Maricopa County to Spend Millions to Get New Voting Machines Not Handled by Insane Trumpy Auditors
This story is infuriating:
Arizona’s Maricopa County announced Monday that it will replace voting equipment that was turned over to a private contractor for a Republican-commissioned review of the 2020 presidential election, concerned that the process compromised the security of the machines.
Officials from Maricopa, the state’s largest county and home to Phoenix, provided no estimates of the costs involved but have previously said that the machines cost millions to acquire.
“The voters of Maricopa County can rest assured, the County will never use equipment that could pose a risk to free and fair elections,” the county said in a statement. “As a result, the County will not use the subpoenaed equipment in any future elections.”
By rights, reimbursement ought to come from Trump’s PAC, where he has been raking in millions from chumps who buy his con that the election was stolen. But because this dopey action was actually ordered by a legislative body, that’s extraordinarily unlikely:
The review was ordered by the Republican-led state Senate, which seized voting equipment, including nine tabulating machines used at a central counting facility and 385 precinct-based tabulators, as well as nearly 2.1 million ballots from Maricopa County, with a legislative subpoena in late April. The review is being led by a Florida company called Cyber Ninjas, whose chief executive has echoed Trump’s false claims.
The danger of such legislative bodies, state and federal combined, overruling the will of the people in their states and installing Trump in 2024 is very real. Dems ought to take legislative steps now to prevent it, but instead they are obsessed with their ridiculous HR 1 voting bill and with spending us into oblivion.
How old were the old machines? Is this just a convenient argument for spending money they’ve been denied in the past?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/29/2021 @ 8:59 amAs far as the 2024 question is concerned, a federal law limiting the ability of the state legislature to reassign electors would seem reasonable. Unless there is such a breakdown of civil order that an election cannot be conducted, electors should be determined by the voters under whatever formula exists prior to the election.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:02 amNo state legislature has awarded electors directly since (at least) 1876. One hundred fifty years of waived rights arguably indicates the legislatures have abandoned their right to do so.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:05 amA while back I was product engineer visiting a supplier. We did a plant walk after the line stopped making my part. As I’m walking the line I picked up and set down several pieces to get a feel for the fixturing and other things. I noticed that the quality manager was following about 30 feet back and scrapping everything I touched. I thought that was pointless since nothing I’d done would have created a defect. He agreed; but explained that they built parts to process and my handling those parts wasn’t part of the process. The cost of scrapping what I touched was far less then the cost of 1 defect so in his mind it was worth it. Plus, they followed process.
In a world where 40% of the electorate believes a dumb conspiracy theory scrapping the machines Cyber-Ninjas touched. Is a good idea.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:17 amKevin, it’s coming. Might be a GOP state. Might be a DEM state reacting to ‘voter suppression’.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:17 amKevin, it’s coming.
Unless they can reasonably assert that the election was impossible to conduct, or that so many ballots were destroyed, stolen, tainted or otherwise uncountable that no valid results could be obtained, they have no cause to alter the allocation of electors.
Federal law may already prevent this (see discussions of the legality of the Popular Vote Compact), but I would like to see this codified so that courts can’t pick sides.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:27 amBTW, can we agree that the Popular Vote Compact is just the flip side of the Trumpian nonsense?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:28 am@1. Funny how interstate highways signs are that ‘standardized’ green and “racist white” across the country- but voting machinery is not. But AOC outta get on that racist-white-letters-on-signs-slur right away. Maybe black-as-night, instead, eh? You go girl! 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:31 amSource
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:41 amLet us suppose that, in a future election, the PVC is active, and that the putative winner of the Electoral Vote did not win a plurality of popular votes.
Seventeen states, constituting a majority of electoral votes, assign electors to the popular vote winner. In 5 of those states the electors are different from those chosen by that state’s voters, and this results in a different EV winner.
Further, let’s suppose that both houses of Congress are controlled by the party that won the electoral vote by normal ruels, but lost it due to the PVC. If Congress throws out the EVs from those 5 states, replacing them with the choice of the state’s voters, are they “overturning the election”?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:41 amKevin M (ab1c11) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:02 am
The constitution already says
https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/full-text
Article II Section 1 clause 3:
In 1844 Comgress legislated that the Electors shall be chosen on the second Tuesday after the second Monday in November. Vote counting extends longer, and early voting has I guess been considered to not take effect until Election Day. No state can accept votes cast after the time prescribed. There is no freedom to choose (make a decision) past that point.
Aside from constitutional provisions regarding grounds which cannot be used to exclude voters, state legislatures (meaning the whole legislative process, including the governor) have pretty much absolute power to decide how the Electors shall be chosen.
Start of Article II Section 1 clause 2:
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:57 amKevin, I’ll sign on to your proposal.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:00 amwe have an open tab on efforts to get trump
but yeah let’s get worked up about money wasted on nonsense investigations
JF (e1156d) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:02 amActually there is, in certain circumstances. (and it was passed in 1845)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Election_Day_Act
This law could be clarified.
The Democrats don’t seem interested in doing that. I don’t think it’s part of HR1.
Here is the law, as it stands now:
https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/28th-congress/session-2/c28s2ch1.pdf
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:06 amEach State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
A power they have waived for 150 years. I think federal law currently restricts that power to “failed elections.” Something Trump attempted to redefine.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:07 amA power they have waived for 150 years
The power to directly appoint electors.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:10 am‘…they are obsessed with their ridiculous HR 1 voting bill and with spending us into oblivion.‘
LOL: “Full Withdrawal from Afghanistan Is a Mistake”
New Report Exposes Astounding Costs of the Afghanistan War
https://fee.org/articles/new-report-exposes-astounding-costs-of-the-afghanistan-war/
Cost: $2.261 TRILLION to date– and counting.
New, modern voting equipment is a wiser investment. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:12 amLet us suppose that, in a future election, the PVC is active, and that the putative winner of the Electoral Vote did not win a plurality of popular votes.
I look forward to having California, under the PVC, assign its electors to a Republican candidate who was soundly beaten in California.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:16 amIsn’t this an admission that their machines are vulnerable to malicious hacking?
The usual software advice is to install a clean version. The safest most secure company in the world can’t do that?
This sounds more crybaby than anything else.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:28 amKevin M (ab1c11) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:07 am
I think federal law currently restricts that power to “failed elections.”
Federal law restricts the power to appoint Electors past Election Day to failed elections.
He and Giuliani never really explained that.
A state legislature can on;y step in after an election failed.
i think there’s another federal law that says challenges must be resolved (or not resolved?) no later than 6 days before the electors are to vote. Or something like that.
It’s part of the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (parts of which may be extra-constitutional)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/12/08/the-safe-harbor-deadline-for-election-results-has-arrived-what-that-means-for-trump-lawsuits/?sh=bade05537d96
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/08/942288226/bidens-victory-cemented-as-states-reach-deadline-for-certifying-vote-tallies
In 2016, the Democrats did not attempt to challenge the vote counting (they left that to Jill Stein. She was a Russian puppet, but I think Vladimir Putin was having second thoughts because Trump was toying with name Mitt Romney Secretary of State)
But there was a big movement to have Electors cast their votes for someone they were not pledges to.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:28 amBuDuh (7bca93) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:28 am
Not without giving Trumpists more to sue over.
I think they are accepting, for purposes of argument, that the machines can be programmed incorrectly. Of course it is easy to test.
Apparently this is being done because allowing a third party to handle their equipment violates their warranty.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:31 amAlso, it seems as though Maricopa didn’t have administrative passwords to these machines. And I’m not talking about passwords to access proprietary code, just access to data generated by the election. Maricopa signed a pretty crappy lease, IMO.
Of course they could have let the entire audit take place in their election headquarters but that would have made it more difficult for them to piss and moan.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:37 amDoes anyone remember how the “something to hide” argument went? It was something like “If Trump won’t show us his tax returns, he clearly has something to hide.”
Welcome to the party, Maricopa.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:39 amhttps://www.openthebooks.com/assets/1/6/Maricopa_County_AZ_Dominion_Contract_2019.pdf
If that is the correct contract between Dominion and Maricopa, and absent any addendum, it looks like the warranty was for one year.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:48 amBuDuh, do you think the outcome of the election was determined by fraud?
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:50 amStates weren’t about to change their electors, but Giuliani kept saying that.
The closest that came to making sense was that he was saying that if they gave him an extra day or two, he could convince them. (and that’s the only way Trump’s strategy to delay the certification could make any sense)
I don’t know who Giuliani could have been talking to. Maybe several back benchers in one or two state legislatures.
https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/rudy-giuliani-speech-transcript-at-trumps-washington-d-c-rally-wants-trial-by-combat
Trump was planning to delay the certification by Parliamentary procedure, and hoping to buck up Republicans in Congress by demonstrations, but he was not by planning for a mob to interrupt business.
But some people had other ideas.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:56 amFive legislatures or five legislators? What’s the difference?
The big problem is the next election, once many honest Republicans have been replaced.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:58 amI am not rooting for that conclusion, but I haven’t ruled out that some people may have done something.
Raffensperger, in Georgia, is now trying to get to the bottom of a major chain of custody issue with drop box ballots, and he was one of the first to declare that this was the most secure election in history. Rather than deny his right to double check ballot security by pigeonholing him with a gotcha binary question, I would prefer to be more patient and allow him to finish his investigation.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:59 amI read an interesting whacko theory that the business that the mob interrupted wasn’t the certification process but the objection process. In other words, the main force that breached the Capitol was actually trying to shut down the Electoral objections, which they successfully did; not shut down the certification, which went ahead anyways.
It is the makings of an intriguing movie.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 6/29/2021 @ 11:03 amGiuliani, January 6:
Even if you could do that, you’d have to match the change in many precincts and with paper ballots.
There are certain allegations that are just unreasonable to make.
Giuliani claimed earlier that the margin that Trump won by on Pennsylvania was so big that they had to rush the manufacturing of paper ballots And did it in the middle of the night November 3/4, 2020.
He claimed that all ballots that showed only a vote for president were fake – but people are known to do that, and it happens in every election. There’s always dropoff between the top race on the ballot and the down ballot races. But Sidney Powell said that, so it must be true.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/29/2021 @ 11:05 amThey did shut down much of the objection process. There had been plans to object to six states. Dealing with each of them would have taken two hours. Instead, only two objections were made, so they finished maybe earlier than they would have otherwise, in spite of the fact that business was halted for approximately 6 to 8 hours.
Now perhaps Trump was hoping that there would be objections to every state, not just enough to convert a 306-232 to a 232-227 win (in some people’s dreams)
Two hours for every state would consume at least 102 hours, and actually more because of practical difficulties So give it 4 hours per objection. That is 204 hours, and divided by 12 that gives you 17 days – more than enough to take you a past even January 20. (which would make Nancy Pelosi Acting President. No matter what he does, Trump loses.)
But Republicans in Congress weren’t about to do that. They limited the plans to object to six days, which would wrap up the proceedings no later than the early morning of Thursday, January 7, 2021.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/29/2021 @ 11:18 amI wouldn’t want anything that a bunch of nosepickers pawed over returned to me, either.
nk (1d9030) — 6/29/2021 @ 11:31 amArizona ballot audit shows signs of backfiring on GOP
…….
By 49-46 percent, Arizona voters are opposed to the audit, which puts the result within the ( Bendixen & Amandi International) poll’s margin of error. But the survey of 600 likely voters found that the intensity of opposition to the audit exceeded the intensity of support, with those strongly opposed to it outnumbering those strongly in favor by 5 percentage points. And while Democrats and Republicans broke along familiar partisan lines, independent voters upon whom the state pivots in close elections opposed the audit by 18 percentage points.
…….
If a candidate supports the audit, the poll shows, Arizona voters would be less likely to support that politician by a margin of 9 percentage points.
…….
Arizona opposition to the audit grew wider — with 51 percent against it and 44 percent in favor — when respondents were informed about the partisan nature of the effort: it’s being conducted by a firm with no experience in the field, and election experts, Democratic officials and Republican members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors oppose the recount. Those opponents have pointed out that the voting machines have already been checked by an accredited firm and that the election results were validated by a previous audit.
The new polling numbers are similar to a May poll from Arizona-based High Ground Inc., which tends to survey for Republicans, that found 55 percent opposed the audit and 41 percent supported it. That survey also found that, by an 11-point margin, Arizona voters would be less likely to support a candidate who backed the audit.
…….Biden’s favorability rating is almost equally divided, with 49 percent holding positive views of him and 48 percent with a negative view. Trump is in negative territory, with 46 percent holding a favorable opinion and 51 percent a negative opinion of him.
In a head-to-head rematch in Arizona, the poll shows, Biden edges Trump by 51-44 percent. The poll, which was conducted June 17 through June 23, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
……..[O]nly 37 percent of Arizona voters surveyed said Biden deserves a second term, while 53 percent say he does not. Fueling those numbers: strong Republican opposition to the president, relatively tepid Democratic support and double-digit opposition from independents.
……..
Sen. Mark Kelly, who faces reelection next year, is viewed favorably by 48 percent of voters and unfavorably by 41 percent. His job approval rating is slightly better, with 51 percent approving and 35 percent disapproving.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is viewed favorably by 50 percent and unfavorably by 37 percent, essentially identical to her job-approval numbers.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 6/29/2021 @ 11:46 am……..
Re the dissonance in the Arizona polling re Trump and generic Republican, this may be the way.
urbanleftbehind (1cfcdc) — 6/29/2021 @ 11:51 am@13. we have an open tab on efforts to get trump but yeah let’s get worked up about money wasted on nonsense investigations
It’s his party. NeverTrumpers and irrelevant ideological conservatives, who lost control of the GOP to the monster and his masses they created [‘tail no longer wags dog – film at 11’] re terrified he will run again- and win, given the weak performance of Squinty McStumblebum and vacuous persona -and fear- of Pantssuit Queenie inheriting the gig.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 6/29/2021 @ 12:47 pm@29, cool conspiracy theory. Which wakado is pushing that one?
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/29/2021 @ 12:48 pmI don’t live in Arizona… I wish them well…
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/06/29/maricopa-county-officials-accidentally-admit-voting-machines-can-be-compromised-n1458111
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/29/2021 @ 1:02 pm@37, Those machines just count ballots. If they were hacked to give Biden extra votes it would be caught in a hand re-count. None of the hand. Re-counts on dominion voting machines have found a significant discrepancy. So far this is just more stupidity from conspiracy theorists who can’t accept that their historically disliked candidate lost.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/29/2021 @ 1:19 pmPretty expensive for such a simple task. Either way it sounds like you think these specific machines can still be used in future elections?
BuDuh (7bca93) — 6/29/2021 @ 1:29 pm“Shut up!”, the Left minces…
Meanwhile, Rome burns…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/29/2021 @ 1:30 pmI wonder.
nk (1d9030) — 6/29/2021 @ 3:29 pmWhen Queen Elizabeth dies.
And Trump claims that he and Prince Charles were switched at birth.
And that he, Trump, is the rightful heir to the throne of England.
Will the Arizona legislature order an audit of the Metropolitan London birth records?
39. BuDuh (7bca93) — 6/29/2021 @ 1:29 pm
They seem to be near monopolies. Just three companies dominate 90% of the market. Systems might be replaced once in every 15 years. The oligopoly is maintained by complicated certification requirements since the year 2000.
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-market-for-voting-machines-is-broken-this-company-has-thrived-in-it
And maybe by lawsuits.
And it isn’t so simple. The’re not supposed to make mistakes. They’re supposed to be tamper proof.
Of course this is ProPublica.
In 2019.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/29/2021 @ 3:39 pmScanning over the comments on the Bill Barr thread I noticed a consistent claim that specific evidence of fraud needs to be provided or the argument that fraud existed does not have any merit. I think that is a reasonable position when narrowly focused accusations are leveled.
So in that same vein, has Maricopa provided specific evidence that Cyber Ninjas has defrauded anyone? That their machines have suffered irreversible harm?
BuDuh (7bca93) — 6/29/2021 @ 4:00 pmI look forward to having California, under the PVC, assign its electors to a Republican candidate who was soundly beaten in California.
You think that’s a problem? Suppose they reneged.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/29/2021 @ 4:13 pmArizona ballot audit shows signs of backfiring on GOP
Where have you been the last few years? When has such a consideration dissuaded Trumpies from boldly going where angels fear to tread?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/29/2021 @ 4:16 pmSammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/29/2021 @ 11:05 am
I keep hearing this. My district didn’t have paper ballots you can “match” like this.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/29/2021 @ 4:18 pmI look forward to having California, under the PVC, assign its electors to a Republican candidate who was soundly beaten in California.
But the real question is: Once states have committed to ignoring the voters in their state, and casting their electoral votes on some other formula, at what point is any change to that “overturning an election.” It’s already been overturned once; it would seem after that it’s just who has how many guns.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/29/2021 @ 4:20 pmOther PVC fun: Let’s say the election is close. Several states that are NOT in the popular vote compact refuses to recount their votes as there is a >20% margin in those states.
Who forces them to recount? Who, outside that state even has standing? I think they could report round numbers and be OK.
The PVC is a destabilizingly bad idea.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/29/2021 @ 4:24 pmThis is a bit of nonsense. The legislative bodies referred to by definition already represent the will of the people.
Basically, the exact thing you just said overruled the will of the people. Unless the new rule is only D’s can represent the will of the people.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/29/2021 @ 4:27 pmMaricopa is saying that (a) the machines can be hacked and (b) they have no way to know they haven’t been hacked. Those two things are true whether the cyber ninjas got their hands on them or not.
That last one seems like something someone should do something about. To bad we can’t because Trump.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/29/2021 @ 4:34 pm46, frosty (f27e97) — 6/29/2021 @ 4:18 pm
Tes, A small fraction of election districts din;t have paper ballots. About 5% I think.
But i think most or all of the results Trump was challenging did have paper ballots. And of course all the absentee votes were by paper ballot.
There are also other duplicate records possible.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/29/2021 @ 4:56 pmSammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/29/2021 @ 4:56 pm
Fair point.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/29/2021 @ 5:10 pm@43, No, they haven’t made the accusation that. CN did anything. They just don’t trust them.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/29/2021 @ 5:13 pmFrosty, Some states don’t but. Most do. All should. List is below.
https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_methods_and_equipment_by_state
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/29/2021 @ 5:16 pmSammy, if you look at the link i provided all of the tipping points states have paper ballots.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/29/2021 @ 5:17 pmOT:
Trump rally in Mobile’s Battleship Park cancelled amid concerns of ‘partisan political event’: Report
Plans for former President Donald Trump to return July 4th weekend to the city many credited with lending legitimacy to his 2016 campaign after USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park commissioners reportedly did not sign off on a plan for Trump to hold a rally at the Mobile site.
The commissioners were concerned that Trump’s appearance on Saturday “was going to be a partisan political event, rather than just a patriotic event planned for that evening,” Bill Tunnell, chairman of the commission, told NBC 15.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 6/29/2021 @ 5:18 pm…….
Yah think?
Supreme Court Rejects Request to Lift Federal Ban on Evictions
…….
The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Brett M. Kavanaugh in the majority.
The court gave no reasons for its ruling, which is typical when it acts on emergency applications. But Justice Kavanaugh issued a brief concurring opinion explaining that he had cast his vote reluctantly and had taken account of the impending expiration of the moratorium.
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention exceeded its existing statutory authority by issuing a nationwide eviction moratorium,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote. “Because the C.D.C. plans to end the moratorium in only a few weeks, on July 31, and because those few weeks will allow for additional and more orderly distribution of the congressionally appropriated rental assistance funds, I vote at this time to deny the application” that had been filed by landlords, real estate companies and trade associations.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 6/29/2021 @ 5:24 pm………
That is a valid argument?
BuDuh (7bca93) — 6/29/2021 @ 5:42 pmdis·in·gen·u·ous | \ ˌdis-in-ˈjen-yə-wəs , -yü-əs \
nk (1d9030) — 6/29/2021 @ 6:06 pmDefinition of disingenuous
: lacking in candor
also : giving a false appearance of simple frankness : CALCULATING
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/29/2021 @ 5:13 pm
What they have done is admit they can’t certify a machine as clean. They should dump the machines for that reason alone but I’m guessing no one is really noticing this issue and making sure the new machines can be certified. They’re also admitting their process wouldn’t protect them from hacked machines.
Assuming you take what they’re saying at face value and follow it to its logical conclusion.
I think this is being spun for fun and profit though and they don’t realize what it implies for their process. Personally, I’d advocate a process like you mentioned above.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/29/2021 @ 6:34 pm(NYC) Board of Elections ‘Discrepancy’ Puts Mayoral Primary Vote in Disarray
The New York City mayor’s race plunged into chaos on Tuesday night when the city Board of Elections released a new tally of votes in the Democratic mayoral primary, and then removed the tabulations from its website after citing a “discrepancy.”
The results released earlier in the day had suggested that the race between Eric Adams and his two closest rivals had tightened significantly.
But just a few hours after releasing the results, the elections board issued a cryptic tweet revealing a “discrepancy” in the report, saying that it was working with its “technical staff to identify where the discrepancy occurred.”
Rip Murdock (cbadfd) — 6/29/2021 @ 7:34 pm………
By late Tuesday evening, the tabulations had been taken down, replaced by a new advisory that the ranked-choice results would be available “starting on June 30.”
……..
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/29/2021 @ 4:24 pm
What if you don;t know the results in time?
But ignoring details is the usual for people who come up with ideas like this.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/29/2021 @ 7:46 pmWhen there is a problem, like there was with the Iowa Democratic caucuses in 2020 or with the New York City mayoral and other ranked choice voting results today, it is easy to tell there is a problem (unless you have very skilled fraudsters involved) but it is not so easy, or so quick at any rate, to get the correct results.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/29/2021 @ 7:49 pmThe New York City Board of Elections decided they needed to test out their ranked choice software. SO they scanned in about 130,000 dummy ballots – and then they forgot they needed to clear them from the system before running the real ballots!
All this is very preliminary – it does not include any absentee ballots. There were about 730,000 votes cast in person in the Democratic primary for mayor – several thousand maybe could have been left out from the results released on Election Night – but the numbers coming out were around 900,000 – and this did not include the absentee ballots. If the test ballots were completely random it may not have affected the results very much.
They should have made every ballot public and let everybody else run them through the ranked choice system.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/29/2021 @ 7:55 pmHaving read through a number of (mostly repetitive) articles about the Maricopa voting machines, allow me to propose an alternate argument: There is a legal requirement that voting machines have an unbroken chain of custody to be certified. There’s no (legal) mechanism to re-certify a machine with a broken custody chain. The machines in question have broken custody chains. Therefore they can’t be used again.
It may in fact not be difficult to actually re-certify a machine, but whatever legal process was created probably expected this sort of problem to be rare, one-off occurrences, rather than it happening to dozens of machines.
Davethulhu (13b53b) — 6/29/2021 @ 7:57 pmBill Barr quoted by WPost 2020 Dec 1. Three weeks post election. (I assume Barr’s statement was made previous to the date of the article which would make it even more hasty)
Bill Barr told AP U.S. attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up specific complaints and information they’ve received, but to date, “we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
Lets put aside that the photo accompanying the article was of John Durham
OK. So after an entire 20 days of “seeing” which in context means “working” and following up”, whatever that means, nothing of “scale” was seen. Well. That settles that.
This from a DOJ that seems OK with a one year law license suspension for a DOJ lawyer who altered document in a FISA request. Try that at home and you get 5 years and lucky to be a trash collector when you get out.
I saw enough DOJ parsing from Comey, McCabe and Stryok to know now that “seeing”, “working” and “following up” mean nothing without seeing unredacted evidence of what this process of “seeing, working and following up” entailed… beyond of course the nebulous terminology put together as fluffy as cotton candy and then surrounded by the word “scale” to give it a veneer.
Release the full report then so we know it doesn’t read:
steveg (ebe7c1) — 6/29/2021 @ 8:02 pmAgent A: Called lady B in Atlanta. Her assistant (first name only Z) says lady B is unavailable until Jan 21.
They should have made every ballot public and let everybody else run them through the ranked choice system.
Make you a bet they miscoded it.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/29/2021 @ 8:12 pmThere is a legal requirement that voting machines have an unbroken chain of custody to be certified.
The Trump supporter comrades know that, Davethulhu. See, disingenuous.
nk (1d9030) — 6/29/2021 @ 8:16 pmDavethulhu (13b53b) — 6/29/2021 @ 7:57 pm
That’s a very reasonable argument they could make. It’s the argument I’d make. Is it the argument they’re making?
frosty (f27e97) — 6/29/2021 @ 8:18 pmThat’s a very reasonable argument they could make. It’s the argument I’d make. Is it the argument they’re making?
Yes.
nk (1d9030) — 6/29/2021 @ 8:26 pmnk (1d9030) — 6/29/2021 @ 8:26 pm
Hmmm, what I don’t see is any citation to a legal requirement. I see a lot of “concern”. It also ends with
This doesn’t say they are prohibited from redeploying the equipment pursuant to a code section or judicial ruling. They explicitly accept that the county can lawfully reuse the equipment absent a proceeding they would properly consider. Looking at the code section and the elections manual it’s not clear that the referenced decertification process would apply to specific equipment though.
Again, it may be that they are legally required to not reuse the machines but they aren’t making that claim. They’re making the claim that it’s just a bad idea, which also can be true.
Actually, reading the original letter and the Arizona Elections Manual I noticed a few things, 1) I don’t think the SOS thinks anyone will take the time to read the manual since she’s making claims it doesn’t support, 2) the manual requires a system (and this is an term defined in the manual) that wouldn’t be susceptible to the type of hacking she’s gravely concerned about, 3) it describes at length a process to check and validate the correct working of the machines.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:26 pmHeh! Save it for Time123, frosty. It doesn’t work with me.
nk (1d9030) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:44 pmBut thanks for going to the trouble.
nk (1d9030) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:44 pmfrosty (f27e97) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:26 pm
OT and from the other thread; after reading the Arizona manual my comment about AZ being unverifiable was incorrect. At least if I’m understanding their manual and they’re following it. I was working from the statements made by the SOS and the county and now I’m not sure why they are making the statements they’re making.
I actually went back and reviewed my own state’s guidelines and I’m a little curious why my experience voting didn’t match those guidelines.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:53 pmnk (1d9030) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:44 pm
You jumped in and now want to jump back out? That checks out.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/29/2021 @ 9:58 pmSo after the people have already voiced their will in the choice for president, a legislature can say “No, the people made the wrong choice. We represent the true will of the people, and we choose the other candidate.”
Might as well dispense with presidential elections by the people and just have legislatures make the choice. Surely the people will be confident that their will is represented, won’t they?
Radegunda (33a224) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:18 pmRadegunda (33a224) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:18 pm
You’re begging the question. An election is only an expression of the will of the people if it was valid and the legislature has some voice in that process.
Well, that’s not exactly what’s being said by the legislature. So, we’ve got begging the question and a straw man in the same comment? It’s a two for one.
Seems like they are in the unlikely case of a contingent election.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:49 pmI think that, despite the letter from the Maricopa County attorney, a final ruling has yet to be made. However, I’d like to address this:
“2) the manual requires a system (and this is an term defined in the manual) that wouldn’t be susceptible to the type of hacking she’s gravely concerned about”
An air-gapped and physically secure system is much less vulnerable than one where someone has unmonitored direct access.
Davethulhu (13b53b) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:58 pmSteveG, your comment is a perfect example of how this conspiracy theory isn’t falsifiable. Trump’s own AG stated that they didn’t have evidence the election was stolen. Instead of accepting that you instead conclude that he’s covering up the conspiracy to steal the election.
Since he made that statement there have been dozens of lawsuits and Trump has raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Has any of that work found evidence that the election outcome was determined by fraud? Has it even found a basis for for a plausible claim on how it could have happened?
Or are you ‘just asking questions’ and ‘pointing out that we can’t know for sure’?
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 4:48 am@60, Frosty, Being able to certify an optical scanner as working properly is a substantially harder when you’ve lost control of the equipment and don’t know what may or may not have been done to it.
If an election counting machine was given to a cyber security firm run by a partisan grifter for an extended period of time I would agree that we should be skeptical of it’s proper working order and do a hand recount of those ballots. But since AFAIK nothing close to that has happened I don’t think this indicts the entire system in the way that you assert.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 4:54 am@58, apparently it was persuasive to the people who have to run the next election.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 4:55 amTime123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 4:54 am
You may want to reread my comments. After reading the Arizona manual I’m no longer indicting the entire AZ system. I’ve done that thing where you process new information and then determine a prior conclusion was wrong. If they are doing what their manual says they are doing it should be possible to (a) easily do a recount and (b) test the machines.
Now I’m wondering why the recount is a clown show, at least on the part of the county, SOS, and state people and I’m wondering why the county can’t follow the L&A process.
I think the person indicting the AZ system now is the AZ SOS. If they are following there own process there would be no point in hacking the machines. I wouldn’t put those machines back into the system without testing them per their own process and even then I might not but the SOS isn’t doing that in a way that strengthens confidence in the system.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/30/2021 @ 5:49 amDavethulhu (13b53b) — 6/29/2021 @ 10:58 pm
This is true but only to a degree and it misses the point. Did you read the AZ elections manual? It describes a complete system, not just a component, that must do several things as part of the voting process. Namely, it must produce a physical ballot that can be visually verified by the voter as reflecting their vote and that would allow them to destroy a mistake and vote again. In this system there would be no reason to hack the machine producing the ballot or the machine scanning and counting them since those would be detected by a manual recount.
Of course you could hack both and do your best to prevent a hand recount or a test of the machines but the R’s who had possession of the machines aren’t in the position to do that.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/30/2021 @ 6:05 amFrosty, sorry i didn’t keep up. Maricopa has already done a recount and an audit of the machines. This, as you aptly put it, clown show isn’t being run by the county. The State GOP party didn’t like the results. They didn’t have any specific objections to either the process or the firms that did the work. But they hired Cyber Ninjja’s to come in and try one more time.
https://kjzz.org/content/1661549/latest-audits-dispel-rumors-about-maricopa-county-election-process
https://kjzz.org/content/1654117/maricopa-county-board-orders-audit-election-equipment-and-software
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 6:07 amwhat If one of the technicians did something wrong in the re-assembly and it’s not caught in the re-certification process? I don’t know how complex these things are but even a simple human error could cause immense problems if shows up in publicly reported results. See Antim Co. MI for an example of that.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 6:22 am65. Davethulhu (13b53b) — 6/29/2021 @ 7:57 pm
I suppose if it was ordered by a ourt, you would have a chain of custody, but in this case there was no recording of exactly who or even what organization was in proximity to the machines. Perhaps the kind of detail of exactly what is meant by a “chain of custody” might be in one of the numerous articles you can encounter.
Not quite exactly the situation.
The machines actually remain certified at this point, but (Democrat) Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs wants to consider decertifying them “pursuant to A.R.S.§16-442” She’s writing the County Board of Elections to make sure she gets an opportunity to decertify them. She doesn’t say she necessarily would but she doesn’t trust Cyber Ninjas. If she finds them OK, she would not re-certify them, but she would eschew de-certifying them.
The County board decided just not to bother. If they say they won’t use them again, the Arizona Secretary of State doesn’t get to pronounce about what Cyber Ninjas did. They almost certainly did not rig the machines for future elections (in what way would they do it?) although they may have broken them.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/30/2021 @ 6:53 amTime123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 6:22 am
This is a very important point. The AZ manual describes a process that would validate the correct working of the machines as part of the overall system prior to an election. I’ll go back and reread it but I think it actually requires those tests prior to an election.
The implication of the SOS’s comments are that she doesn’t trust the process to validate the system, and I’m intentionally using that instead of machine.
BTW; certification, decertification, and recertification are defined in the manual in a way inconsistent with how it’s being used in some of these comments and by the SOS.
And again, I’m not saying I’d let these machines back into the system but the SOS isn’t doing anyone any favors with the way she’s going about this.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/30/2021 @ 6:58 amSammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/30/2021 @ 6:53 am
It’s not clear to me that 16-442 would allow the SOS to “decertify” specific machines. That isn’t what decertify means in this context.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/30/2021 @ 7:15 amWhat I learned about Dominion voting machines from events in GA and MI.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 6/30/2021 @ 7:34 amOne, they’re air-gapped. They have no connection to the internet so they cannot be hacked by Russians or Chinese or Venezuelans or basement-dwelling hackers wearing athleisure.
Two, they print paper ballots so voters can check the results before dropping them in.
Three, problems can happen if the software is not appropriately updated, a la Antrim County. This implies that a hacker in physical possession of a voting machine can reprogram it to taint results. However…
Four, hand recounts, like what happened in GA, should settle any voting controversy but haven’t because so many are invested in the cultish belief of a lying con man president.
Five, never mind, I don’t have a fifth point.
So … is Maricopa County election officials wait with bated breath to see if glorious commentariat approve their purchase of new machines? How long we keep them hanging, comrades?
nk (1d9030) — 6/30/2021 @ 7:41 amFrosty, I’m sure that it’s within human ability to be sure the machines are working properly. I’m also sure that losing candidates will seize on any irregularity, real or imagined, to claim ‘fraud’. (See Antim and the Kraken suite) They will be supported by liars and grifters and conspiracy theorists. People who lack your attention to detail will find the claims concerning if not conclusive and ask that we do more. At a minimum we get another hand recount. Maybe we get another audit or another clown show.
Earlier you were saying you wanted to do more to ensure election integrity even though you couldn’t show that it was necessary to prevent actual fraud. I think this is an example of what that might look like.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 8:47 amTime123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 8:47 am
I really didn’t say this. Why is it so hard to just read what I said and take it at face value? Why add things I didn’t say and you know I won’t agree with?
At no point have I said we should overturn the results. I’ve said the opposite. But here we are with you implying that I’m arguing in bad faith. I can go back to the underlying issue but if you’re fixed at me just being dishonest is there any reason to do that?
frosty (f27e97) — 6/30/2021 @ 10:28 amPaul Montagu (5de684) — 6/30/2021 @ 7:34 am
Air-gapping doesn’t prevent hacking. It just makes it difficult, and probably requires spreading a virus that lays dormant most places.
What I would want to know is can a machine accept input. if, for instance all the software is ROM, then how could i be tampered with?
But air-gapping didn’t stop the United States and Israel from destroying Iranian centrifuges. All you need is a widespread virus spread by USB drives or an accomplice with access to the machines. (and very specialized malware)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/30/2021 @ 10:39 amIn numerous different “styles”
One thing the audit was supposedly doing was testing ballots for bamboo fibers, because, under one imaginative theory, spare ballots had been printed in China for purposes of substitution – only they would supposedly contain bamboo fibers because bamboo grows in China.
This has to do with what the filled in ovals mean. Of course the most cursory check will reveal that they are not set right. And the almost any look at the results by an informed person will tell you to check.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/30/2021 @ 10:47 amfrosty (f27e97) — 6/30/2021 @ 6:58 am
Deciding, right before using it, to test the rank choice software calculations, in a stupid way, with names of the real candidates in that election, introduced an error into the preliminary ranked choice tabulations released by the New York City Board of Elections yesterday.
They don’t know they should use spices or cartoon characters or candidates in a previous election? Black Olives or Green Peppers getting 3% to 5% of first choice votes would kind of stick out.
It took a candidate Eric Adams to notice that there were more than 100,000 extra votes in the system (some more minor candidates also noticed, and also candidates for comptroller) The Board of Elections later said there were 135,000 dummy votes in the system before the 730,000 or so real votes were inputted. They did not add the absentee or affidavit ballots – this was just a report of what results the ranked choice system would produce if only votes cast on Election Day or early voting were used. About 16% of the votes were missing. They didn’t start on the absentee votes until all of them were in.
Now Trump is saying this shows he is right and we’ll never know the results. But, first of all, it was detected within a few hours.
In countries that cheat in elections, you can know it but they don’t do anything about it.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/30/2021 @ 11:06 amFrosty, I didn’t intend my comment to say that you wanted to overturn the election. Just that you wanted more steps taken to ensure it’s validity. Has your position changed (in which case I’m sorry I didn’t follow that) or did i just misunderstand you?
I’m not sure what i said isn’t the comment you quoted that made you think I was accusing you of wanting to overturn the election. You’ve been clear that you do no and I believe you are sincere. I even pointed out that someone with your attention to detail would not be as concerned by what CN might have done. That was intended as a compliment to your open mindedness and research ability.
My point is that throwing out the existing machines that Cyber Ninja has been working on instead of re-certifying them is an example of doing more to ensure the validity of the count even though it may not be technically necessary. I think it’ll probably be less expensive in the long run, but hard to know for sure.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 11:40 am@95, Sammy, this is another great example of how liars and grifters will use any issue as ‘proof’ that it’s fraud.
You’re on fire lately btw.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 11:43 am#89 Back from 2020 when NBC was worried Trump would steal the election
it’s air gapped until…..
NBC
“The three largest voting manufacturing companies — Election Systems &Software, Dominion Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic — have acknowledged they all put modems in some of their tabulators and scanners. The reason? So that unofficial election results can more quickly be relayed to the public. Those modems connect to cell phone networks, which, in turn, are connected to the internet.
The largest manufacturer of voting machines, ES&S, told NBC News their systems are protected by firewalls and are not on the “public internet.” But both Skoglund and Andrew Appel, a Princeton computer science professor and expert on elections, said such firewalls can and have been breached.
“AT&T and Verizon and so on try and protect as best they can the security of their phone network from the rest of the internet, but it’s still part of the internet,” Appel explained. “There can still be security holes that allow hackers to get into the phone network.”
The 35 systems Skoglund’s team found represent a fraction of total voting systems nationwide, though he believes they only captured a portion of the systems that are or have been online. Earlier this week, Skoglund showed NBC three election systems were still online even after officials had been told they were vulnerable.”
Here is a report from October 2020
https://www.financialexecutives.org/FEI-Daily/October-2020/Election-Hacking-Facts-Vs-Fears.aspx
The devices in the Voting Village range from DRE voting machines and electronic poll books to BMD voting machines, optical scanners, and hybrid systems that combine various methods. The 2019 DEF CON Voting Machine Hacking Village report noted that village participants were capable of “compromising every one of the devices in the room in ways that could alter stored vote tallies, change ballots displayed to voters, or alter the internal software that controls the machines.” Write-ups of each machine’s vulnerabilities included in the DEF CON report provided some alarming details regarding the security of these devices: unrestricted ports (such as USB, RJ45, and CF), plain-text encryption keys being stored in an XML file, no BIOS passwords set (allowing an attacker the ability to change the boot order and other system settings), unencrypted hard drives, unnecessary software being installed on many of the devices (including web browsers and default bloatware, such as Netflix), default credentials, and susceptibility to attacks based on denial of service (DoS), which could be used to prevent voters from participating.”
Here is the link to the defcon voting hack-a-thon
https://harris.uchicago.edu/files/def_con_27_voting_village_report.pdf
I think page 20 is on Dominion machines
I see the machines also have a USB port or ports for thumb drives, through card readers etc but it seems you could just as easily connect any USB to USB drive device that also has an internet connection.
Any machine with software or firmware that can/needs to be updated is not air gapped from a human
This whole thread confirms that the machines are vulnerable because they are now considered to be hopelessly compromised.
steveg (ebe7c1) — 6/30/2021 @ 12:13 pmOr maybe I misunderstand what “air gapped” means. In this context it seems that the machines modems are air gapped until the connection with the internet is made wirelessly, or air gapped by modemless machines until a drive is connected via USB port to the USB port of something portable by a human that can contain a modem, or that simply “updates” software or firmware
Last paragraph of mine is confusing.
steveg (ebe7c1) — 6/30/2021 @ 12:28 pmWas trying to say that this post by the host confirmed the idea that the machines were and are vulnerable if left in the hands of bad actors and idiots
steveg (ebe7c1) — 6/30/2021 @ 12:13 pm
It’s what the SOS is claiming and it’s what she’s saying the DHS is also saying. This even though the AZ elections manual describes a process for testing and validating the system. So, she’s saying more than that the machines are hopelessly compromised. She’s implying that the system as a whole can’t be validated. After all, the other checks and balances wouldn’t uncover these compromised machines.
Someone needs to trademark the “magic hack” or maybe the “undetectable hack”. It’s a modern day single bullet theory.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/30/2021 @ 12:35 pmI really didn’t say this. Why is it so hard to just read what I said and take it at face value? Why add things I didn’t say and you know I won’t agree with?
A very common tactic deployed by lefty sh*tbirds…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/30/2021 @ 12:41 pmColonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/30/2021 @ 12:41 pm
I don’t put Time123 in this category.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/30/2021 @ 12:45 pmYou are very generous.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/30/2021 @ 12:51 pmdis·in·gen·u·ous | \ ˌdis-in-ˈjen-yə-wəs , -yü-əs \
Definition of disingenuous
: lacking in candor
also : giving a false appearance of simple frankness : CALCULATING
Shorter: Reaganoptics.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 6/30/2021 @ 1:06 pmFrosty, Colonel Haiku doesn’t like me because I called him out on lying previously and declined to let it go. So he now he calls me names. I usually ignore him, because that’s the easiest way to deal with dishonest people online. I hope my follow up comment made my point more clear.
If you manually re-count the ballots you will catch a machine that’s counting incorrectly. Given the lies and conspiracy theories about elections right now do you honestly expect the loser of the next election to use these machines not to demand that and use CN as a pretext to claim election fraud?
Maricopa already had an independent audit of the machines. They had a had recount.. But the AZ senate refused to accept those results and most of the public isn’t interested enough in the details to try and understand it so now we have cyber ninja’s running another audit.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 1:11 pmI called you out for what you do. You called me a liar. Give one specific instance.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/30/2021 @ 1:26 pmYou lied repeatedly about the testimony of the CEO of crowdstrike to congress.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 1:38 pmBS. Be specific. Pull up/link one lie.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/30/2021 @ 1:41 pmTime123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 1:11 pm
A similar rule is leaving me with a shrinking list of options.
No, I fully expect the loser in all future elections to make whatever claims they think they can get away with. I don’t think anyone needs CN as a pretext for election fraud. We’re well past anyone needing any pretext, or at least I am. There seems to be some disagreement about 2016.
One of my problems was with machines that did not produce human readable ballots that can be verified when cast and facilitate recounting. Sammy pointed out that most do. Good. I reread the rules for AZ and it seems they do. I started out making an argument for that situation that wasn’t correct. I’ve got no issues with AZ now other than this nonsense coming from the SOS. The reason I want to increase integrity is to increase confidence and decrease the scope of things both sides think they can get away claiming.
If AZ has an election process that appears reliable and they are following it then AZ R’s are be-clowning themselves. I can’t prevent that and really won’t speak against it as long as they are within legal limits. I can only advocate for a system that makes the be-clowning more apparent.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/30/2021 @ 1:44 pmAdditionally, you dishonest troll, my next comment explained that I hadn’t intended to misrepresent frosty’s position and that I didn’t feel I had done so in my comment. Frosty hasn’t responded to that yet. But maybe you can point out where I accused him of wanted to over turn the election?
Here’s the text of the comment in question.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 1:44 pmFrosty, I think we’re very much on the same page about paper ballots for recounts. I also think you’re right about future elections. Beclowning doesn’t seem to matter. When you point out that there’s no evidence, or that a claim has been disproved, they just assert the investigators were part of covering it up. Look at SteveG’s comment about Barr as just 1 example.
One of the things that really frustrates me is the long term damage this has done to our country. Half our political leadership is fully on board with these lies. I’m sure the next time they win the other half will run the same play.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 1:51 pmI didn’t think you could, thanks.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/30/2021 @ 1:59 pmTime123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 1:44 pm
I was hoping to let that go since I’m not a back and forth argue for the sake of argument type of person. I’m a water under the bridge, ok, I had more but I was laughing to hard.
I’ll admit to conflating some comments between you and other commenters. I try to keep track but don’t always. If asked explicitly I’d have to say when I’ve had a chance to back away from a given comment that I really shouldn’t accuse anyone of intentionally doing something. I can’t read minds. I’ve tried to be as clear as I can, I misunderstand other people’s comments, I try to not take it to far and offend anyone, I don’t always succeed.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/30/2021 @ 2:01 pmTime123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 1:51 pm
I have a slightly different take on what steveg‘s referencing and I wouldn’t use “cover up” for that situation.
I think the DOJ has covered itself in sh14 in a way that completely baffles me. And I’m referring to both the quality, quantity, and method of “covering”. This is more than just 2020 election fraud.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/30/2021 @ 2:10 pmFrosty, no worries. I was more concerned that, through bad grammar, bad typing, poor writing, or just just flat out error I had unintentionally done so. We’re good.
Your point that the DOJ has generally done a poor job is hard to dispute. But, Barr is competent and hadn’t pushed back on trump publicly before. I assume that when he makes a statement like that in his area he knows what he’s talking about.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 2:17 pmTime123 (9f42ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 2:17 pm
You have far more faith in authority than I do
frosty (f27e97) — 6/30/2021 @ 2:39 pmDo you have a link?
Thanks in advance.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 6/30/2021 @ 2:50 pm97.
@95, Sammy, this is another great example of how liars and grifters will use any issue as ‘proof’ that it’s fraud
This web page includes Trump’s statement.
https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-ties-new-york-city-board-of-elections-mistake-to-2020-loss-nobody-will-ever-know-who-really-won
Nobody can change it, of course, and the problem was with using the ranked choice system, something that San Francisco and Oakland and the sate of Maine have managed with no such trouble.
In New York City it applies only to primary elections for city offices and replaces a system where there was a runoff between the top two candidates for citywide offices if no candidate got more than 40%> Borough presidents and members of the city council had no runoff. When the top two are both below 30% this can lead to a bad selection. In 2005, four candidates for Public Advocate were bunched near 16%
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/30/2021 @ 3:00 pmLooks like CNN has joined the Liars ‘n’ Grifters Proof of Fraud Party:
Corrupt??? But they are officials. They must be trusted.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 6/30/2021 @ 3:12 pmBuDuh (7bca93) — 6/30/2021 @ 2:50 pm
This is a link for the machine audit and it has a link to another article on the hand recount.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/30/2021 @ 3:15 pmThe old system – the very old voting machine system with no paper ballots – lost votes.
First, approximately 2% (my estimate) of the people who went in to vote lost their votes because they pulled back the large red lever the other way before casting their votes, especially after 1990 when the curtain no loner closed and opened. Everybody knew this but in its written material, intended I guess for lawyers or people totally unfamiliar with the system, the Board of Elections claimed people did this on purpose.
The only circumstances in which anyone would do this on purpose would be maybe if someone came in to cote for a specific candidate for a minor office where no major one was on the ballot and discovered they were in a different district than they thought. Or a protest. some kind of an emergency. But this would be rare.
After the 2000 election and the passage of a federal vote law New York came under pressure to change the system. They delayed getting rid of the voting machines, but they did fix that problem. It turned out that back at about 1962 when they bought the new generation of voting machines the machines had come with a method to prevent that. However it was stopped after a year or two. Maybe a deal between Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who ran statewide as a Republican, and urban Democrats.
The fix was to require at least one vote for one office to be cast in order to end the voting for that person and register your vote. And, just in case somebody didn’t want to vote – changed their mind, pr discovered they were in a strange district, whatever – there was a silver lever near the bottom right which represented a dummy vote.
There was another way people could lose votes, which I don’t think anybody who knew wanted to talk about.
Sometimes the gear that advanced the total number of votes for a candidate got stuck. I’d estimate one out of 100 choices, bit on a totally random basis. There were many voting choices which nobody would use so it wouldn’t affect that much. You wouldn’t spot it. But in November 1990, I discovered that in one election district – the one I worked the table at – the number of votes cast for Chuck Schumer for Congress was 9. My co-worker, or one of them, (we had 4 to a table) a Republican, expressed surprise and maybe that included gratification that Schumer had received so few votes, But this was nor reflected anywhere else. The gear had simply got stuck at 9 and did not advance to 10. There was no place to report such a problem, so I suppose unless somebody paid microscopic attention to the election returns nobody noticed. In another place in 1992 I noticed that there were no votes for Perot (I think) and that was improbable.
You saw these numbers when the polls closed and you ended further voting on that machine..
Although there was no trace of how an individual voted, there were numerous precautions. Opening
and closing the machine was a complicated process. And each machine had a “Public Counter” number and a “Protective counter” number. One was the total number of votes, including tests, that had ever been “cast” on that machine, and the other was set to 000 at the beginning of the day. Both should advance by the same amount. That amount should equal the number of voters signed in that day who voted on the machine. We wrote those numbers down on the tally sheet.
Also we recorded every vote total next to every name on the ballot immediately after the polls closed. We made three copies and they went to different places – one was taken by the police officer. You could also record vote totals for some offices to give to some some district leader or some campaign. Of course all records were supposed to match.
You could have an error, of course, in letting someone vote – perhaps in the wrong primary.
But not in counting. It was paper ballots where you had the possibility of stuffing the ballot box, or altering votes. With machines, that could not be done – that’s why I think they started using them, I think in about 1892.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/30/2021 @ 3:19 pmThe New York City Board of Elections is a patronage mill – split among both major parties. To work on Election Day they take anyone now, but for the early voting, which stated in 2020 I think, it was only people recommended by a district leader. I got icluded in June 2019 kind of by accident.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/30/2021 @ 3:22 pmAny word if the insurrectionists who surrounded the White House yesterday blocking exits and intimidating politicians are going to be charged accordingly?
NJRob (60690c) — 6/30/2021 @ 3:39 pmIf I understand some comrades correctly, if Barzini family take Corleone family cars and keep them for months and then Corleone family not want drive those cars anymore is proof that Studebakers blow up. Is like that, comrades?
nk (1d9030) — 6/30/2021 @ 3:47 pmYou are such a kidder, Rob!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/30/2021 @ 3:47 pmRIP Donald Rumsfeld, aged 88 years.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/30/2021 @ 3:49 pmhttps://gothamist.com/news/ranked-choice-voting-software-company-says-nyc-boe-ignored-offer-help-carry-out-citywide-election
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 6/30/2021 @ 4:38 pmSomething is maybe wrong with that link. Or with the broweer I attempted to view it with.
Here is a different link:
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/nyc-elections-2021/ny-nyc-primary-elections-boe-voting-software-20210630-qftqootl3ngbzjybngpoycztje-story.html
Sammy Finkelman (b434ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 5:10 pmThe corrected results are exactly the same.
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/nyc-elections-2021/ny-nyc-mayoral-race-results-corrected-numbers-20210630-n5facfqgzbayhpernn2vxw3w2y-story.html
Is the only error the total number of votes shown, but the ranking was done on only the real ballots>?
Sammy Finkelman (b434ee) — 6/30/2021 @ 5:13 pmI’ll say that the people doing the audit did well by presenting an organized professional looking front. Color coded, tidy work area, ballots taken from one well marked pallet at a time, and replaced in the order found.
steveg (ebe7c1) — 6/30/2021 @ 7:58 pmContrast that to the videos from Atlanta. That whole mess looks like a cluster.
I’ll be honest and say I’d prefer a clean organized honest count to a messy disorganized but ultimately honest count. (And for all I know both groups are full of crooks, liars and partisans)
The corrected results are exactly the same.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 7/1/2021 @ 2:55 amI try Haiku because so many just aren’t informed as to what is really happening in the world. If it doesn’t involve Trump, they aren’t interested.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 7/1/2021 @ 6:29 amRob, I saw on Yahoo news that there was a protest. I re-read it and didn’t see anything that looked criminal on the part of the protestors. Do you have another link that shows what they did criminally? I’m all for pipelines to more efficiently move oil so I’d be happy to see these clowns arrested if they break the law.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/1/2021 @ 6:43 amAlso , I in most situations think people who break the law should be held accountable even when doing so isn’t personally satisfying.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/1/2021 @ 6:45 amRegarding air-gapping…
The proof is in the groveling apologies that multiple media outlets have made after Dominion sued them or threatened to sue. Any errors from Dominion machines have been of the human variety, such in Antrim County and a county or three in GA.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:28 amPaul Montagu (5de684) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:28 am
Do you see any inconsistency between the AZ SOS’s comments/position and the actual election system in place in AZ?
frosty (f27e97) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:34 amYeah, sure, like air-gapping could stop the Rothschild Eighth Dimension Dominion Machine Control Space Ray from the Illuminati secret headquarters on the dark side of the Moon.
nk (1d9030) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:37 amAnyone could. It was in this thread.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:45 amThe Crowdstrike CEO’s testimony (which happened in December 2017) was cherry-picked by Trump partisans to make the dishonest claim that Crowdstrike didn’t prove that Russians hacked Democrat emails. The CEO testified that Russia did do the hacks, using the phrase “high degree of confidence”. What they couldn’t prove was whether the hacked data was exfiltrated.
Because of this misinformation/disinformation put out by adoring Trump sycophants, Crowdstrike issued a follow-up statement.
I don’t know which comments you’re talking about. Do you have a specific quote?
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:51 amPaul Montagu (5de684) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:51 am
I’m referring to her letter to the county supervisors. Specifically her allegation that there is no way to validate the correct working of the machines within their voting process verses the election manuals description of the method to validate the correct working of the machines and the process.
There’s also her claim that she can begin decertification of the machines but that’s a minor thing compared to her endorsing the possibility of a magic hack of the AZ process.
Of course, she’s not using those specific words so it’s possible for someone to say we can trust the the AZ process because it would detect fraud and also maintain that it wouldn’t detect fraud.
frosty (f27e97) — 7/1/2021 @ 10:09 amI read the SoS letter, frosty, and her primary concern is chain-of-custody, which appropriate when trying to maintain electoral system integrity. I don’t see what’s objectionable about it.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 7/1/2021 @ 10:43 amFrosty, I think there are 2 problems.
1. The process wasn’t written with this scenario in mind and didn’t comprehend that the machines would be in the custody of non-state actors for an extended period of time.
2 Even if the procedure is robust to that it’s not possible to convince the public of that and if these specific machines are used it will likely lead to a demand for a hand recount.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/1/2021 @ 10:52 amPaul Montagu (5de684) — 7/1/2021 @ 10:43 am
You asked for specifics and then ignored that and switched to a different topic.
frosty (f27e97) — 7/1/2021 @ 11:04 amfrosty, I asked for a specific quote, and you supplied no such thing, just your interpretation of she said. That’s why I went directly to the content of the letter and commented on that.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 7/1/2021 @ 11:12 amSo here are my questions: What is objectionable about a Secretary of State’s concerns about chain of custody? Is that not a critical function for maintain the integrity of an electoral process? Why is chain of custody not important to you?
135.
If you did that, the number of votes cast wouldn’t jibe with the number of voters. There’s a lot of double entry style bookkeeping involved in elections. And Sidney Powell saying that Dominion “has a long history of rigging elections” doesn’t make it so, and with that she’s asserting that something is widely known, so we should hear some known examples.
I don’t know what their whole system is, but also usually in elections totals are immediately recorded at the precinct level before being reported to a central tabulating place. And the results at each precinct might be automatically recorded completely separately from the grand total.
That’s besides the paper ballots.
I am not sure what is meant by weigh. It sounds like the use of that word in polling. If by weigh you mean adjust them so that the percentage of votes cast for one candidate or the other is shifted, even if it were possible to do it, it would apply only to the totals spit out by that vote tabulating machine, not the underlying votes cast, which have an audit trail. Some precinct totals would also have to adjusted – if you avoided doing that in many precinct and did more in certain precincts they would be suspicious in themselves and limiting the discrepancy is presumably the reason the votes are supposedly only being moderately adjusted – and a little bit of random sampling of ballots would expose the whole thing. They looked and didn’t find.
And if this was carried on down at the precinct level, that is, the paper ballots were printed wrong in the first place, even if only say 10% of them were printed wrong so that it showed a vote cast for Biden electors when the voter had intended to cast a vote for Trump electors. a significant fraction of voters would notice.
You could chalk up one or two voters in a precinct who asked for a replacement ballot to the voter not seeing clearly and filling out the wrong oval on the wrong line, but a lot of people asking for a replacement you’d notice. You couldn’t get past 9 am on Election Day without the whole city or county being in an uproar.
Not to mention that no such vote switching program has been discovered. And how could it be all over, and nobody notice?
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 7/1/2021 @ 11:30 amPaul Montagu (5de684) — 7/1/2021 @ 11:12 am
That is ascribing magical powers to the Cyber Ninjas. If Dominion can’t rig the machines, how could they?
But as I said, they could have broken the machines – made the machines malfunction or become prone to malfunction in the future in a random way.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 7/1/2021 @ 11:34 amThat question is a strawman, Sammy. I said above that they had ability to furnish updates, as what occurred–actually, didn’t occur–in Antrim County, therefore they have the ability to “rig” a machine in their possession.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 7/1/2021 @ 11:44 amTime123 (9f42ee) — 7/1/2021 @ 10:52 am
I keep seeing this idea. But have you read the election manual and the description of the process? The method of hacking the machines isn’t the issue. The AZ process seems to have the checks in place to detect that during an election and it describes a procedure that should take place prior to using the machines that would also serve as a check.
If there is a magic hack that would render fraud undetectable in AZ then the entire security of the system depends on this chain of custody. But chain of custody isn’t the key element that ensures the integrity of that system and I think it’s being misunderstood. Based on the process the chain of custody needs to be maintained from the pre-election validation, through the election, and until the results are certified. It doesn’t need to be maintained forever and always.
Possibly, the option is between “we’ve got a process that would prevent or detect hacked machines” and “we don’t”. She picked the second one.
I don’t have a problem with reasonable requests for a hand recount. I think a sampled hand recount was already done, it’s one of the things you mentioned as validating the results from 2020, and it may be required. There’s no reason for a sampled manual recount to be prohibitive. A manual recount is part of the procedure that would restore confidence in these machine and it’s the key element that should provide confidence in the system. Again, if the SOS is saying a hand recount or a trial run wouldn’t detect fraud she’s saying they can’t detect fraud. I don’t think that’s true but it does seem to be what she’s saying.
Asserting that there is some magic hack that isn’t detectable by a recount and the standard testing procedures is what the CN guys are doing with the added element that it did in fact happen. The SOS agrees that it’s possible and only disagrees that it happened in 2020.
frosty (f27e97) — 7/1/2021 @ 12:47 pmFrosty, my experience with machine certification in industrial applications is that the process is created based on certain general assumptions. We had a machine essentially fall off a truck once. It looked OK but so we started running the appropriate checks while we contacted the vender. Machine seemed fine based on the test results. The vendor told us that the fall could have done damage that the certifications / calibrations weren’t intended to detect and that we should return the machine to them for a full tear down. Huge PITA, but my boss pointed out that procedures for the machine specify due care in handling, which we failed to provide. They came back to tell us there had been damage to an internal component that would likely have gotten worse over time and saturated to affect the machines performance.
Processes that I’m familiar with were all designed with a certain band width in mind. When something outside the bandwidth and completely unexpected happens, like potentially malicious hackers get access to your machines for an extended period of time, its’ reasonable to question if the process comprehends that make reasonable adjustments.
Can cyber-ninja’s rig the machines to pre-determine a future outcome in an undetectable way? No, hand recounts will catch it.
Could they rig the machines to just behave erratically? Seems more likely.
Would the that potential put a shadow over every little unusual thing the machines do and turn a small glitch into something that merits great focus? Yes.
Would they? I have no idea, but their public statements make it something to worry about and as I’ve been saying, bad faith abouunds.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/1/2021 @ 1:02 pmTime123 (9f42ee) — 7/1/2021 @ 1:02 pm
This isn’t an issue of machine precision. You didn’t answer the question about the manual and I’m guessing it’s no, you didn’t read it.
No, hand recounts and the process itself will catch it.
If these machines are hopelessly compromised in a way that the existing AZ process wouldn’t detect there’s either a flaw in the AZ process or we’re speculating about some level of magic.
It would also be interesting to explore the “chain of custody” of these machines between elections. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it is very lax. Do you think they maintain absolute physical control over hundreds of machines 24x7x365?
The SOS is between a rock and a hard place with these machines. But she isn’t doing anyone any favors embracing the idea that hacked/broken/unreliable machines would go undetected. A better option might have been to take the machines back and test them until they broke. That also has the extra opportunity for some graft.
frosty (f27e97) — 7/1/2021 @ 2:16 pmFrosty. I did not read the entire manual thoroughly. I have read parts of it.
I think we agree that given the process in place and significant flaws in machine count will be caught.
Where we might still be disagreeing is that I feel the risk that flaws won’t be found until late in the process when those issues are public. That, combined with the risk of bad faith and peoples general ignorance of the process creates a situation where the SOS is going to be extremely cautious with abnormalities with the custody of the machines.
Time123 (1e4c81) — 7/1/2021 @ 2:52 pmThere is a major contrast between how the in-the-bag-for-Trump Arizona Republicans handled the post-electoral situation versus how the Michigan Republicans dealt with it, and the MI folks did it right.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 7/1/2021 @ 6:26 pmHas anyone, who has predetermined that the AZ Audit is nothing but a fraud, carved out a pathway to look beyond all the political rhetoric and take an honest look at the results when they come in?
So far it is a matter of claims that crooks, criminals, and liars are on whichever side is opposite of the person making the claim. Both sides are doing this. I wonder what the people on the floor of the audit think about that kind of libel/slander. They aren’t wholly beholden stooges of the TrumpKKKin Train. They are from all political strifes. Various counties in AZ have been screwing up elections for years now. Google John Brakey’s history there. It has been a mess for a long time and their citizens want it fixed.
At the end of the audit there will be a report. The report will contain details of any discrepancies. I imagine any of their claims can be tested. Either the ballots match the count or they don’t. I guess people can suggest that the auditors falsified ballots, without any evidence, but that would be the same lousy claim being made about election officials on election night.
That being said, my mind isn’t so set in stone that I will impugn the many people that gave an honest attempt to fix an election problem in AZ that predates Trump. But hey, “Fraudit” is a catchy tune, so I may be in the minority of free thinkers here.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:17 pm“But hey, “Fraudit” is a catchy tune, so I may be in the minority of free thinkers here.”
What’s your favorite part of the AZ audit? I have a hard time deciding between their search for watermarks that QAnon claims Trump had placed on ballots as a trap for fraud, and the search for bamboo fibers that would prove a wholesale importation of ballots from China.
Davethulhu (13b53b) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:24 pmI thought you weren’t talking to me ever since I caught you falsifying quotes?
Is this your new “sincere,” Dave?
Hahahaha!
BuDuh (7bca93) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:26 pmAh, what the hell.. I’ll give you an answer and let you distort it for your jollies.
I actually like the technique they are using to manually count the ballots.
As far as your favs, those were explained early on. The organizers were determined to quell any stupid claim that arose during the post election meltdown. So they decided to test as many stupid theories and try to put them to rest. Brakey even said that this was to rule out all the knumbskulls. So what you drank was the media garbage that they are trying to prove these things. They are actually trying to disprove them.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:31 pm“I thought you weren’t talking to me ever since I caught you falsifying quotes?”
Gonna flounce away again?
Davethulhu (13b53b) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:33 pmBuDah, I’ll take a look at the report. But there are good reasons to be skeptical that it will find anything; public statements by the audit company CEO, previous recount didn’t find a discrepancy, previous machine audit didn’t find a discrepancy, some of the theories being tested are silly (bamboo), unlike other recounts this one didn’t allow party observers and the screw up with the raid drive set up all diminish confidence in the process.
As I said, I’ll read the report and try to have an open mind, but it’s challenging.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:33 pm“So they decided to test as many stupid theories and try to put them to rest. Brakey even said that this was to rule out all the knumbskulls.”
That’s the dumbest excuse imaginable.
Davethulhu (13b53b) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:34 pmPoor timing again! Snark after I already responded.
Why do you seek me out, Dave?
BuDuh (7bca93) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:35 pmSince that is your wheelhouse, I will differ to you.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:36 pmDave, I have to disagree with you. While indulging it makes them look unserious and it’s hard to be sure what they believe or not testing a dumb theory IS how you disprove it.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:43 pmYou are much more willing to do research than Dave. There were a lot of people buying into the notion that the paper was fraudulent. It has to be proven one way or another to have a complete audit. When the example that some Asian paper stock has Bamboo in its composition was made, the reporters assumed that they are only looking for bamboo as opposed to looking for invalid paper in general. This is an unfair representation of what they were determining. Many accusations are that the ballots were xerox copies. This same process will determine that as well.
If they say a zillion ballots are on fraudulent paper, that can be verified.
The Independents are observing. The Democrats refused to participate as observers and then cried foul.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:45 pmhttps://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/06/27/cyber-ninjas-doug-logan-arizona-election-audit-overseer-appears-the-deep-rig-film-rigged-election/5350003001/
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/03/31/cyber-ninjas-founder-doug-logan-pushed-election-fraud-theories/4825258001/
Davethulhu (13b53b) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:52 pmBuDah, I’ll dig into that.
My understanding is that in most recounts the party has reps at the table observing and involved in disputes about voter internet but that in this audits they were restricted to a a few representative observers from the upper seats, not on the floor.
Contrast that with recounts in Fulton or the audit in Windham.
But, my info may be wrong.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:54 pmDave, yup, those. Statements seriously undercut the credibility of his team.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/1/2021 @ 7:55 pmThen
Trumpers: something in the process could have been rigged, gone undetected, and allowed fraud
NeverTrumpers: that’s insane we’ve checked and doubled checked and verified that nothing happened
Now
NeverTrumpers: these machines might have been rigged, it could go undetected, and allow some unspecified fraud at a future date. No amount of checking and double checking can prevent that
frosty (f27e97) — 7/1/2021 @ 8:56 pmWith that kind of crackerjack logic and rhetorical acumen, Trump is just bound to be reinstated as President on August 15. The Bidens might as well start packing.
nk (1d9030) — 7/1/2021 @ 9:24 pmNah, the walls are closing in on Trump. They’ll have him in the big house soon. Or those honest and hardworking D’s will impeach him again. One or the other.
frosty (f27e97) — 7/1/2021 @ 10:01 pmDisingenuous. There previous claims about loss of chain of custody, specifically in Fulton County, that turned out to be a load of crap. That doesn’t negate the importance of chain of custody in subsequent investigations.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 7/1/2021 @ 11:35 pmFrosty, That’s a BS summation.
-Legitimate concerns by Trump were investigated. AZ did an audit and a recount. GA did recounts and a signature verification. Antim county did a recount and an audit. GA state police were involved in an investigation of the count. The MI Senate did an investigation. None of that moved the needle on their certainty the election was stolen.
-In this specific case the people you call never trumper are saying that letting cyber ninjas have these machines for a month is really suspicious and the best thing to do is not use them in the future. It’s a specific concern. I’ve agreed all along that it could be addressed, but thatI understand why the SOS might feel it’s not worth the trouble in the current conspiracy theory rich environment.
Do you want to address that argument or the absurd cartoon version of it?
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/2/2021 @ 4:31 amTime123 (9f42ee) — 7/2/2021 @ 4:31 am
I have addressed it and the response is some version of “the people saying what I want to hear are obviously trustworthy” and “the people saying what I don’t want to hear are obviously not” from people accusing the other side of doing the same thing. Or the response is to shift the subject, e.g. @170 and @171. I’m disingenuous when Paul is comparing cases with two different fact patterns and citing the one where the fact pattern fits what I’ve already said was a situation where it mattered? All that really matters is that the words “chain of custody” is in there somewhere right? And you’re still on a topic I’m not disputing? It doesn’t matter what claims Trumpers are making when we’re talking about claims the SOS is making? Both sides can be wrong and one doesn’t give the other a pass.
So, yes, I’ve tried to address it. Can you? Is it possible for you to consistently apply a single set of principles to both sides? It doesn’t look like it. The same actions that are 100% trustworthy and accurate when they support your argument also just aren’t worth it if it means giving up a club to bash the other side.
frosty (f27e97) — 7/2/2021 @ 6:00 amFrosty, Here’s the principle as I see it.
If there are unusual events that cause a reasonable suspicion of wrong doing or error it should be investigated and reacted to appropriately.
I have no problem with asking for a manual recount, that’s the candidate’s right. Or in asking that the police investigate what happened in Fulton when observers weren’t in the room. Or in having an independent machine audit in windham NH when a had recount found a huge (300 votes) discrepancy between from the machine count in a house race (didn’t impact the outcome)
The unusual event here is the machines being in the control of people with unknown/suspect motivations for an extended period of time who we know are disassembling them and accessing the programming. The manual says “don’t do that” and from what I can find doesn’t have a policy in place for when you do. That means that the responsible authority needs to make a decision on the best course of action.
Here are the defensible actions as I see them
1. Trust CN did nothing wrong and made sure no one else did either and use the machines per the procedure.
2. Doubt CN and determine what extra steps are needed to use these machines confidently. Hire people. (Likely the vendor to do this work) Any miss would likely be caught in an audit or hand recount.
3. Doubt CN and get new machines.
All 3 of those are plausible to varying degrees based on facts I don’t have.
I agree with you, that AZ could use these machines and still have an accurate election. But I expect that every ballot these machines touched would be counted by hand before the results were accepted. Not saying these demands would come from people acting in good faith.
On “broken chain of custody” it’s a term of art that applies both to this situation and to a situation where deputy so and so lost the paperwork but says the dust covered machines whose serial numbers match inventory are sitting exactly where he put them in the locked storage room. Both are chain of custody violations, but the later could likely be addressed by an investigation into if these were the same machines and were they tampered with.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/2/2021 @ 6:35 amfrosty, you said: “Trumpers: something in the process could have been rigged, gone undetected, and allowed fraud”. Trump and his followers didn’t say “could have been”, they outright asserted fraud. That’s but one reason why your comment is disingenuous, because it revises history. And worse, in the case of Fulton County and the “suitcases” of ballots that purportedly showed up, they were asserting fraud from a 96-second video that, when actually investigated, turned out to be nonsense.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 7/2/2021 @ 6:42 amFrosty, I think can shorten it down to the presence or lack of a reasonable basis.
When I see someone asserting fraud, or expressing grave doubts about the validity of the 2020 presidential vote count, I assume they’re either arguing in bad faith or not well informed of the details. There’s no reasonable basis for the assertion or concerns at this point.
There is a reasonable basis for concerns about machines in question.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/2/2021 @ 6:49 amOne of the main reasons to conclude that there was no fraud was the claim that most of the lawsuits failed in court. The judges made the decision and one side won and the other side lost. The same thing happened in Arizona; the State Senate won and Maricopa lost. This audit is legal and a court recognized that. For the sake of consistency I would think that anyone who relied on the law as the final arbiter in all the other cases would not get all conspiracy minded when it is the law that has moved Arizona’s legal audit forward. It is immaterial whether or not Maricopa ran their own audits, the law is clear that this wholly separate action is not a violation of anything.
Additionally, it is my understanding that Maricopa has withheld quite a bit of what the court ordered them to turn over. Imagine if this was a Jim Crow Era Democrat controlled southern town deciding to not hand over subpoenaed election materials to a civil rights oriented judge. I’m not sure I know anyone who wouldn’t think that was a problem.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 7/2/2021 @ 7:59 amThis is the latest from the SOS who threatened Maricopa until they decided to scrap their leased password-less election machines:
This amounts to an anonymous claim, with zero evidence of wrongdoing, despite how inflammatory it appears. She does include a picture of an truck and trailer by itself, with no scales or mad dashing people or anything that be considered damning.
The comments after her tweet show that she did indeed inflame a large swath of her followers, but they all seem to be satisfied with pound-the-table rage.
Comments elsewhere suggest possible reasons for using a scale. For instance, some believe that manifests need to have a weight included when shipping freight.
Unfortunately there is so much detail missing from her tweet, it is impossible to resolve in a reasonable way. It is very much like people asserting fraud from a 96 second video tape, although at least there was a tape to cause speculation; Hobbs doesn’t even have that. It makes me want to treat her with the same scrutiny that the fraud claimers deserve.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 7/2/2021 @ 8:15 amBuDuh, Your comment in 176 equates the legality of a process with with the validity of its results. The fact that both a legal proceeding that complies with precedent and rules of evidence and a legislative act are legal does not mean they’re both accurate.
There’s no law baring the AZ legislature from hiring Rudy Giuliani, Mike Lindell and Lin Wood to determine if there was fraud. That would also be legal.
There was a re-count already, and an independent audit of the counting machines. The AZ legislature is ignoring that, for reasons that haven’t been clearly stated. They have the legal right to do so, but those processes still produced information we can use to make decisions.
Additionally you ignore all of the non-judicial investigations of fraud that have uniformly come up empty.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/2/2021 @ 9:41 amDog and pony shows have always been legal.
nk (1d9030) — 7/2/2021 @ 9:45 am179.Dog and pony shows have always been legal.
LOL, indeed. Which is why GOP reps have invited Britney Spears talk/testify al la Oprah Winfrey to Congress about her troubles.
Because– Americans don’t want to be governed– they wish to be entertained.
Glorious.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 7/2/2021 @ 10:02 amYou bought them, you own them, DCSCA.
nk (1d9030) — 7/2/2021 @ 10:10 amThis is totally irrelevant to the point I was making so I take your use of “ignore” as an offensive statement. It makes it sound like I negated it for underhanded purposes.
I am not following you here. I compared lawsuits and their interpretation by the people who are either for or against whatever the suit was about. As far as the accuracy, do you have evidence that the Az Audit is inaccurate?
BuDuh (7bca93) — 7/2/2021 @ 10:13 amLooking at it again, never mind my question. I don’t understand exactly what you are saying.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 7/2/2021 @ 10:15 amSeriously, that’s five-star suck-up. Those dweebweasels are only doing it because Trump spoke out in favor of Britney regarding her conservatorship. They wouldn’t throw her a quarter if they saw her begging on the street in other circumstances.
nk (1d9030) — 7/2/2021 @ 10:16 amOn a third read it appears as though my question was well placed. I wasn’t sure if you were condemning the accuracy of a law, which didn’t make sense. It does appear as though you are comparing accuracy of results between an unchecked small scale audit and a yet unfinished audit.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 7/2/2021 @ 10:17 amI didn’t mean to imply that you were omitting it for rhetorical purposes, just that it should be included. Definitely didn’t mean to insult or offend you. I’m sorry that i inadvertently did. Thank you for letting me know and giving me a chance to apologize.
My point (much simplified) is that just because it’s legal doesn’t make it accurate or right.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/2/2021 @ 10:20 amI’ll wait to see the report before I decide if the audit was well done and produced accurate results. Previous work by the firm and statements by it’s leadership give me cause for concern, but it’s best to just it by the final product.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/2/2021 @ 10:22 amThanks, Time. I appreciate that.
As far as the report. I also will judge the audit on its merits and I hope there is a vigorous debate at that time.
Take care and have a happy 4th.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 7/2/2021 @ 10:33 am