves. Yet elections officials are often expected to do this (or volunteer in effect to do this, but it never gets done properly.) Therefore, checks and balances whereby elections officials audit or check themselves don’t work. The public must serve this checking and auditing function, but it has been eliminated from meaningful oversight of elections.
(h) Even if an investigation is ongoing, elections officials are often under a statutory duty to certify results which they can not refuse without a compelling specific reason to do so; in some states it is even a crime to not timely certify the results. Given the lack of evidence that creates the “no basis for confidence” above, the same lack of evidence will deprive elections officials of the specific evidence necessary to justify a refusal by the elections officials to certify the election results.
(i) Even if the investigation actually proceeded far enough and proved something, it would likely come long after the very short deadlines for election contests, recounts, and certification of results.
(j) Even if the investigation is proceeding, media pressure for quick reporting of results and the resultant declaration of apparent winners and losers creates strong political dynamics that act powerfully to dissuade “sore losers” from ever filing a challenge.
(k) Even if the investigation actually happened in record time, and managed to beat the above deadlines, Congress may in a federal election swear in its candidate it deems the winner, and then argue that the exclusive power to look into the elections has thus transferred to the Congress via Art. I, sec. 5 of the Constitution, depriving all citizens of any oversight power as well as state courts and local elections officials.
(l) Even if the investigation happens in record time, beats the deadlines, and there is no premature swearing in, the elections officials routinely claim that they are too busy to respond to public records requests during counting or recounting periods, and thus the citizens who might mount a challenge are deprived of the timely information to do so.
(m) Even if timely information is available, the candidate that lost is under or will be put under intense personal pressure and vilified by the opposing side if he or she contests the election, but if the candidate does not join the contest, the contest is typically ignored because “even the candidate doesn’t think it’s good enough to join the contest” leaving the citizens to act alone.
(n) Even if the citizens get the information timely and are prepared to act alone and afford the legal assistance necessary for this, they must be prepared to absorb, analyze and very rapidly respond to the information disclosed with their election contest.
(o) Even if an election contest is filed, it must survive a gauntlet of procedural hurdles set up in election laws (all of which are by definition passed by incumbents) that tend to highly favor incumbents over challengers.
(p) Even if the election contest survives this procedural gauntlet, only certain statutory grounds are allowable for election contests, and these are typically defined narrowly, and have not been adequately adjusted to electronic vote counting technologies. Archaic statutes for example may require contestants to specify the names and addresses of voters whose votes were not properly or legally counted, which may be impossible with electronic voting.
(q) Even if a ground is available for the contest that is allowable under law, the case must be over and finished with in record time for court cases, usually around a month or even less.
(r) Even if you make it all the way, the court or the county clerk may price a recount at a cost so high as to be prohibitive. Many statutes require the court to hire assistants to count the ballots, a headache that most courts are anxious to avoid.
(s) Even if the court hires the assistants necessary for a recount, if any result is reached that criticizes the elections officials, the judge’s next election may well be counted by those very same elections officials, and the judge will earn political enemies among the loser’s supporters.
(t) Even if you have a meritorious case, the defendants may countersue with an anti-SLAPP suit, claiming the case is frivolous and asking the judge for damages and/or attorneys’ fees and costs against the citizens.
(u) The political term at issue may expire before the trial of the election contest and all available appeals are exhausted, especially in the case of a short or special term election.
(v) Even if all of the above hurdles are cleared and you make it to trial, the judge, jury (if allowed) and the public are unlikely to understand you’re e-voting case since it will probably have to rely upon technical evidence. Note especially that with electronics both sides will need computer experts and these “battles of experts” are exactly what long trials are often all about. The truth may ultimately be on your side but it will be difficult or impossible to get the public to understand why the truth is on your side because of its technical detail and sophistication. The other side’s expert will obfuscate and claim everything’s fine. A win may seem more like a confusing stalemate of experts.
This is by no means a FULL and COMPLETE list. But the bottom line is, once the election is stolen or inaccurate, it is highly unlikely or impossible that any subsequent audit, investigation, recount, or election contest is going to change the momentum created by the reporting of the initial election results.
Those interested in strategically wise intervention in elections should focus on effective safeguards occurring primarily if not exclusively prior to the first reporting of results, focus on increasing available information, and focus on slowing down the post-election rush-to-final-certification.
In a nutshell, the elections process starts with secret vote counting and unauditable secret ballots, and ends in a rush to certification and a procedural gauntlet of barriers to transparency that are formidable to say the least, such that electronic elections are FREE FOR THE STEALING.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
