[EL] Hypothetical ballot privacy issues vs actual rights

[Paul Lehto]

On 9/10/11, Joseph Lorenzo Hall <joehall at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not going to respond to incoherent emotional sensationalism, Bev.

Through whatever incoherence there may be, I detect an assertion he
original post that I'd like to hear your views on:

That you either do not endorse any right to know at all on the part of
the public when it comes to seeing voted ballots, or alternatively
that you believe any such right to know that you do accept as existing
as a practical matter results in nondisclosure because it fails in the
face of what Bev Harris characterized as relatively minor concerns:
These minor concerns include the possibility that ballot secrecy may
be lessened significantly because of extraneous or systematic markings
on the ballots, either made by the voting system itself as part of its
design, or perhaps on occasion made by the voter.

The importance of this question lays in the fact that elections are
the means by which the government's own power is determined, and the
means by which it is determined if incumbents will remain in office or
not, including incumbent election officials.  There appears to be a
stark lack of meaningful checks and balances if the public can not
check and balance governmental assertions about the results of the
very races and questions that determine the government's composition
and its level of funding.

In previous months, more than one pointed request has been made by
others besides me to point to a principled public policy basis to
justify voting system nontransparency.  No one responded to these
requests.  If you have such a basis to defend the public not being
able to analyze ballots under any reasonable time place and manner
restrictions, this list has not heard it before, and it is an
important question, it seems.  No difficult analysis seems required,
one would think that the public policy positions underlying  your
current or past work would be readily available for recall.

Paul Lehto, J.D.
>

>


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Paul R Lehto, J.D.
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