The US 2020 Presidential Election

[TopHatter]

https://www.theepochtimes.com/judge-...s_3597583.html

Update:
But not long after that decision, attorney Wood tweeted that the judge reversed his decision on the machines, based on claims that Georgia counties control the machines. The judge says the defendants do not control the machines and, therefore, he cannot order them to be preserved in their current state.

Read Judge's Second Order

[Julie]

Judge Blocks Georgia from Wiping or Resetting Election Machines


BY IVAN PENTCHOUKOV

November 29, 2020 Updated: November 29, 2020


A judge presiding over a major election lawsuit in Georgia on Nov. 29 ordered the state to cease and desist wiping or resetting its election machines.

“Defendants are ordered to maintain the status quo & are temporarily enjoined from wiping or resetting any voting machines in the State of Georgia until further order of the Court,” Judge Timothy Batten wrote in an emergency order issued Nov. 29.

Lin Wood, an attorney associated with the Trump campaign, was the first to share the news.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit on Nov. 29 filed an emergency motion that included a message from an election official stating that the ballot-counting machines would be reset to zero on Nov. 30, before a recount.

“The process will begin with an L & A – resetting the machine to ‘zero’ to begin the recount,” the text of the message stated before discussing specifics of the recount process.

The message was part of an affidavit by a GOP poll worker filed alongside the emergency order. Upon seeing the message, the poll worker says he or she wrote to the election manager.

“Because the plan on Monday is to wipe the voting machines clean, and start from 0 so that we can recount using those machines, I’m concerned by what I am reading online,” the poll worker wrote, according to the affidavit. “I am seeing lots of notices from lawyers about possibly impounding the machines. Lawyers are now saying that the machines should be confiscated immediately before this happens to protect forensic data. They are saying those machines need to be impounded ASAP. Yikes. Maybe I’m being overly paranoid but let’s be sure this is what we’re supposed to be doing.”

The supervisor responded, “It’s what we are supposed to do. It will take a court order to stop this process—so I guess we need to keep watching the news. If we get a court order to stop, we will see it in our SOS information. The issue is, the Atlanta area has already started,” the elections manager wrote.

When the poll worker asked if the reset will wipe the forensic info from the machines, the manager said that “Atlanta already did it.”

The lawsuit in question is being litigated by Sidney Powell, an attorney who defended former National security adviser Michael Flynn. President Donald Trump pardoned Flynn earlier this week.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/judge-...s_3597583.html

[JRT]

People without access can go to their local library. We've had internet 30 years now. We can't obtain a server secure enough to vote. We can go on line and file our taxes with the IRS. That seems to be secure enough.

Someone who gains access to another's identity information can falsify documentation and file taxes in another's name, and steal an enlarged falsified refund sent to a dummy address. That does not require use of the Internet, and has not been an unusual crime for several decades, and has sometimes been committed in large volumes. That has nothing to do with voting and the individual state's elections processes.

It is not only important to get an auditable accurate count of votes, but it is also necessary that the electorate trust the process and outcome.

[Julie]

Matt Braynard, the former Trump campaign data strategist who spear-headed a crowd-sourced funded analysis of voting irregularities in the 2020 presidential election called the Voter Integrity Project, announced Sunday morning that the FBI has requested he give them the information on his research. Braynard said he is providing the information and that the transfer would be complete by Tuesday. “Update:- The @FBI has proactively and directly requested from me the VIP findings that indicates illegal ballots. – By Tuesday, we will have delivered to the agency all of our data, including names, addresses, phone numbers, etc.” Braynard said his team’s work has been and is being presented at hearings and in court filings, “Update: – I will be presenting the VIP findings in person at the #ArizonaHearing. – Work from the VIP has now appeared or will appear in court filings in PA, GA, MI, WI, and AZ, including declarations we collected.”

You can find Matt Braynard on Youtube and Twitter. I closed all my social media accounts so I can not post the link.

[Julie]

In the case of 100% on-line voting, two things happen:
1) People without access don't get to vote; and
2) The side with the best hackers, local or foreign, wins.

People without access can go to their local library. We've had internet 30 years now. We can't obtain a server secure enough to vote. We can go on line and file our taxes with the IRS. That seems to be secure enough.

[JRT]

...Democrats were looking to expand their majority in the House but they did not, to the contrary, they lost at least 10 seats so far that I'm aware of.

The Democrat "Blue Wave" might not swamp all of the Republican boats, but could still do a lot of damage to Republican agendas on Federal level.

Regardless the loss of some seats, Democrats retained control of the House, so Democrats will choose the Speaker of the House, will chair all House committees, and any vote split fully on party lines will fall in their favor.

Democrat Biden will be POTUS. Democrat Harris will preside over the Senate, and pending results of Georgia's run-off election, Democrats still stand a chance of wresting control of the Senate away from the Republicans.

For the time being, Republicans still have major influence in SCOTUS, and Federal courts, but time may erode some of that as justices/judges age-out.

[Julie]

julie,



good to see you again.

because elections are run by state, there's differing levels of competency in multiple areas. i wouldn't say that ballots and voting machines are "always questionable in every election". it's questionable for certain states at certain times. for instance, Georgia had serious issues with their ballot machines under the incompetent Secretary of State Brian Kemp (2010-2018). under Raffensperger, Georgia seems to have improved.

New York had, and continues to have, issues when it comes to timely counting of votes.

but other states are far better. Virginia, for instance.

as for "secure account" and "voting online", those two phrases are mutually incompatible.

frankly we should have a national holiday on Election Day, and a national level organization that, well, organizes all national-level voting, and can assist with state/county/local voting as well. Federal Election Commission is far too weak. the recent fracas of stupid people acting as "observers" is a national embarrassment.

Totally agree. Voting seems to have gotten so complicated. I thought if it was secure enough to go on line with the IRS to file your taxes, there should be a secure way to vote. It would surely eliminate alot of inconvenience for people and eliminate any potential fraud,.

[Julie]

I don't believe the blue wave was referring to California at all...

I never said in California, you did. Let me be more specific then. The Democrats were looking to expand their majority in the House but they did not, to the contrary, they lost at least 10 seats so far that I'm aware of.

[JRT]

Sen Mastriano says Penn Legislature should seat electors and overturn Trump loss

by Jon Alexander
29 November 2020

A spokesperson for the state House Republican conference panned a local lawmaker's call to empower the Legislature to seat presidential electors instead of state Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, a move that would likely hand Pennsylvania to President Donald Trump.

Appearing Friday on "Steve Bannon's War Room," a podcast hosted by Trump's former political adviser, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Adams, renewed calls for the Legislature to seat electors friendly to Trump, rather than to Democrat Joe Biden, who won Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes.

"We're going to take our power back; we're going to seat the electors," Mastriano said. "Now, obviously, we're going to need the support of the leaders of the House and Senate."

The move was appropriate, he said without evidence, because Boockvar and other Democrats "cheated."

More than two dozen lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign in courts throughout the country have failed, largely due to a lack of supporting evidence of fraud.

Republicans control both chambers of the state Legislature, but leaders in the House and Senate have repeatedly rebuffed suggestions that they might move to overturn the results and award Pennsylvania's 20 electors to Trump.

Jason Gottesman, a spokesperson for the House GOP, said Friday he was not aware of Mastriano's effort to have the Legislature seat electors. But, he said, the position of that chamber's Republican leadership remained unchanged.

“Our position on the seating of electors has not changed, and we don’t have a role,” Gottesman said.

Mastriano spent hours Friday morning lobbying fellow Republican lawmakers to support a joint resolution allowing them to seat presidential electors, he said.

The Legislature is scheduled to wrap up its term Monday, Gottesman added, leaving Mastriano little time to gather the support he would need to pass such a measure.

A phone message left Friday for Jenn Kocher, spokesperson for state Senate Republicans, was not immediately returned. A spokesperson for Mastriano did not immediately respond Friday to an email seeking comment.

On Wednesday, Mastriano spearheaded a state Senate hearing during which Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, repeated unfounded claims that President-elect Biden won only because of widespread voting fraud in urban counties.

On Friday, a federal appeals court tossed the Trump campaign's lawsuit alleging fraud, and in its opinion, the panel of judges said the campaign's lawsuit offers neither "specific allegations" of wrongdoing nor "evidence."

Later Wednesday, Trump invited several Republican state lawmakers to the White House. Earlier this month, Michigan lawmakers declined to take action after spending a day meeting with Trump.

Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona and Georgia have been of special interest to Trump and his legal team since the Nov. 3. election. Combined, the swing states cost Trump a second term.

"Biden can only enter the White House as President if he can prove that his ridiculous '80,000,000 votes' were not fraudulently or illegally obtained," Trump tweeted Friday. "When you see what happened in Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia & Milwaukee, massive voter fraud, he’s got a big unsolvable problem!"

The Electoral College meets Dec. 14.

Also Friday, Mastriano's Twitter account was briefly suspended, prompting tweets from Trump lauding Mastriano's efforts to unearth "fraud." Twitter officials said it was an "error," reported Newsweek.

.

So who is this guy?

There is a Wikipedia entry. I found the following excerpt somewhat illustrative.

... Mastriano's first book, Alvin York: A New Biography of the Hero of the Argonne (ISBN 978-0813145198), was published by the University Press of Kentucky in 2014...

Several archeologists and historians have raised questions about Mastriano's findings and regarding the location of Alvin York's Medal of Honor actions. In the forward to Michael Kelly's "Hero on the Western Front: Discovering Alvin York's Battlefield" the late Ed Bearss, former chief historian for the National Park Service states: "My review of Kelly’s manuscript demonstrates it is a tour-de-force and measures up to the highest standards of research and scholarship. I can do no better than to cite the objectives that Kelly includes in his Foreword, where he identifies serious problems with (Mastriano's York Group) that compromise the validity of their claims that they had located the York sites."

Brad Posey, who had initially been a member of Mastriano's team, described Mastriano's team as "A U.S. Army or Air Force officer using a very cheap-looking metal detector with no experience in metal detecting" a "Danish Army officer (and) friend of Mastriano" and a "U.S. Civil Service employee using a very cheap-looking metal detector." Posey would later leave Mastriano's team, after becoming convinced that Mastriano was incorrect and would join the competing Nolan group.

Lt. Col. Taylor V. Beattie, an Alvin York researcher, was critical of Mastriano's lack of annotation during his research stating "This is actually one of the things I warned Marstiano about. Somebody should be able to retrace what he did". Beattie would later criticize Mastriano's team for using a bulldozer to make room for a monument rendering any further archaeological investigation impossible, stating "Wait a minute, there's another side to it. He just bulldozed through."

.

...

[DOR]

I've got a question. To make things alot less complicated when voting, why not have a secure account set up with our local Board of Elections and vote on line? I can already sign in to my account at the Board of Elections and update my info and such. This will do away completely with ballots and voting machines that are always questionable in every election. Seriously, what are your thoughts?

In the case of 100% on-line voting, two things happen:
1) People without access don't get to vote; and
2) The side with the best hackers, local or foreign, wins.

[DOR]

Considering there was no "blue wave" like the Democrats stated there would be.

Actually, there was a blue wave.
But, the fake election was rigged.
/s

[JRT]

Donald J. Trump was infected with SARS-CoV-2, the disease causing the COVID-19 pandemic, and that disease has been found to cause brain damage in a significant fraction of victims, some worse than others.

COVID-19 and Brain Injury

by Chris Persel , Matthew Ashley, MD, JD
03 November 2020

https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/vie...9-brain-injury

{{{snip}}}

Clinicians today are increasingly recognizing the neurological consequences of COVID-19. The infection has been associated with various conditions, including cerebrovascular complications such as ischemic stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage, and microangiopathic thrombotic findings on autopsy.3 Para-infectious encephalopathy is also reported, including with psychosis, seizure, and even nonconvulsive status epilepticus as symptomatic manifestations.4 Less commonly reported have been posterior reversible leukoencephalopathy, necrotizing encephalopathy5, post-infectious and presumably autoimmune mediated encephalitis6, and acute disseminated encephalomyelitis.7 In addition, predictable consequences of the cardiopulmonary effects of COVID-19, including cardiac arrest and respiratory failure, can lead to anoxic brain injury. Common to all these neurological injuries is the possibility of behavioral manifestation and coincident need for specialized care.

Common behavior difficulties following brain injury include behavioral excesses such as irritability (eg, poor tolerance, short temper), aggression (eg, hitting, grabbing, kicking), property destruction (eg, striking furniture, throwing items), and inappropriate vocalizations (eg, cursing, yelling, threats) (Table 2). Just as important are the additional challenges of behavior deficits, such as non-compliance with tasks (eg, cooperation with requests), impaired social skills (eg, overfamiliar discussions, uncharacteristically rude remarks), lack of initiative (eg, knowing when to begin tasks), and deterioration of the skills necessary for academic and professional success (eg, being on time, following directions).8

{{{snip}}}

.

...

[JRT]

I've got a question. To make things alot less complicated when voting, why not have a secure account set up with our local Board of Elections and vote on line? I can already sign in to my account at the Board of Elections and update my info and such. This will do away completely with ballots and voting machines that are always questionable in every election. Seriously, what are your thoughts?

This is just my opinion, not intended as any statement of facts.

The electorate need to have an adequate level of trust in the system and process, else they won't trust the outcome; and if they don't trust the outcome, the larger democratic system unravels putting the Republic at risk.

The use of the Electoral College process backstops any problem that might arise and provides orderly outcome, but it needs to be grounded in the people's votes, else the electorate will be robbed of their votes. Many won't trust a cyber based algorithmic process lacking an auditable physical medium such as a paper ballot. There is adequate time for working with physical media, and the moderate inconvenience is largely irrelevant relative to the need for trust.

[astralis]

julie,

To make things alot less complicated when voting, why not have a secure account set up with our local Board of Elections and vote on line? I can already sign in to my account at the Board of Elections and update my info and such. This will do away completely with ballots and voting machines that are always questionable in every election. Seriously, what are your thoughts?

good to see you again.

because elections are run by state, there's differing levels of competency in multiple areas. i wouldn't say that ballots and voting machines are "always questionable in every election". it's questionable for certain states at certain times. for instance, Georgia had serious issues with their ballot machines under the incompetent Secretary of State Brian Kemp (2010-2018). under Raffensperger, Georgia seems to have improved.

New York had, and continues to have, issues when it comes to timely counting of votes.

but other states are far better. Virginia, for instance.

as for "secure account" and "voting online", those two phrases are mutually incompatible.

frankly we should have a national holiday on Election Day, and a national level organization that, well, organizes all national-level voting, and can assist with state/county/local voting as well. Federal Election Commission is far too weak. the recent fracas of stupid people acting as "observers" is a national embarrassment.

[Julie]

I've got a question. To make things alot less complicated when voting, why not have a secure account set up with our local Board of Elections and vote on line? I can already sign in to my account at the Board of Elections and update my info and such. This will do away completely with ballots and voting machines that are always questionable in every election. Seriously, what are your thoughts?