David G Mills on Air America Memphis

[Febble]

David Mills writes:

Air America Memphis Has David G. Mills As Guest Election Advocate

Air America Memphis host, Leon Gray, had two guests on his three hour Memphis Air America program yesterday dedicated to the upcoming elections in Memphis. One of guests was me. The other was a member of the Shelby County Election Commission (Memphis) who had been the past chairman of the board for about 15 years I think. Very nice man -- O.C. Pleasant is his name (Democrat)-- who although he has been pushing the Diebold machine, wants the Diebold machine with the paper trail (the Republican Commissioners don't --surprise, surprise).

Of course I got to talk about my election lawsuit against the Election Commission and the legal necessity of a paper ballot. O.C. Pleasant got to explain why Memphis had gone away from paper because of the stuffing of the ballots in the 50's.

I chimed in that polling duty would stop that and he agreed, saying it would help a lot. O.C. strongly advocates polling duty and even informed us that a polling duty bill had already been sent to the Tennessee General Assembly about ten years ago but was DOA because employers did not want to have to pay for subpoenaed poll workers (like they have to pay for jurors)!

The audience got to hear about the statute of frauds and why I believe that for election contests we need a statute of frauds for polling. They got to hear my argument that the statute of frauds was designed to prevent perjury contests and that paper ballots would prevent a variation on the theme, the expert witness contest, and a rigged contest at that.

The audience also got to hear that in August, here in Shelby county we will have the largest ballot ever in TN -- about 190 races for everyone who votes. O.C. estimated that it would be at least 15 computer screen pages. Also O.C. admitted that the Election Commission is now technically understaffed. Leon Gray told me after the program that he thought they might be missing as many as 7 or 8 people out of fourteen.

I must confess, I had a blast taking shots at the election process, even mentioning the rumor that one of the major American memory chip manufacturers has three employees and the principal owner being a Russian immigrant. And we talked about Venezuela owning whichever company it is that Lou Dobbs is reporting on.

In three hours you can cover a lot of ground. I got to bring up Harri Hursti and Chuck Herrin too.

I think the good news for me is that I convinced Leon Gray to my way of thinking and I believe he truely understands now why we need a proper paper record that we can bring to court for the jury to count. He understands now that a swearing match between two experts is not what the legal process needs. I think he was on sitting on the fence prior to my appearance, but I think he now fully appreciates what happens to the election contest if there is no proper paper record for court and he now sides with me on the issue.

All in all a good day for the paper ballot advocates getting out the message.

On another note, the Election Commission's brief is due any day now and I will be busy responding to it. I think my statute of frauds argument -- which I will be bringing up for the first time in my reply brief -- will get some attention with the judges as it has apparently been convincing to laymen such as Leon Gray. I think even O.C. Pleasant appreciates the argument. The statute of frauds argument just turns the light bulbs on for everyone.

Over and out from Memphis.

[Wilms]

1. Will there be a link to the audio? n/t