[EL] The Root Cause of Election Unrest is Non-transparency (Allowing People to Imagine Whatever They Will)

[Paul Lehto]

Obviously, things have gotten out of hand, but what is the root of the
problem?

The problem is that *we do not have a voting system that the LOSERS of the
election can believe in* based on the transparency of the process. *If we
want peaceful transitions of power the system needs to lead to results
trustable by the "sore losers."*

While people need to be held accountable for illegal actions, *going
forward*, instead of designing our voting systems with gaining the consent
of the governed among the losing side, we instead demand "public
confidence" in nontransparent computerized counts on pain of charges of
undermining democracy.

*This lack of transparency in vote counting is the SEED to which either
facts or fevered dreams can attach*, and typically our partisan
affiliations and the media sources we select predetermine what information
we will receive and what conclusions we will draw.

I have predicted this would eventually happen for over a decade.  I was
quoted in Politico a couple weeks ago about Trump activists because I was
active in investigating the 2004 elections after serving as one of Kerry's
"army" of lawyers (who were actually just assisting people to vote).
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/19/2004-kerry-election-fraud-2020-448604
This article sought to find out what those who questioned 2004 thought of
those who questioned 2020.  A variety of opinions emerged.

 In *Politico *I was quoted as saying the election disputes are the
equivalent of a religious war where both sides assert their strongly held
beliefs on the basis of faith rather than on the basis of *knowledge*.  All
people must necessarily have beliefs rather than true personal knowledge
about the vote count results because the counts themselves are
nontransparent, being done on computers, so that literally no one has
personal knowledge the results are correct. Even election officials lack
the kind of personal knowledge we expect from any admissible affidavit,
Instead, officials believe them to be correct based on logic and accuracy
tests and such but they don't really KNOW.  Experts can add numerous
circumstantial reasons to support that belief, but our opinions remain in
the territory of trust and confidence rather than hard facts and
knowledge.

The election results are simply the conclusions.  I've been entitled to
every data source any expert in court relies upon for his or her
conclusions, except in election law, where the computers are generally
deemed inaccessible.

Our present system merely urges public confidence in those conclusory
results, which is the same as urging trust or faith. As a result, t*he
opinions on all sides about the election results amount to statements of
political religious faith*, and thus we have what amounts to a religious
war in which various sides insult the faith of the other side, eventually
leading to violence as we see today.

Transparency is strongly effective at getting rid of conspiracy theories
because when facts are present, no theories, conspiracy or otherwise, are
necessary or possible.  Transparency would likely not reduce Republican
support for objections from Rasmussen's 73% released today down to zero,
but it would critically drop it below fifty percent at the very least.  And
that is the difference between peaceful transitions of power transitions of
power that are not peaceful.

Trump supporters may not be able to prove fraud, but the reverse is also
true: Biden supporters can't prove Biden win, except with a full hand
recount and good chain of custody and no ballot box stuffing.  The solution
is to get it right on election night with a transparent counting system
that the large majority of losers can RATIONALLY trust.  Not faith-based
elections like we have now.

-- 
Paul R Lehto, J.D.
PO Box 2796
Renton, WA 98056
lehto.paul at gmail.com
906-204-4965 (cell)
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