ABOUT DAMN TIME willingness to share info with the incoming, is still busy trying to turn 2020 election into a stinky, inedible turkey. My mind goes back to when I tried slowly broiling a turkey one T-Give. The temp was so low it came out both fowl and foul. Even the dogs wouldn’t touch it. I buried it. Some beastie dug it up: then also refused to eat it. Due to a noxious aroma it became known as “dirty diaper turkey.”
How apt as a Trump analogy. If only we could bury the dirty diaper turkey of an administration’s past 4 years, or even just the next month and a half. We sure buried a lot of their victims from COVID, to kids and their parents kept in separate cages, or trailers under the sun. Think I’d rather have eaten that dirty diaper turkey and have my stomach pumped than have the nation go through that.
At this point challenging the 2020 election is about as palatable as that turkey.
Where are the cries of “Sore Loserman” now?
But let’s not lose track of some valid points here. Seems The Help America Vote Act did anything BUT help America vote. While lines and waiting times expand like beer swilling waistlines, does anyone sincerely think 10 million Americans, after the past 4 years, were so enamored with how Trump ran things they marched to the polls to applaud Trump, or were so offended by “Sleepy Joe” Biden?
Hogswallow.
By the way, I could use a little political sleepy now, couldn’t you?
Something has been digitally rotten in electronic vote machine land for a long time. A land where machines flipping votes were so common. (Almost always Dem to Repub.) So the companies responded by building machines that give you what they call a ‘”receipt” that, unlike any other receipt, you don’t get keep. You feed it back into another black box and after that? WHO THE HELL KNOWS? Hey, but the Trumps want to start building and programming them. What could go wrong? Innocent as newborn lambs that they are…
Chuckle.
Personally I would be happy if every election became a bipartisan, hand count, affair using PAPER ballots.
But if we are NOT going to get rid of what I consider the perfect way to skew an election without even any digital footprints…. If we’re NOT going to banish this abomination: proprietary software in machines built by politically skewed corporations… maybe there’s another way. Kind of a post election rectal exam preceded by the previous election exam: open for all to see. A spread sheet published post every election; a line by line assessments of how well it all went to compare, see if we’re improving.
1. How many people were purged?
What method was used to purge them? We need to know why and percentages per party. What was the party of the public servants who had them purged? Predominantly what race, what gender, what districts? How do this districts tend to vote? Same stats for those given provisionals. Were they counted, or not? If not who decided that. Why? And their party affiliation is?
2. What reasons were given to deny the right to vote, or give them a provisional?
Once again we would need to know what districts, how those districts tend to vote? Who decided to deny that right? What was the party of that person? Line by line we should be able to see what districts this was predominate in
3. Per district: crucial voting machine data.
What polling stations had long or short lines? What stations had enough well running machines, what stations had fewer? The number of voters and potential voters who showed up there: even if denied the right or given a provisionals. AGAIN: what party do the voters there tend to vote for? How many complaints about those machines there? Who made the choices that controlled the number of well running machines at that station? What party do they belong to?
4. Ballots were found unopened, mail in or otherwise.
How many? Who was responsible for ‘losing’ them? What party do they belong to?
5. Number of attempts to discourage voting?
Who did it? What party? Include attempts to toss out votes or actual tossing out of votes. Who, what, where, when and what party did they belong to?
6. Post offices: how well did they handle mail in votes?
Office by office. What political party does the postmaster belong to? Number of staff v. mail ins received. Any needed equipment damaged, especially intentionally?
I understand some questions are intrusive, but I feel necessary. And the Constitutional issues regarding any of these can be addressed by not listing names, though many are of public record. These documents to should be open sourced for all to look at: on the net or in print at a minimum cost for the price of mailing. Those who investigate elections, have a right to know. More important: WE have a right to know. Wouldn’t you think it important to find out how well the election machinery is working? If your public servants, who you vote for, are working to prevent voting?
I’m sure some of this information can be found: inconveniently spread far apart to prevent just this kind of assessment.
By necessity this must be gathered by a non-partisan/bipartisan agency. Not Heritage, CATO, Human Rights Watch or Brookings. There have been organizations that gather such data in a non-partisan way.
Time for that election examination! BEND OVER AMERICA PUBLIC SERVANTS AND POLS!
Chuckle.
One final safety valve: the pubic votes on whether to do the vote again: anything over, let’s say 70%, and the candidates that ran can’t run again. Find new candidates.
Let’s de-turkey-ize our elections!
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Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 40 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks, and into the unseen cracks and crevasses, that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
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