[EL] The Root Cause of Election Unrest is Non-transparency(AllowingPeopleto Imagine Whatever They Will

Fri Jan 8 13:53:17 PST 2021

Dear RuthAlice,

My apologies if, in the course of responding to close to a couple dozen
replies on the list, I misunderstood your position. I agree with your
substantive positions below.

I am not a fan of streaming because the transparency that is needed is
complete transparency and a temporary delay or interruption in
internet connection could sever that transparency. Streaming can't be a
substitute for in person transparency - at best it can only provide a
record of the proceedings and compensate if there are more people wishing
to participate than the room size can accommodate.

What I reacted to was the idea that the potential for misunderstanding
would be a valid objection to transparency.  I am happy to hear that is an
unfair critique as applied to you and again, apologize if I misunderstood
the nuance in your position. I am happy to see that our positions are
close.

Paul Lehto, J.D

On Fri, Jan 8, 2021, 11:56 AM RuthAlice Anderson <
ruthalice.anderson at comcast.net> wrote:

> I called  your representation of my comment extreme. It is also dishonest.
> I am completely supportive of poll watchers. I distrust completely
> electronic voting machines and would prefer optical scanned paper ballots.
> The hand-marked and counted ballots from when my dad supervised elections
> in an old abandoned school house are seriously not supportable.
>
>
>
> I object to streaming the count to anyone on the internet and please,
> don’t pretend I said anything else.
>
>
>
> As to my objection to streaming. There is no hallowed tradition of
> streaming election counts going back to the founders. It’s a new
> innovation, an attempt to be more transparent, an innovation that has led
> to conspiracist theorizing and maliciously editied video shared by bad
> actors to incite distrust in the outcome.
>
>
>
> You have misrepresented my words twice. Please stop.
>
>
>
> RuthAlice
>
>
>
> Sent from Mail <https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for
> Windows 10
>
>
>
> *From: *Paul Lehto <lehto.paul at gmail.com>
> *Sent: *Friday, January 8, 2021 9:26 AM
> *To: *RuthAlice Anderson <ruthalice.anderson at comcast.net>
> *Cc: *John Tanner <john.k.tanner at gmail.com>; Election Law Listserv
> <law-election at uci.edu>; Virginia Martin <virginiamartin2010 at gmail.com>
> *Subject: *Re: [EL] The Root Cause of Election Unrest is
> Non-transparency(AllowingPeopleto Imagine Whatever They Will
>
>
>
> Ruth, you call my argument extreme but the Court of Appeals in my case
> acknowledged that my case based on these arguments raised important
> questions at the very bedrock of democracy, not "extreme" interpretations.
> The Court only dismissed my case attacking contracts to purchase voting
> machines as void against public policy because it said I had won - the
> county canceled the contract for the touch screens and thereby mooted my
> attack upon the contract is violating public policy.
>
>
>
> On the contrary, your argument or fear that people may misunderstand or
> misinterpret election information if it is given to them is an extreme
> attack upon transparency of all kinds.
>
>
>
> The same argument or fear applies to every government record and violates
> the declared public policy of my state of Washington found at RCW 42.30.010:
>
>
> The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies
> which serve them.
> *The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants
> the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not
> good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they
> may retain control over the instruments they have created.*
> The conservative state of Texas takes it further:
>
>
>
> Sec. 552.001. POLICY; CONSTRUCTION. (a) Under the fundamental philosophy
> of the American constitutional form of representative government that
> adheres to the principle that government is the servant and not the master
> of the people, it is the policy of this state that each person is entitled,
> unless otherwise expressly provided by law, at all times to complete
> information about the affairs of government and the official acts of public
> officials and employees. The people, in delegating authority, do not give
> their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to
> know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining
> informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have
> created.
>
>
> The same or nearly identical language is the fundamental public policy in
> many other states like CA, AK, HI, GA and others.
>
> Most state constitutions recite that a frequent recurrence to fundamental
> principles is necessary for the preservation of liberty and free
> government.  This is true.
>
> The problem generally is that we have focused too much on mechanics and
> administrative convenience instead of recurring to our most important laws
> and principles.
>
> Thati s why my argument to protect the bedrock of democracy can
> occasionally be perceived as "extreme" - the government has strayed from
> our most fundamental rights in favor of convenience and efficiency claims
> that do not guarantee our most important rights. They did it accidentally
> by signing vendor contracts that took transparent vote counts and made them
> the private intellectual property of vendors and/or *de facto* government
> secrets.
>
> Paul Lehto, J.D.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 7, 2021, 10:56 PM RuthAlice Anderson <
> ruthalice.anderson at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Wow, that’s an extreme interpretation. I think trained poll watchers are
> essential for transparency. Streaming to the untrained and already
> suspicious public is dangerous. People who want to find something will
> misinterpret innocent acts as malice. Because that’s what they want to
> find.
>
> Poll watchers from both parties are absolutely proper. Training people is
> proper. Having people this believe in lizard people watching from their
> homes is not.
>
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/17/ballot-counting-livestreams-misinformation-us-election
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Sent from Mail <https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for
> Windows 10
>
>
>
> *From: *Paul Lehto <lehto.paul at gmail.com>
> *Sent: *Thursday, January 7, 2021 4:32 PM
> *To: *RuthAlice Anderson <ruthalice.anderson at comcast.net>
> *Cc: *John Tanner <john.k.tanner at gmail.com>; Election Law Listserv
> <law-election at uci.edu>; Virginia Martin <virginiamartin2010 at gmail.com>
> *Subject: *Re: [EL] The Root Cause of Election Unrest is
> Non-transparency(AllowingPeople to Imagine Whatever They Will)
>
>
>
> I have never heard the claim that streaming led to widespread fraud
> allegations.  That said, if transparency could be defeated by a significant
> possibility of misunderstanding what is going on, then you are arguing
> against transparency generally.  Any government document or record is
> subject to the danger of being misunderstood.
>
>
>
> The misunderstanding argument is one of the arguments made for widespread
> secrecy in forms of government that aren't free or do not wish to be held
> accountable or to be checked and balanced - namely that the masses can't
> understand the fine arts of governance, so it is better that they just
> trust us and not get information. In reality,  The risk of misunderstanding
> would be an argument against having juries, or even voting without a
> literacy and civics test.
>
>
>
> I think you would find people keen to participate in a meaningful event
> like elections and eager to learn.
>
>
>
> Training is at its simplest with hand counted paper ballots, but if there
> is a problem with lack of training there is a straightforward solution -
> more training.
>
>
>
> Paul Lehto, J.D.
>
> On Thu, Jan 7, 2021, 4:09 PM RuthAlice Anderson <
> ruthalice.anderson at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Doesn’t it seem that many of the most widespread false allegations of
> fraud originated with transparency efforts such as streaming video of the
> ballot count. People without any idea what is happening in the room saw
> things they did not understand (cases under the table being opened with
> ballots) and found a malignant interpretation.
>
> It also seems that the poll watchers and observers were poorly trained.
> When I was a poll watcher before vote by mail, we had a fairly lengthy
> training on what to watch for and how to report it. We were advised not to
> talk about it because we could be wrong.
>
> RuthAlice
>
>
>
> Sent from Mail <https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for
> Windows 10
>
>
>
> *From: *Paul Lehto <lehto.paul at gmail.com>
> *Sent: *Thursday, January 7, 2021 3:55 PM
> *To: *John Tanner <john.k.tanner at gmail.com>
> *Cc: *Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>; Virginia Martin
> <virginiamartin2010 at gmail.com>
> *Subject: *Re: [EL] The Root Cause of Election Unrest is
> Non-transparency(Allowing People to Imagine Whatever They Will)
>
>
>
> So on one side we have nontransparency in the voting system which breeds
> distrust which is then amplified by every partisan hope, fear, or piece of
> evidence, all the way up to an insurrection on ONE SIDE,
>
>
>
> ...And on the other side we have some 75 year old who might be groggy.
> And more hours to count.
>
>
>
> The balancing isn't even close, and I could add much more to the first
> paragraph but recent events are enough.
>
>
>
> The nontransparency is a fatal flaw in the current system, and a
> transparent system in the form of hand counted ballots is required to
> secure and guarantee the right to vote vis-a-vis situations of corrupt
> election officials, power outages and so on, and having tens of thousands
> of summonses workers nationwide who can personally attest based on their
> own observation and experience would restore public confidence.
>
>
>
> Paul Lehto, J.D.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 7, 2021, 3:43 PM John Tanner <john.k.tanner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Did you wakes up the 75 year old participants at 4 or 5 am and have them
> work for 12 hours?   On a ballot with 30+ offices and ballot measures?
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>
>
> On Jan 7, 2021, at 6:38 PM, Stephanie Singer <
> sfsinger at campaignscientific.com> wrote:
>
> I took part in a demo of the clicker method. I don’t know of any academic
> research, but from my experience the clicker method is far better. It makes
> sense psychologically — each person is focused on just one physical spot on
> the ballot, not needing to look back and forth. And in the demo we had
> several people tracking each candidate, and their tallies matched at the
> end (or perhaps were occasionally off by one). It was quick and easy and,
> with enough people clicking, convincing.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Stephanie Singer <https://www.pdx.edu/profile/stephanie-singer>
>
> Research Assistant Professor, Portland State University
>
> Former Chair, Philadelphia County Board of Elections
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Jan 7, 2021, at 2:04 PM, John Tanner <john.k.tanner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> One would think that “mark, mark, ... tally” would avoid differences,
> since there’s a check every 5th vote.  One would be wrong.  And then you
> have to go back and reconcile to find where the count got off — usually
> several tallies back.  I suspect the clicker would be even worse
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>
>
> On Jan 7, 2021, at 4:42 PM, Stephanie Singer <
> sfsinger at campaignscientific.com> wrote:
>
> It’s undeniable that the counting happens at a time when everyone is
> exhausted. And thanks for pointing out the difficulties of oversight in
> primaries.
>
>
>
> At least one better counting method has been developed and tested by Karen
> McKim of Wisconsin Election Integrity
> <https://wisconsinelectionintegrity.org/>. Each person in a group of
> observers has a hand-held clicker-counter (like the ones used to measure
> people flowing through turnstiles). The ballots can then be shown one after
> another, quite quickly. My understanding is that this is quite accurate and
> efficient.
>
>
>
> The science and engineering of post-election tabulation audits for ballot
> scanners is progressing, but I haven’t yet seen a workable proposal for
> risk-limiting audits of precinct-counted ballots.
>
>
>
> If you don’t count at the precinct at the end of the voting period, you
> have to solve the ballot custody problem, also quite knotty.
>
>
>
> —Stephanie
>
>
>
> On Jan 7, 2021, at 1:26 PM, John Tanner <john.k.tanner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> I agree completely that the election process should include at all levels
> and locations poll officials and poll watchers appointed by both major
> parties — and by all diverse candidates in primaries and nonpartisan
> elections (easier said than done).   And posting the results at the polls
> and centrally is or used to be common.    But hand counted paper ballots?
> I recall monitoring primary elections with hand counted paper ballots at
> relatively tiny precincts.  It takes forever, in part because of frequent
> differences in the counts  (often resolved by splitting the difference) and
> poll workers quitting fit the night and one (1) poll official taking the
> materials home to safeguard them.  In one MS primary election, the count
> wasn’t completed until Thursday evening , at which point I could finally go
> to sleep (after helping polish off some beer the senior attorney had
> bought).  There’s are reasons we use machines now.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>
>
> On Jan 7, 2021, at 1:59 PM, Stephanie Singer <
> sfsinger at campaignscientific.com> wrote:
>
> A big Plus One to what Paul has written.
>
>
>
> To move to the kind of resilient system Paul has described, we need to
> face head on the downsides of such a system. There are people in this
> country who physically cannot mark and review paper ballots without
> assistance (either from people or technology). And there are people of this
> country who cannot physically get to the polling place on the given day
> (e.g., overseas deployed military).
>
>
>
> Companies that manufacture and maintain computerized voting systems have
> exploited this downside for profit.
>
>
>
> I wonder what folks on this list think of proxy voting.
>
>
>
> —Stephanie
>
> PS: a relevant piece I wrote was published a few hours before all hell
> broke loose yesterday:
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/01/06/stolen-election-trump-patriot/
>
>
>
> On Jan 6, 2021, at 2:46 PM, Paul Lehto <lehto.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> The short answer is voter-marked and hand counted paper ballots counted in
> precincts with results posted at the precincts as well as reported to the
> county or state. And also using a summonsing process to guarantee
> sufficient labor or add additional independent observers as needed.
>
>
>
> This way any group can verify the tabulation by looking at precinct posted
> results, and counts in precincts are monitored by all interested political
> parties plus individuals drafted by a process similar to jury summonsing.
> It is a labor intensive process but *most people would much rather spend
> a day counting ballots than spend two weeks in a jury trial. *
>
>
>
> If ballot counting is observed by multiple observers adverse to each other
> (the system used and assumed by the framers of the 12th amendment) out of a
> combination of people we might not trust to count ballots alone, we can
> nevertheless achieve a trustable result.
>
>
>
> We might also realize that the framers of the 12th amendment presupposed
> HCPB, and might come to understand that a joint session is subservient to
> the will of the people and *able to make only the objections and
> corrections that vote counting clerks are able to make, not relitigate the
> entire election*.
>
>
>
> More importantly, glitches, errors or frauds create observable evidence
> that can be accessed, and inaccuracies are isolated to the precinct level.
> Thus, if and when people tell stories about paper ballot fraud, that
> actually proves both that fraud can happen and that *the voting system
> actually worked to create evidence of the problem and thus allow us to tell
> the story today*. It is up to the administrative and legal systems - not
> the voting system - to actually prosecute or correct for the fraud or
> error. The voting system only needs to be transparent and create clear
> indelible evidence of voter intent.
>
>
>
> With a fully transparent vote counting process, I find that almost
> everyone I talk to is willing to pay the labor and time pricetag for the
> system, because of the rational confidence created in the results, and the
> fact that it is the best guarantee of our right to vote actually working if
> and when a criminal regime is in control of the vote counting process.
> Given that voting is our most important right, and given the Declaration of
> Independence recites that our government was setup for the purpose of
> securing and guaranteeing our rights, this is not too much to ask. The
> alternative is to have a voting system that is non-transparent and thus is
> vulnerable to failing completely at the very moment we need it the most -
> when criminality has invaded the governmental election processes.
>
>
>
> The human need for hand counts of valuable things is witnessed every day
> when counting our own cash at the bank teller window or at the ATM. There
> is just no substitute for hand counting when we deal with something
> valuable AND there is incentive for one or more parties to count
> inaccurately, as exists in elections.
>
>
>
> It would also have the added benefit of bringing statutes back into line
> with reality, such as the requirement of a 0.5% lead or less to trigger a
> recount. That kind of narrow window makes sense with HCPB, but with
> electronic elections if there is fraud it is the same amount of effort to
> create a lead outside the recount margin as there is to win by just a few
> votes.
>
>
>
> And it would also bring back into alignment the call for public confidence
> and acceptance of the results. That is a call for rational acceptance of
> the results if counts are transparent but is a call for a faith that losers
> find hard to develop when counts are nontransparent.
>
>
>
> Paul Lehto, J.D.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 6, 2021, 2:10 PM David Mason <dmason12 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What sorts of systems, policies, and procedures would you recommend to
> achieve this level of transparency?
>
>
>
> Dave Mason
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 4:34 PM Paul Lehto <lehto.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> 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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