Reply #86: You don't need to get lost in details [View All]

[pat_k]

The arguments are simple. Something people really "get" is that secret vote counting is wrong.

What they don't get is that the DREs are secret vote counters.

I just posted on this topic in response to ConservativeDemocrat.

As I assert in that post, secret vote counting is intolerable in any nation that claims to hold free and fair elections. This is a key part of the case against DREs.

But there is more to a trustworthy election than an open, accurate, and verifiable count. DREs get so much focus that we sometimes lose track of a critical point:

Discriminatory treatment of voters ALONE is sufficient to invalidate an election.

"Keep it simple." When we get caught up in details of a specific election -- details intended to prove the election invalid -- we buy into the illogical assumption that the burden of proof is on us. It is not. The burden is on the state. See Burden of Proof in an Election.

We have the right to have confidence in the results of our elections. We are the sovereigns here, but if we are to exercise that sovereignty, we must reject the wrong-headed assumptions that are keeping us suck in a quagmire. We must change the way we think about elections. We must draw a few simple lines and hammer them. The lines we must draw are rooted in simple truths and moral principles, not details and evidence.

One of those lines is this question:

Are hours-long poll-tax-lines for poor, minority voters AND none for affluent, white voters a tolerable condition for you?

If anyone tries to weasel out of answering directly by citing "margin of victory" or making the assertion that we are somehow trapped and limited by the "letter of the law", you can challenge their rationalizations:

Rationalization

If the results declare a winner by a large margin, discrimination and other problems are "outside the zone of litigation."

Simple Truth; Moral Position

If you accept the notion that a large margin of victory puts the election "outside the zone of litigation," then you accept the notion that such a state is completely free to discriminate with no risk of consequence. This is an absurd position. No matter what the margin of victory, the results of a discriminatory election are unacceptable. We cannot continue to tolerate the intolerable. We cannot continue to tolerate the toleration of the intolerable.

Rationalization

We are trapped and limited by the "letter of the law" (e.g., the margin of victory puts the election "outside the zone of litigation" or "they have all the judges").

Simple Truth; Moral Position

We the People, through our representatives, have defined our election laws to ensure that election results reflect OUR will. If, in any state, there is a reasonable doubt that the election results reflect the will of the voters, and application of the law fails to provide a remedy that eliminates the doubt, then We the People must demand a political remedy; one that trumps all legalisms and cynical misuse of our courts.

The law is intended to serve our will, not thwart it. We can never again allow a "technical" or "legal" argument trump reality as we did in 2000 and 2004.