Today, I made the mistake of checking in on some Facebook pages that I usually avoid. I wanted to see Christmas pictures, but found stuff that nauseated me. These are pages where I know my views are not respected and any response from me would be unwelcome. It is just better for my mental health not to read things that make me feel dirty for leaving them unchallenged. Let me just say, Donald Trump's vile lies are still believed in some quarters. These people post, as if it were established fact, absolute nonsense from sources like the Epoch Times, which in turn documents its stories with links to... the Epoch Times website. My blog was established in 2005 for this very sort of occasion. I must state my case as honestly and forthrightly as possible; I can do no other. But I prefer to nail it to my own door.
The 2020 elections in Georgia were the most secure and verifiable elections in this state since the days of paper ballots. I witnessed almost all parts of the process: the opening of absentee mailed-in ballots; the handling and care of the batches of paper ballots from absentee in-person voting; the accumulation of electronically scanned "day-of" ballots from computer cards; the scanning of absentee ballots, the adjudication of ballots that could not be read by the scan-reading software; the duplication of one accidentally mangled mail-in ballot; the interaction of technicians, elections personnel, partisan and non-partisan observers, the manual recount of votes, the electronic recount of votes, and more.
If you haven't already, please read...
My previous post describing my volunteer work in the elections office.
After writing that post I monitored or adjudicated for several more days through the electronic recount that was requested by the president. It went well and reaffirmed the previous vote. During that time I once again was paired with a Republican --- actually three different Republicans at different times --- and once again we were able to amiably decide if voter intent could be determined for ballots thrown out by the machine and if so award the vote to the intended candidate.
In one case my Republican co-hort was the infamous Marjorie "QAnon" Greene, our incoming US Representative. She and I agreed 100% on the one ballot we had to make a judgment about together, perhaps the one and only time before or since that we have agreed on anything.
During the whole time of my experience with the elections board and the elections staff, the ballots and the sacred voice of the people they represent were treated with care, with respect, and honestly. When errors were made, as will ALWAYS happen in every election, they were acknowledged and corrected. We the People can be assured of that because every single ballot is physically preserved and, in the case of this year's presidential election, verified by hand AND electronic recount.
The company that developed our system has created many safeguards to assure an honest vote. Their technicians who were present to assist with the process were diligent in answering questions only from elections personnel and staying scrupulously non-partisan; their role had NOTHING to do with adjudication but ONLY with operating the equipment. The two technicians with whom I had contact were consistently professional and determinedly non-responsive to questions from partisan monitors regarding the process. We spent many hours each day together, and during breaks they were polite and personable with monitors of both parties but talked of weather, hobbies, home-life, and such, never politics -- not once.
The same was true of the monitors. I enjoyed talking with several of the Republican monitors and found them mostly just patriotic Americans like me who were willing to volunteer a lot of time to protect our franchise. They reminded me of my much-loved relatives whose company I enjoy, even if I cringe at the fact-free venom on their Facebook pages.
Every count was verified by elections personnel and could be monitored by BOTH parties as well as non-partisan observers like the League of Women Voters, the Carter Center, the NAACP, and the news media.
There is NO opportunity for computer manipulation of the ballots but IF THERE WERE it would be revealed by a hand recount of the physical ballots.
Anyone who disputes the basic facts above is either ignorant of the process, blinded by partisanship, or lying.
I thought my job was over for the Christmas season, but then a Texas group instigated computer-generated challenges to the votes of thousands of Georgians whose names showed up on some change-of-address lists. Of course there are many voters whose addresses change between elections. That does not affect their right to vote. So Sheila and I left our last minute Christmas Cards lying where they were and hurried to the emergency called Elections Board meeting a couple of days before Christmas to hear the ridiculous challenge and monitor the public debate and await the inevitable ruling. Ugh.
In each county the group found someone willing to officially challenge the votes of these people, with NO evidence beyond their name on such a list, and generally with no knowledge of the individual voters whose basic American right to vote they sought to deny. In our county, as in almost every other, these challenges were thrown out for lack of standing as the law clearly prescribes according my understanding of the explanation of the law from our county lawyer.
I thank God that we have ditched the previous system which gave us NO physical ballot as a back-up. If a candidate had lost Georgia so narrowly under the old system and decided to make up fraud charges, there would have been no way to prove his charges were untrue, as Trump's charges have been proven untrue over and over in Georgia and across the nation in courts and recounts this year.
President-elect Joseph R. Biden will become president at noon on January 20, 2021 because he won 306 electoral votes by garnering millions of votes more than his opponent in the greatest turn-out of a presidential election in my life time. The people spoke; And how they spoke!
Hallelujah!
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