By Robert Willmann
Everybody knows that a valid election has three parts: qualified, eligible voters are listed; an eligible voter expresses a legal vote on a ballot; and the votes are counted accurately. For a small organization or club, this is easy. All the candidates and voters are in one room and everybody knows everyone else. Each member writes the name of their choice on a piece of paper and folds it over, the votes are put in a box, and then the votes are opened and counted in front of everybody. Everything is done in the same room. A local, state, or national election has the same parts, but with many more voters, and voting and counting locations. It is spread out over a much bigger area. Many things are a system, including your cardiovascular system [1]. But since an election as a system is created by people, it is amateurish and simple compared to the sophisticated cardiovascular system. Despite its simplicity, there is little or no "transparency", today's trendy term. Because of human nature and the money and authority available through a government, an enormous incentive is created to rig and cheat in an election.
Documents attached to various lawsuits, other information, and the blocking of public examination of ballots and electronic voting and counting machines are showing huge problems and fraud in the November 2020 general election in an amount that can affect the result. But those with the authority to do the most the fastest are so far doing nothing, from the federal Department That Calls Itself Justice (DOJ), to local District Attorneys.
The Attorney General and the U.S. Attorneys in the 94 federal districts have a lightening bolt in their hands. Federal grand jury subpoenas are nationwide in scope. A grand jury does not just issue formal criminal charges, it can also investigate, under the age-old rationale that "the public is entitled to every man's evidence". Unlike the FBI, which is required by policy to have a factual "predicate" before it can open an investigation, a grand jury is in no way limited. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1992 made clear that "the grand jury can investigate merely on suspicion that the law is being violated, or even because it wants assurance that it is not" [2]--
"The grand jury’s functional independence from the Judicial Branch is evident both in the scope of its power to investigate criminal wrongdoing and in the manner in which that power is exercised. Unlike [a] [c]ourt, whose jurisdiction is predicated upon a specific case or controversy, the grand jury can investigate merely on suspicion that the law is being violated, or even because it wants assurance that it is not. It need not identify the offender it suspects, or even the precise nature of the offense it is investigating. The grand jury requires no authorization from its constituting court to initiate an investigation, nor does the prosecutor require leave of court to seek a grand jury indictment. And in its day-to-day functioning, the grand jury generally operates without the interference of a presiding judge. It swears in its own witnesses, and deliberates in total secrecy" [citations in this passage are omitted].
From 4 November 2020, the day after the election, until he left office on 23 December, Attorney General William Barr did nothing about electoral problems. The DOJ could have started grand juries in multiple suspect states when anamolies began to appear the week of the election, but did zero. When President Trump nominated Barr on 7 December 2018, I was very surprised, because of some of Barr's prior legal positions and associations. But that is another story.
At the time of the 2020 election, mail-in and absentee voting had been greatly expanded, which has led to massive problems and some discussion. But the biggest danger which has received little exposure in mass media is in electronic voting and counting machines. In an electronic voting machine, the hidden electronic processes become the ballot -- not "your ballot" -- and the tabulation of ballots is also done by hidden electronic processes. No audit trail is possible. If a machine prints out a receipt with a bar code on it, that is not a ballot and it cannot be part of an audit. An audit requires original documents and items for every step in a process.
The voting machine companies like to say their computer software code is "proprietary" and cannot be made public, and the stupid state and local governments seem to go along with it. Even if software source code is revealed in secret to a state agency, it can be changed later to permit fraud, and the governments will not know it.
The problem of electronic voting machines was started and promoted nationwide in 2002 by Congress in the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) [3]. It promised states federal tax money if the states would implement some of its laughable "standards". Around 2004 or so, a group in San Antonio talked to me about the machines and a legal case, and I drafted a lawsuit paper to file and obtained an expert witness. But then the county's governing body offered them some money to educate voters about electronic voting machines, and they decided to not proceed with a case. At that time, the county election administration had electronic machines, and a maintenance contract that was expensive, but nothing remotely like the racket that exists today. Electronic voting machines are big business. Georgia paid at least $100 million for the Dominion voting machines it used in the 2020 elections, and New Jersey may pay from $60 to $80 million dollars or more to update its voting machines [4].
Before the 2008 general election, I wrote an editorial about problems with electronic voting machines to the main newspaper in Bexar County, Texas, which had a population at that time of about 1,622,899. It was accepted for publication, but then I was told that a person higher up at the paper ordered it killed and that it not be published, because it was "too controversial".
Two years ago I wrote an article on the issue, emphasizing that the electronic machines were more of a problem than the hot issue of the day, voter identification cards. But since then, I have changed my opinion because absentee and mail-in voting have greatly expanded to the point where voter ID and verification is now just as big a problem as the electronic voting and counting machines are.
Peter Navarro is an Assistant to President Trump and Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, where he has consistently tried to rebuild domestic manufacturing and jobs, and cancel existing bad policies that favored China over U.S. jobs and industry. He has written two excellent booklets about problems with the 2020 presidential election. "The Immaculate Deception: Six Key Dimensions of Election Irregularities", and "The Art of the Steal: Volume 2 of the Navarro Report" [5]--
Congress is to meet on Wednesday, 6 January 2021 to count electoral votes from the meetings of the Electoral College on 14 December 2020. The National Archives is involved first [6]--
"The Office of the Federal Register (OFR) is a part of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and, on behalf of the Archivist of the United States, coordinates certain functions of the Electoral College between the States and Congress. Acting as an intermediary, it reviews the Certificates of Ascertainment and Vote before Congress accepts them as evidence of official State action in preparation for the counting of electoral votes in Congress".
The National Archives Internet website also has information from its work on the 2020 election, and links to the certificates of each Electoral College meeting from the states [7].
Some members of Congress are posturing or squirming as problems with the election have not gone away in favor of business as usual. But resistance on the big day of 6 January to voting fraud requires that the member put his or her name to a writing objecting to the electoral votes from the six most problematic states: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada.
But under the cover provided by media publicity, the vapid statements of 12 Senators are loaded with mushy language. Senator Josh Hawley (Repub. Missouri) says he will--
"... object to highlight the failure of some states, including notably Pennsylvania [but not others?], to follow their own election laws .... He will call for Congress to launch a full investigation of potential fraud and election irregularities and enact election integrity measures" [8].
Republican Senators Ted Cruz (Texas), Ron Johnson (Wisconsin), James Lankford (Oklahoma), Steve Daines (Montana), John Kennedy (Louisiana), Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee), and Mike Braun (Indiana), and Senators-Elect Cynthia Lummis (Wyoming), Roger Marshall (Kansas), Bill Hagerty (Tennessee), and Tommy Tuberville (Alabama) in their statement bloviate for 12 paragraphs before saying--
"Accordingly, we intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given' and ‘lawfully certified' (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed" [9].
They then say, "We are not naive. We fully expect most if not all Democrats, and perhaps more than a few Republicans, to vote otherwise". Yes, you are not naive, but you are con-men and con-women. You declare that--
"Congress should immediately appoint an Electoral Commission, with full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states. Once completed, individual states would evaluate the Commission's findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed".
So, Senator Ted Cruz et. al. You think you are going to set up a commission, after detailing in writing its "investigatory and fact-finding authority", and carefully audit the "election returns" in the form of millions of votes. All in 10 days, by the 20th of January.
And you 12 bulls**t artists said an audit would be only of "election returns", and would not include a forensic examination of thousands of electronic voting machines, when so far their manufacturers, along with governors and state election officials, have constantly worked to block any examination or monitoring of them. In case you Senators do not know it, computer software on an electronic voting machine operates secretly with zero transparency.
U.S. Representative Mo Brooks (Repub. Alabama) stepped up to the plate and has been in the forefront challenging the election results and the resulting Electoral College votes. He has said that more than 36 members of the House have signed to dispute the voting results in the six states in question.
Brooks then exposed the 12 strutting senators plus Senator Kelly Loeffler (Repub. Georgia) as snakes in the grass, since as of the time of his writing, only three have actually signed onto an objection, and that was to only one state apiece and not to all six states: Cruz has objected to Arizona, Hawley has objected to Pennsylvania, and Loeffler has objected to Georgia [10].
The only solution is for all votes to be on paper ballots that are counted by hand, and for Congress to repeal the Help America Vote Act.
The subject known as industrial engineering deals with designing the physical actions that are to be used to do a particular task. The military and intelligence agencies have developed procedures to create, handle, and transmit information in a secure way. High resolution cameras are now inexpensive with multiple features and can be used in vehicles [11]. You can carefully select a print shop to print the ballots, with controls and cameras to monitor their placement at polling places.
These resources can create a legitimate paper-based election system, and will not cost $100 million or more for electronic machines for one state.
The German Constitutional Court declared electronic voting machines illegal in March 2009 [12].
Congress is the culprit pushing and providing money to promote electronic voting machines starting with the HAVA law in 2002. Politicians and bureaucracies do not want to admit they were wrong or made a mistake.
When electronic voting machines are used, voters no longer mark their ballots. Local election officials no longer count them. Devices created and programmed out of public view do it. No genuine recount or audit is possible. Any fraud is undetectable, or almost so after a time-consuming examination.
The perfect crime, except it is not a crime.
It is all legal, or so the U.S. Congress has tried to say.
And no voting procedures -- including the use of electronic voting and counting machines -- were changed before the runoff elections for two U.S. Senators in Georgia on 5 January.
[2] United States v. Williams, 504 U.S. 36 (1992). Part III-A discusses a grand jury in general on pages 47-50 (pdf pages 12-15).
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/us_vs_williams_504_us_36_grand_jury.pdf
[3] Public Law 107-252, signed into law on 29 October 2002. Title 52, U.S. Code, chapter 209. Election Administration Improvement.
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title52/subtitle2/chapter209&edition=prelim
https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/3295/all-info
https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ252/PLAW-107publ252.pdf
[7] 2020 Electoral College information from the Office of the Federal Register and the National Archives.
[9] https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=5541
[10] U.S. Representative Mo Brooks on the status of objections to Electoral College results as of Tuesday afternoon, 5 January 2021.
https://twitter.com/RepMoBrooks/status/1346559504058638344
[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxAyd6cqq6s
[12] Decision of the German Constitutional Court declaring the use of electronic voting machines to be illegal.
A few things still trouble me that don't appear in any later dicussions of this topic, including this very good one:
1. The fact just about every other European country and other industrialized nations now prohibit 'electronic voting" in their federal elections, due to inherent ability to corrupt outcomes.
Claims "electronic voting" undermines election integrity and thereby voter trust. Which they seem to value more than the US.
2. Hilary Clinton's recovered email around the time of the Haiti earthquake where she touts the use of Dominion Voting Systems to someone else, because she assured them they provide "very happy results".
Posted by: Deap | 05 January 2021 at 09:24 PM
Thank you, Robert! Straight and to the point. We need to change this, starting right now.
Posted by: Buckeyelad | 05 January 2021 at 09:31 PM
An excellent post Mr Willmann. I wholeheartedly agree with your views on electronic vote counting, the words "voting" and "machine" must be separated, for good.
Election management systems, starting with Diebold, were it appears, specifically designed to do just that; manage elections. That this started in the export market as a foreign policy tool and has now come home to roost is all too symptomatic of other such dark practices, such as the information warfare and PSYOPS we are seeing much in evidence in what is left of politics in America. The resultant corrosive effect on democracy is near terminal - how many Trump supporters will believe a Warnock win was fair?
As your personal experience attests, interest in free and fair elections can be trumped by cold hard cash. And rather than be innocently unaware of the implications of introducing electronic voting, at least some state authorities seem to have been suspiciously desperate to get systems put in with no regard for conducting the appropriate due diligence.
The "much bigger area" you describe is a logistical headache, but last I checked liberty wasn't easily achieved. In the recent Federal elections I am reading that this area may extend out all the way to Rome. More on that will come out soon perhaps.
I too was puzzled by Barr & the DOJ's inaction wrt evident widespread election fraud. But more recently, based on mounting evidence of the extent of the Trump administration's planning to "Stop the Steal" I have begun to theorize an explanation: I believe Trump has been planning for this for 4 years, knowing all the while that he may have to go 'all the way' in the face of rampant corruption, cheating and obstruction by the thoroughly corrupt Uniparty and a compromised justice system. Is the plan to drain the swamp by dynamiting the dam holding it back - i.e. all at once?
What do you do when the justice system is irredeemably compromised? Well if you can you use a different one. Sidney Powell herself appears to be waiting in the wings for a role overseeing military tribunals and I note that the newly appointed Deputy AG served as a Military Magistrate Judge. Sydney, Gen. Flynn and Lin Wood have all called for some measure of martial law. Dealing with the issue of a compromised legal system by avoiding it altogether, if necessary, strikes me as a very Trumpian solution to a seemingly insoluble problem.
It appears to me that ever since his December 2nd speech, Trump has provided off ramps at every opportunity to the courts - right up the the SCOTUS - and to politicians of both stripes, even going so far as to offer them the opportunity of doing the right thing in public. EO 13848 declares foreign election interference a national security threat - does this mean Trump will suddenly announce such and do an Abe Lincoln? I can certainly see it if even the "Pence Card" is unsuccessful. I note that Trump has conspicuously avoided mentioning the foreign interference that is such a big part of the Sidney's Kraken papers. Where would all this leave us? Well I think Ulysses S. Grant put it best: "There are but two parties now: traitors and patriots".
I am expecting the Trump Epiphany Show to be a big one, "Greatest Show Ever" I imagine it will be called. The teaser declassification by the DNI today is a sign of what is to come I think. Personally, I would not bet against Trump pulling it out of the bag on the morning of the 20th.
Posted by: Barbara Ann | 05 January 2021 at 11:27 PM
As of this writing it looks like the election theft system put in place in Georgia is working as planned to ensure a
Unipartyvictory for the Democrats. The GOP will of course blame Trump and his supporters and go back to rollingin the griftover to Landslide Joe and the woman who couldn't win a single delegate.Posted by: Fred | 06 January 2021 at 09:30 AM
And at least one election in Georgia where Republicans are leading when we go to bed and Democrats are declared winners the next morning. I think it's time to admit that US elections are pretense, much the same as Soviet elections were in the 1900s.
Living in California, admittedly a matter of choice, I haven't had a meaningful vote in decades. Which of two Democrat females do I want to be my US Senator?
Posted by: Bill H | 06 January 2021 at 10:08 AM
Thank you for posting.
Posted by: Shako | 06 January 2021 at 11:35 AM
In Georgia, the voting booth prints out the ballot which is then scanned and then counted electronically. That paper ballot IS the original document.
1. the recount disproves vote switching, because altering the total on election night would show a different count when they re-scan the paper ballot during the recount.
2. The barcode. Yes, to make scanning efficient, you could encode 'Biden' in the barcode and print 'Trump' for the poor dupe of a voter. If someone wants to file a lawswuit to scan Georgia's ballots to verify that scanning the barcode matches the human readable selection I am 100% on board with that. This is possible because we have the printed paper ballot.
Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | 06 January 2021 at 05:26 PM
@ Chris Chuba et al-
There has been a continuing legal effort in Georgia, little reported, by a small voter group, seeking to have Georgia's older computer voting systems and, now, the new replacement Dominion voting systems declared unacceptable for 2020 and future elections.
In response to their request for an injunction against the Dominion machines, Judge Amy Totenberg wrote, in her October 10 order, that there are “serious system security vulnerability and operational issues that may place Plaintiffs and other voters at risk of deprivation of their fundamental right to cast an effective vote that is accurately counted.”
However, the judge observed that, with absentee voting about to start, it was too close to the election to effectively change the system or eliminate the machines. She did order certain accommodations be made in the process,which she suggested might partially ameliorate the problems.
It is unclear whether even these measures were taken. Reporting is hard to find about this case.
Quick summary within Epoch Times article: https://www.theepochtimes.com/dominion-part-of-council-that-disputed-election-integrity-concerns-in-dhs-statement_3581659.html
A fuller discussion of the Georgia case was posted at Brad Blog on October 12, two days after Totenberg's pre-election ruling. Brad Friedman, the author, being a fervently committed anti-Republican, anti-Trumper, has found nothing to complain about anywhere in the election process, since Nov 4.
https://bradblog.com/?p=13595
NYT did actually run a long article in June 2020 about the many, non-deliberate ways in which the new Georgia Dominion system can undermine voting and twist election outcomes. It notes that this particular Dominion system was approved by the National Voting Assistance Commission in 2018 and promptly failed certification in Texas. Serious questions were later raised about "shortcuts" in Georgia's certification.
Without mentioning the overarching danger of vote manipulation
by invisible software, the NYT does cite other known problems of these elaborate, expensive "management" systems, which can and have had significant impact of voting process and results. These include complexity and the need for extensive training of local election officials, which results in operator errors, shorting out due to overload of electric circuits, software failures on site, and faulty programming by Dominion before delivery.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/us/politics/georgia-voting-machines.html
Actual order from Totenberg:
ttps://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6139924/964/curling-v-raffensperger/
A semi-random discussion of the arguments and evidence in the Georgia case
https://mbncnews.com/years-long-court-battle-in-georgia-reveals-dominions-security-flaws-weak-testing/
Posted by: smoke | 07 January 2021 at 05:11 PM