Where I stand on election results....

My explanation on supporting a true audit of our November Election (and I would argue every federal election going forward) and my last comment on the vote counting. This is what it will take to give me confidence in the election outcomes.
At heart, I am still an auditor. It is about big picture and material accuracy. So…

Why do we want less assurance of accuracy on a Federal election vote count than we want from our major corporation (and small local nonprofit corporation) Fiscal results and Financial Statement Accuracy? The simple answer is we should not.
We require those entities to have a system of controls over their revenue, expenses, assets and liabilities that give us some assurance that the numbers they present to their boards, and/or shareholders are materially accurate. Auditors test those controls by testing transactions through the system. In absence of those controls (some entities are too small or too unsophisticated to put those controls in place) we test the actual transactions to assure accuracy. We use 3rd party verification by mailing confirmations of account balance for Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payables. We may even take the step to speak to major balances and we get attestation from those involved that they have not been a part of or have knowledge of fraud or error. When we are unsure of software most financial packages have regular tests of their platforms they provide to their customers to assure them, and the auditors, the system is functioning as described and as expected and provides the BOD, shareholders, and auditors assurance the system is accurate in the data it reports based upon the inputs.
Let’s apply this to our voting system.

We really do not have a system of controls over our voting system. Even before blindly mailed ballots. Each state has different models. Some do require an ID for in person voting, others do not. Many at least verify address at in person polling center but some do not. The absentee ballot system in place before this year has a modicum of control in that you had to “request” your ballot and before it was mailed to your home a person at the government office responsible for absentee ballots verified you were the name of the person living at your address and likely compared your signature to what was on file and had a right to have an absentee ballot mailed to you. Still, they had no idea if you were the one completing the form. So, in audit terms, that is an opportunity for malfeasance. The question for that was it a “material” (means it could effect the outcome or decision of a person using the data) malfeasance/fraud opportunity.
The Blindly mailed ballots are without a doubt a malfeasance/fraud opportunity. There is Zero control of who receives the ballot, who completed the ballot, or even if the address receiving the ballot had a right to cast a vote. Zero. This is inarguable. Even with the recent mailed stimulus checks we know for a fact over 1 million checks were mailed to deceased individuals. The Voter Rolls are not more accurate than Social Security and income tax rolls.
So, in absence of controls, the only option is to audit the actual transactions, in this case the votes. How would you do that?

First, verification would seem to be that the ballot represents an actual person that is a live and with a right to cast a ballot. Were they alive on election day? Did they live at the address represented for the ballot on election day? That should be the first step. But then we must verify the ballot actually represents the will and vote of the person represented on the ballot. That requires confirmation. At a minimum, some type of signature verification. But the best form of assurance is a confirmation. In this case person to person so a phone confirmation to the person who supposedly cast the ballot to ensure the ballot was theirs, that they completed it or it was completed at their direction in the case of someone physically unable to complete their ballot, and verify the votes cast vs. their wishes.

Let us be honest with each other. The Governors and legislatures that authorized the blindly mailed ballots knew at the time there would be no chance to perform the above verification process. They knew it would be rife with opportunities for malfeasance and fraud. I would argue they planned on it and planned to use it in case of a loss or a victory. There is no way to physically verify millions of votes in the time frame needed for Elector Certification.
Statistically, we have some very improbably outcomes/vote counts in 4 or 5 major voting areas. We have some very questionable “transactions” from the Dominion Software that seem to defy the way the software was supposed to track votes (dumps of over 300K votes all at once between 3 and 4 am in the morning after election day). We know the Software has been utilized in other countries to actively manipulate the votes. The Software provides no 3rd party assurance that it properly processes votes under federal election laws. We know ballots were handled without true independent observation. We know we have hundreds of independent and legally filed affidavits of fraud in all these states and counties which are evidence despite what you hear in the media. The question is are they material. Is the vote counting issues of the software material? That materiality question must be answered.

The only way to get there now, in my opinion, is applying audit procedures. If we want a .005 confidence level how many ballots must be manually verified for accuracy? There are simple and predefined audit sample expectations used every day by the least skilled accountants in their audits of financial statements. Apply those principals. Lets say we have 500,000 mailed in blind ballots. How many must be “sampled” to gain that .005 assurance of accuracy? 2000? 3000? We then assign someone to physically contact those voters and verify their votes were accurately attributed. For the software dumps, the same steps must be applied.

It is that simple. Absent that, you will have 73 Million Americans that have ZERO belief in the outcome of the current election results. And before you point to the already completed recounts, they did ZERO verification in these processes. They just recounted the existing ballots. That is not verification, that is a check of a balance.

There are definitely improvements that can be made in the voting system. I will not argue that at all, and I can speak from an "expert" position to what I am going to assume has the most experience in the election processing system having worked in two different states for election commissions handling every single aspect of vote counting, with an emphasis on mail-in/absentee voting.

While I cannot speak for every state, I can for a couple over my lifetime. There is absolutely human error within the processing system. However, there are many checks and balance (or audits) to catch those mistakes. At the end of the day after the election commissions complete their work, each states Secretary of State has final sign-off on the results, which at least in my lifetime has been more GOP representation, but there is balance, and ALL of them have certified election results indicating a free and fair election. It is not there job to ascertain foreign influence that leads to persuasion of voters to one candidate.

There is no doubt some fraud that is found, but in VERY rare cases, such as the GOP-led election fraud in North Carolina in 2018 that leads to a re-vote. Trump also established a commission to investigate fraud in the 2016 election and found nothing. Election fraud is the rarest. Voter fraud is less than 1%.

What I say to the 73 million Americans (the number is actually more like 50 million) that have no belief in the current election results is do your homework and start with actually reading the transcripts from the court cases and the lawyers for Trump, where their words are actually punishable. There is no mention of election fraud and their statements are in direct opposition to the conspiracy based accusation that Trump is doling out and his sore loser base is eating up. I say to those people, you have been conned by a man so desperate to look out for himself and not your best interests.

Election Reform? Bring it on. However the one thing that the circumstances of this cycle did is bring MORE people out to vote, which is a GREAT thing for democracy. The reform should start with how do we expand accessibility to in-person voting to ensure that every person should safe, equal and easy access to voting.

Reform should start with requiring an ID to vote. Period.

Voter fraud is less than 1% is possible, but it's not provable. No the audits don't catch it, but the audits only audit internal vote handling, not who voted. Now it depends on the state, but in states that require no ID and have same day voting they would only catch the fraud if someone was stupid enough to use the same name and address, etc. to go vote 6 times, and even then they might not depending on the detail of the audit.

Unless the audit is looking at every ballot and verifying that person, their address and comparing them to anyone else, then we really don't know how much fraud exists.

It's like doing a quality check on a car but not testing the incoming parts. Sure you assembled the car correctly, but what if the tires you put on it are defective?

And that doesn't even touch on things like California's ballot harvesting, which also doesn't get audited. Go to the old folks home and help them fill out their ballots.

There are lots of ways around the current audit process.

And even if voter fraud of things it does catch is down to 1%, that's 1.4 million votes in this last election that could be fraudulent. 1% is honestly a high number in some elections, esp. considering it doesn't even cover some far more vulnerable parts of the system.

I could easily see fraud being as high as 2%-3% system wide, which doesn't sound like much but is more than enough to tip a lot of elections. It won't tip a 20 point race, but it would make all the difference in some battleground states.

Good post from all of you. Improvements need to be made. Before the deadline for the electors? No.
This election is over and our country needs to move on and focus on the pandemic before us as well as a slew of other issues that are to come from it:
- Health care
- Economic Recovery
- Vaccine Distribution

Btw, as more and more election results are certified, it becomes all the more obvious how illogical Trump's claims are.

Biden gained MORE ground in red states than he did in almost every blue state. He gained MORE ground in states that didn't use the voting system Trump is all up against. Biden did the same or worse in almost every single county Trump is saying he cheated in.

Good basic read on the Georgia vote discrepencies: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/geo...ounted-ballots

No district was more than 0.73% off from the pre-audit numbers.

That sounds great, but with 5 million votes cast in Georgia, let's go with 0.5% since not all would be at that high number. that's 25,000 ballots that could be lost, missing, miscounted, whatever.

Biden won Georgia by 12,000 votes. So theoretically without the recount they could have possibly declared the wrong winner. Now that 25K ballots would probably be less than 100% for one candidate, so whether it would swing the election is unclear, but it does put it in perspective that even a 0.05% error rate is enough to be a significant issue.

And again, that doesn't include any other source of fraud other than internal handling issues.

In one case 289 votes were missed b/c they forgot to upload results from one ballot reading machine. A small oversight, but it took an audit to find that. It shouldn't. Even the most basic software design for proper internal controls should know every machine issues, and match vote uploads to that machine. It would be obvious one was missed if the system were built correctly.

To use my example, does anyone think the businesses in the Diamond District put up with 0.73% error rate?

I can't believe people accept error rates like this with reassurance when I'm in a business where 1% would get my doors closed.

And that's not even to include any voter fraud. That's just the internal audit as I understand it.

Like I said, it's very conceivable the entire rate for a given county or state for a given election, esp. in states like California (not to pick on it, but it has the weakest protections), could hit 2-3%. That's more than enough to swing a tight House race, or in this year a Presidential election.

That has nothing to do with Trump or his current claims. I haven't even looked at them, they are irrelevant to these issues, which I've raised on hear long before this past election. In fact I have an old post where I took I think the study in Kansas and projected it out, or some study.

I don't think half the votes in an election are wrong, but I think the system is plenty slack that we could get the wrong outcomes in a tight race in states with poor rules.

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Originally Posted by CitizenBBN

I can't believe people accept error rates like this with reassurance when I'm in a business where 1% would get my doors closed.

And that's not even to include any voter fraud. That's just the internal audit as I understand it.

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Well, it does include much of "alleged voter fraud". The machines for instance...those print out for the voter a "Receipt" with their choices. Just like at a grocery store. But let's say (like most in a grocery store) people don't really look at those. And let's say something nefarious happened that George Soros's cousin in Venezuela changed the persons vote when it was processed in the machine. THIS is caught during an audit. They take a selection of 1,000 votes in the county and they audit them. They go through to make sure the votes recorded match the ballot. This also covers "dead people voting". Or signatures missing. Or someone voting twice, etc. And it covers "mistakes" like the person not uploading the votes coprrectly. And if things pop up and raise a red flag, they then do a larger audit. These audits happen in every single election in every single state (including California). This is how we know about the stories of fraud that we know about. They are caught in these audits.

A recount is even better of course. In the case of Georgia, they literally went through and hand counted every single ballot. And as the Republican SOS said, they did not find ONE case of fraud. Not one. In a state of millions and millions of votes. Not one case of fraud.

As to your other statement about "being good with 1% error rate". I agree. We shouldn't be "good" with any of it. But the system in place is in place for this very reason. If a race is close enough, it triggers an automatic recount (as the one in Georgia did). The entire reason for this is so that they can make sure the "right person is declared the winner".
These recounts happen every single election all over the country.
I believe the MOST I have ever hard of a recount changing votes was a couple hundred. And again, its not "ok". But, the system corrected itself. That is the entire point.

Are there things they can do to lower that error rate even more? I think so. And I am for those things. But this system isn't completely broken. Fraud is very very rare and is often caught.

I don't believe the Georgia audit did anything to verify the voters, just counted the ballots.

And the sampling audits, I would like to see exactly what they check when they sample. B/c we know for a fact people have been on the roles and voted in multiple areas, and we know for sure it doesn't catch multi-state voting, and even checking for dead people would have to be done against some kind of role that may or may not be accurate.

There are multiple reports of dead people still being on voter roles.

The devil there is in the details. Just like how some crazy guy passes a FBI background check b/c the local county court somewhere didn't upload the data.

And absolutely nothing I know of being done deals with the harvesting like in California or simply dumping ballots before they get to the election office.

I'd like to know how fraud is caught when there is no ID check and you have same day registration. What do they check against for residency? I have dealt with this problem for gun checks, which now require, flat require, a valid photo ID with the correct address.

Just moved to Ky from another state? YOu can't buy a gun until your ID is properly updated, but you can vote. The ATF used to require something like 3 months utility bills or similar, but that has been tightened to requiring a government issued photo ID to prove residency.

In a state that has no ID requirement how do you audit residency exactly? Are you suggesting they send people to those 1,000 addresses to insure they are all correct?

Here's an article from a NY Post story where they talked to a "fixer" who commits fraud, and was verified in his identity and criminal record by the Post. It shows just how many things your audit description won't catch.

https://nypost.com/2020/08/29/politi...il-in-ballots/

As I said, this system is deeply flawed, open to a lot of loopholes the audits don't catch b/c they focus mostly on internal procedures. the fact those internal procedures are off by 1% is chilling, but I have never thought that was where fraud was occurring, just mis-management.

GA simply recounted Existing ballots. It did nothing to verify if the ballot should have counted. It did nothing to say that the ballots were legitimate and signed by the person who cast a vote. The bottom line is the governor and secretary of state of Georgia are both never Trumper ‘s.

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Originally Posted by VirginiaCat

GA simply recounted Existing ballots. It did nothing to verify if the ballot should have counted. It did nothing to say that the ballots were legitimate and signed by the person who cast a vote. The bottom line is the governor and secretary of state of Georgia are both never Trumper ‘s.

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Exactly.

Their political leanings aside, those audits only check for internal processing errors. See the link above or on the thread I started, not wanting to hijack this thread.

Lots of ways to game the system that a recount won't find.

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Originally Posted by VirginiaCat

The bottom line is the governor and secretary of state of Georgia are both never Trumper ‘s.

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They absolutely are not. Kemp campaigned for Trump. Just because Republicans do the right thing and respect the vote of the people doesn't make them a never-Trumper.

Like I posted the other day, Trump is an absolute expert at squeezing loyalty from everyone. And he does it by his veiled (and not veiled) threats on anyone who doesn't go on lockstep with him. Kemp didn't with the pandemic and now won't overturn Democracy. So, now he's immediately a "never Trumper". Romney was the Republican candidate for President just 8 years ago. And now, because he won't go in lock step with Trump...he's hated. Trump tried to do the same to Sasse. Floated the idea of someone else running against him. This is what he does and everyone knows it.

This is exactly how bad this has gotten. People talked about "just let him go through the process" as if there was no harm done. Approx 50 million people actually believe Biden cheated to win. That is just asinine. He not only won, he won by 6 million + votes. Every single lawsuit so far has been dismissed by every single judge (Republican and Democratic ones).
Heck, even Tucker Carlson asked for evidence and they refused to show him any.

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Originally Posted by CitizenBBN

Exactly.

Their political leanings aside, those audits only check for internal processing errors. See the link above or on the thread I started, not wanting to hijack this thread.

Lots of ways to game the system that a recount won't find.

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I hate to break it to you guys....but you have to actually PROVE fraud happened. Saying a recount couldn't catch it all isn't proof anything happened. Throwing Rudy G in front of a microphone while he leaks oil saying it happened....doesn't PROVE it happened. There is no proof. And when they go to court, in front of a judge, they aren't claiming fraud. ...much less proving it.

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Originally Posted by ukpumacat

I hate to break it to you guys....but you have to actually PROVE fraud happened. Saying a recount couldn't catch it all isn't proof anything happened. Throwing Rudy G in front of a microphone while he leaks oil saying it happened....doesn't PROVE it happened. There is no proof. And when they go to court, in front of a judge, they aren't claiming fraud. ...much less proving it.

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You seem vapor locked on this Trump thing.

I don't give two spits about Trump or these lawsuits. That is irrelevant theater. I haven't discussed it at all, and won't, b/c it's meaningless. We all know what he's doing, and how it will end. Not very interesting.

You seem to be thinking myself and others are only taking this position b/c Trump is taking it, and trying to get us to change our position b/c, for example, Trump isn't claiming fraud. I've been arguing for the failings of this system since high school, Trump has nothing to do with it. He's made it topical, but he hasn't contributed to the solution.

I am very interested however in the subject he happens to have brought up, b/c that is an ongoing and serious problem. Just like how a physical wall for the southern border was beside the point, but raising the question of immigration reform was very interesting.

As for having to "prove" it, now we get to the crux of it, now that we've eliminated the "there's no fraud, b/c we did an audit and didn't find any."

Enron had clean audits too. Madoff's books looked good too, passed SEC muster for years.

I don't have to prove that power corrupts. It's a maxim of the human species. And I have loads of proof of fraud and malfeasance, which you then dismiss as not significant b/c I haven't found a million missing votes.

Trillions of dollars on the line, all that power, and then we look at fairly obvious ways to cheat the system, and yet you conclude it's not happening?

Illiterate prisoners can figure out how to get drugs and weapons and women and anything else into and out of maximum security prisons, but highly educated campaign workers and political operatives with everything to gain can't figure out how to game the election loopholes? Please.

I guess you believe there are no illegal aliens in this country other than those on the ICE detainer lists, or no drug dealers other than those who are in jail, or that everyone pays all of their taxes every year.

In large part it can't be proven for the very reason I'm now in good position on this issue: it can't be audited. that's been my point here, to get to the simple truth that the "audit" and "recount" is a very limited audit b/c we can't go back and trace ballots to voters and find out if that's really their ballot, and we for sure can't find out who may have sent one in and it never got onto the pile.

So while I can't "prove" there is fraud, now you have just shown that you also cannot "prove" it doesn't exist. Which is the right starting point, and one I have made over and over again: I don't know the volume of fraud b/c we simply don't know, but statistically a very small amount of it could flip numerous elections and thus be a significant problem by definition.

This is a thread on this years election results. So yes, I’m “stuck on Trump” who is doing everything possible to convince millions the election was stolen from him.

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Originally Posted by VirginiaCat

The bottom line is the governor and secretary of state of Georgia are both never Trumper ‘s.

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That is absolutely false.

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Originally Posted by ukpumacat

This is a thread on this years election results. So yes, I’m “stuck on Trump” who is doing everything possible to convince millions the election was stolen from him.

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Check the OP. Never mentioned Trump. Never mentioned his lawsuits. Honestly it was you and Stu who hijacked his thread to talk about Trump and what he is doing.

He was pointing out the obvious flaws in the system, and the complete lack of an audit trail for things like blindly mailing out absentee ballots to everyone and the risks that creates in the system.

Here's the key that Stu ALWAYS misses, but which I think you are missing on this narrow issue:

People who feel this way don't feel this way b/c Trump told us to. We have felt this way before Trump was on the scene, and we are making objective conclusions based on our own views and assessments of the election system.

These aren't "talking points" as Stu derogatorily calls them, they are legitimate observations of weaknesses in a system.

If we were discussing ways to circumvent a computer system or gain access to a nuclear facility no one would dismiss them as "well no one has used that method so there's no issue". Yet with this vital system for our nation the answer I hear is "there's no proof these loopholes are being exploited, so they must not be and we shouldn't worry."

That's a lousy way to create confidence in a system like elections and democracy.

And the Left just spent 4 years convincing its base that Trump wasn't legitimate b/c of "interference", and now Trump is doing the same thing to convince his base they were robbed. It's all the same message, just different means. "You really should be in power, it was stolen from you, so you better get mad and do something about it." It's good psychology, and both sides are using it in open warfare.

But none of that was on this thread by the OP. He was discussing the system itself, which is in fact full of loopholes. HOw much are they exploited? Hard if not impossible to say, but it's obvious the loopholes are there, and that's enough to be a real problem in confidence for people.

There's a great way to shut Trump up too. Secure the system. Require ID, use tech to like blockchain and asymmetric encryption to prove a real audit trail without violating privacy, prosecute people who try to cheat hard.

So far the answer is just the opposite. Blindly send everyone a ballot, don't require ID, create a system that is absolutely unauditable. Yeah, that'll work.

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Originally Posted by CitizenBBN

Check the OP. Never mentioned Trump. Never mentioned his lawsuits. Honestly it was you and Stu who hijacked his thread to talk about Trump and what he is doing.

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This is the first line of the OP: "My explanation on supporting a true audit of our November Election."

Not, "electionS". Election. I am pretty sure we know which one he meant.

But fair enough. I wasn't trying to hijack the thread. Its fine that you want to talk about election systems. But the only reason we are talking about this is because of what Trump is doing. I will post my comments elsewhere.

A recount is not and audit. that simple.

Why are you guys so afraid of verification of ballots? I know why...

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Originally Posted by CitizenBBN

You seem vapor locked on this Trump thing.

I don't give two spits about Trump or these lawsuits. That is irrelevant theater. I haven't discussed it at all, and won't, b/c it's meaningless. We all know what he's doing, and how it will end. Not very interesting.

You seem to be thinking myself and others are only taking this position b/c Trump is taking it, and trying to get us to change our position b/c, for example, Trump isn't claiming fraud. I've been arguing for the failings of this system since high school, Trump has nothing to do with it. He's made it topical, but he hasn't contributed to the solution.

I am very interested however in the subject he happens to have brought up, b/c that is an ongoing and serious problem. Just like how a physical wall for the southern border was beside the point, but raising the question of immigration reform was very interesting.

As for having to "prove" it, now we get to the crux of it, now that we've eliminated the "there's no fraud, b/c we did an audit and didn't find any."

Enron had clean audits too. Madoff's books looked good too, passed SEC muster for years.

I don't have to prove that power corrupts. It's a maxim of the human species. And I have loads of proof of fraud and malfeasance, which you then dismiss as not significant b/c I haven't found a million missing votes.

Trillions of dollars on the line, all that power, and then we look at fairly obvious ways to cheat the system, and yet you conclude it's not happening?

Illiterate prisoners can figure out how to get drugs and weapons and women and anything else into and out of maximum security prisons, but highly educated campaign workers and political operatives with everything to gain can't figure out how to game the election loopholes? Please.

I guess you believe there are no illegal aliens in this country other than those on the ICE detainer lists, or no drug dealers other than those who are in jail, or that everyone pays all of their taxes every year.

In large part it can't be proven for the very reason I'm now in good position on this issue: it can't be audited. that's been my point here, to get to the simple truth that the "audit" and "recount" is a very limited audit b/c we can't go back and trace ballots to voters and find out if that's really their ballot, and we for sure can't find out who may have sent one in and it never got onto the pile.

So while I can't "prove" there is fraud, now you have just shown that you also cannot "prove" it doesn't exist. Which is the right starting point, and one I have made over and over again: I don't know the volume of fraud b/c we simply don't know, but statistically a very small amount of it could flip numerous elections and thus be a significant problem by definition.

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Originally Posted by VirginiaCat

A recount is not and audit. that simple.

Why are you guys so afraid of verification of ballots? I know why...

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Correct, not the same. And no one is afraid of verification of ballots. They can do all of the verifications and audits and recounts necessary...and all that will come of it is Biden winning over and over again. I'm here for it.

The elephant in the room is that since Reagan, Republicans have won the popular vote only two times, in 1988 and 2004. That’s once in the last eight presidential elections. They need to concentrate a little more on the economic engines of the country and a little less on the heartland or we’re going to go thru this every four years where they try to subvert the will of the majority.

The interesting thing is I think the founding fathers would be mostly okay with that. They didn’t really want a true democracy and in fact feared majority rule. The constitution was designed to prevent what is called the tyranny of the majority—the minority must be protected. Only in their case, they weren’t thinking of the disadvantaged, they were thinking of themselves, the advantaged. The next four or five years are going to be interesting.

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Originally Posted by Catfan73

The elephant in the room is that since Reagan, Republicans have won the popular vote only two times, in 1988 and 2004. That’s once in the last eight presidential elections. They need to concentrate a little more on the economic engines of the country and a little less on the heartland or we’re going to go thru this every four years where they try to subvert the will of the majority.

The interesting thing is I think the founding fathers would be mostly okay with that. They didn’t really want a true democracy and in fact feared majority rule. The constitution was designed to prevent what is called the tyranny of the majority—the minority must be protected. Only in their case, they weren’t thinking of the disadvantaged, they were thinking of themselves, the advantaged. The next four or five years are going to be interesting.

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Good stuff. Will start a new thread so that this one doesn't get too off topic.

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Originally Posted by Catfan73

The elephant in the room is that since Reagan, Republicans have won the popular vote only two times, in 1988 and 2004. That’s once in the last eight presidential elections. They need to concentrate a little more on the economic engines of the country and a little less on the heartland or we’re going to go thru this every four years where they try to subvert the will of the majority.

The interesting thing is I think the founding fathers would be mostly okay with that. They didn’t really want a true democracy and in fact feared majority rule. The constitution was designed to prevent what is called the tyranny of the majority—the minority must be protected. Only in their case, they weren’t thinking of the disadvantaged, they were thinking of themselves, the advantaged. The next four or five years are going to be interesting.

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It wasn't at all about protecting the advantaged, it is about protecting liberty.

Compared to England even our upper class were underlings, not advantaged. They were the minority with no voice in the politics of the Empire, and they wanted a system that protected people's liberty, not one that was "democratic".

Democratic government isn't necessarily fair or moral government. Greek "democracies" had slavery, as did the US until the Civil War. In a pure democracy not limited by any other principles the majority can vote to enslave the minority.

So the goal isn't for everyone to vote, the goal is for everyone to have the protections to insure their liberty. If the Founders could have put together an all powerful computer to run things I imagine they would, a la "The Day the Earth Stood Still", but since that wasn't available they chose the next best thing, a democratic system but one with numerous checks and balances and processes designed to limit the excesses of emotion.

They feared the mob, the radical swing based on emotion, and most of all feared the accumulation of power,which is why it's untrue they were looking out for themselves. Many of them sacrificed their fortunes to see this nation born, and they could have easily set up a much more elitist government. Such things were discussed and dismissed.

But I agree completely that people confuse democracy and liberty, thinking of them as interchangeable when they are not.

Democracy is great, but only if it operates under the umbrella of protections put in place by the Constitution to insure it does not deny the liberty of each person.

The breakdown we are seeing nationally is in large part b/c people are coming to think that "we have the most votes, we get to do what we want". That is an incredibly dangerous approach, and why we see so little compromise. Getting the most votes may give one side the right to set the agenda in our government, but at that point the policies should still be built with input from all, hammering out compromises that no one likes completely.

As for the GOP, the truth is both parties need a serious realignment. The Democrats have abandoned the blue collar worker, and sold a bill of goods to the poor. Under Bush II and the leadership of guys so loved here by liberals, Romney and McCain among them, the GOP became "Democrat Lite", instead of a party of individual liberty and limited government.

The GOP needs desperately to propose free market solutions to real problems, embracing a more socially liberal world but holding the line on fiscal and economic conservatism and free markets but I doubt that happens. Also not confusing "free markets" with pro big corporations, as those are not the same thing either.

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Originally Posted by CitizenBBN

The breakdown we are seeing nationally is in large part b/c people are coming to think that "we have the most votes, we get to do what we want". That is an incredibly dangerous approach, and why we see so little compromise. Getting the most votes may give one side the right to set the agenda in our government, but at that point the policies should still be built with input from all, hammering out compromises that no one likes completely.

As for the GOP, the truth is both parties need a serious realignment. The Democrats have abandoned the blue collar worker, and sold a bill of goods to the poor. Under Bush II and the leadership of guys so loved here by liberals, Romney and McCain among them, the GOP became "Democrat Lite", instead of a party of individual liberty and limited government.

The GOP needs desperately to propose free market solutions to real problems, embracing a more socially liberal world but holding the line on fiscal and economic conservatism and free markets but I doubt that happens. Also not confusing "free markets" with pro big corporations, as those are not the same thing either.

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I am positive no liberal on here loves Romney, McCain or George W. Certainly not their politics.
Any credit they get on here is because they never succumbed to the cult of Trump and they did exactly what you said in the bolded part above.
Same credit I would give to anyone who works with both sides and bangs out compromises.

I (and I would suppose any other Dem on this board) do not support their politics and could care less whether they represented limited government or anything else because they weren't getting our vote anyways. For the most part, I thought George W was an awful President. I thought he handled 9/11 very well initially...and I am always grateful for that.
More than that, I think they were/are all good guys. I don't even know exactly what that means...ha...but I do respect the way they have lived their lives. And as you have seen me post many times...the way a President handles themselves, the example they are and the way they treat people is very important to me. Some don't care about that and only care about policies. I care about all of it and I think its greatly under-appreciated in its importance.

Fwiw, I do agree of much of what you wrote about both parties needing to re-align.

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Originally Posted by ukpumacat

I am positive no liberal on here loves Romney, McCain or George W. Certainly not their politics.
Any credit they get on here is because they never succumbed to the cult of Trump and they did exactly what you said in the bolded part above.
Same credit I would give to anyone who works with both sides and bangs out compromises.

I (and I would suppose any other Dem on this board) do not support their politics and could care less whether they represented limited government or anything else because they weren't getting our vote anyways. For the most part, I thought George W was an awful President. I thought he handled 9/11 very well initially...and I am always grateful for that.
More than that, I think they were/are all good guys. I don't even know exactly what that means...ha...but I do respect the way they have lived their lives. And as you have seen me post many times...the way a President handles themselves, the example they are and the way they treat people is very important to me. Some don't care about that and only care about policies. I care about all of it and I think its greatly under-appreciated in its importance.

Fwiw, I do agree of much of what you wrote about both parties needing to re-align.

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Oh I think character matters, but it's always been in very short supply in politics.

As for loving them, one of them on here has a quote from him on his siganture line, and all of you point to them as men of great character. I rarely see mention of the more dogged conservatives as having that trait, even though McCain was up to his eyeballs in the S&L scandal, etc.

but that's neither here nor there. We basically agree, names aside, that we need more men of character and willingness to be reasonable in charge. It's going to be easier for you to point to Rockefeller Republicans the same way it's easier for me to point to someone like Leiberman, or some older Southern Democrats of the 1980s, or even a Bill Clinton.

FWIW, one of the reasons we don't is b/c of things like direct election of Senators. It was even more elitist prior to direct election, but the Senate was also far more congenial.

Trump was an awful leader from a personal standpoint, but I temper that frustration with the knowledge that he was also not nearly as two faced as many others, like a Hillary Clinton (to pick arguably the most extreme example of recent years as a contrast to Trump's extreme example).

And that's why he won, b/c she was even worse in character than Trump, despite being more controlled.

but as long as the extremes of both sides feel they can gin up more votes with vitriol, we'll see more of it. Trump sure did it, but a lot of what was directed at him was also over the top and unwarranted. He was an asshat, but not an evil spy bent on becoming Emperor. I'm sure he'd have taken the offer, but there was no chance of it ever happening, and he woudln't be alone in that charcter flaw, going back a long way.

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Originally Posted by CitizenBBN

but as long as the extremes of both sides feel they can gin up more votes with vitriol, we'll see more of it. Trump sure did it, but a lot of what was directed at him was also over the top and unwarranted.

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Agreed.

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Originally Posted by CitizenBBN

Check the OP. Never mentioned Trump. Never mentioned his lawsuits. Honestly it was you and Stu who hijacked his thread to talk about Trump and what he is doing.

He was pointing out the obvious flaws in the system, and the complete lack of an audit trail for things like blindly mailing out absentee ballots to everyone and the risks that creates in the system.

Here's the key that Stu ALWAYS misses, but which I think you are missing on this narrow issue:

People who feel this way don't feel this way b/c Trump told us to. We have felt this way before Trump was on the scene, and we are making objective conclusions based on our own views and assessments of the election system.

These aren't "talking points" as Stu derogatorily calls them, they are legitimate observations of weaknesses in a system.

If we were discussing ways to circumvent a computer system or gain access to a nuclear facility no one would dismiss them as "well no one has used that method so there's no issue". Yet with this vital system for our nation the answer I hear is "there's no proof these loopholes are being exploited, so they must not be and we shouldn't worry."

That's a lousy way to create confidence in a system like elections and democracy.

And the Left just spent 4 years convincing its base that Trump wasn't legitimate b/c of "interference", and now Trump is doing the same thing to convince his base they were robbed. It's all the same message, just different means. "You really should be in power, it was stolen from you, so you better get mad and do something about it." It's good psychology, and both sides are using it in open warfare.

But none of that was on this thread by the OP. He was discussing the system itself, which is in fact full of loopholes. HOw much are they exploited? Hard if not impossible to say, but it's obvious the loopholes are there, and that's enough to be a real problem in confidence for people.

There's a great way to shut Trump up too. Secure the system. Require ID, use tech to like blockchain and asymmetric encryption to prove a real audit trail without violating privacy, prosecute people who try to cheat hard.

So far the answer is just the opposite. Blindly send everyone a ballot, don't require ID, create a system that is absolutely unauditable. Yeah, that'll work.

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My question is this! If everyone wants fair elections and wants every legal vote to count, why don't they want to: Secure the system. Require ID, use tech to like blockchain and asymmetric encryption to prove a real audit trail without violating privacy, prosecute people who try to cheat hard. [/B]

Because voting fraud benefits both sides.