As we approach the 2024 election, many of you will wonder what we can do to improve the process.  The people need trustworthy elections.  For this election, we need to overwhelm the polls so our voices are heard and votes accurately counted.  Ultimately, our country must return to the basics—voting (and counting the ballots) on one day at the local precinct utilizing pen, paper, and people.

Each voter should vote by marking paper ballots hand-counted by volunteers at the precinct with bipartisan participation.  The count should be completely transparent, as our South Carolina state constitution calls for the votes to be “counted in public.”

The Gold Standard team was assembled with people from multiple states (South Carolina, Minnesota, Ohio, Texas, and South Dakota) to re-engineer the process.  The result of all their hard work is the Gold Standard Elections Whitepaper.  The team occasionally will meet to discuss various election topics.  Here are some recent videos you may find interesting.

Lack of Trust is the fundamental issue, and ensuring transparent voting is the solution

Too many third-party organizations are involved in our election process, which adds to public mistrust of election results.  “The people” have lost control over the process.  Transparency of the process is vital.  When technology replaces oversight of the people, it becomes a problem. 

 Hava from Ohio explains.  

Machines don’t always catch errors and are not as good as humans at determining voter intent.  Rick explains.  Was your vote counted correctly?  How would you know?

The technology is highly complex.  Why is it so difficult to count circles on a paper?  Why do we need a few million lines of code to count your vote?  There are many layers in the process.  Do our election officials and workers even understand these systems?

There are some reports and methods to enhance transparency, but many election officials refuse to use them.  Why don’t they value transparency?

The best way to count votes is a hand-tally method:

For more on this method, see this video: https://rumble.com/embed/v59a6o3/?pub=3gxmck

The Gold Standard tally method is a great way to count ballots in an emergency and an efficient way to conduct hand-count audits.

Guest post by Laura Downing

We keep hearing that Mis-, Dis-, and Mal-Information are actual threats to democracy and must be dealt with by those who have determined that they are such.

According to CISA (Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency), “Misinformation is false, but not created or shared with the intention of causing harm”. WHO gets to determine “intent” or “harm”?
“Disinformation is deliberately created to mislead, harm, or manipulate a person, social group, organization, or country.” WHO gets to decide that deliberation and
how they misled, harmed, or manipulated others? “Malinformation is based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.” WHO gets to decide what is fact and the context? The answers to these questions should identify the “who” that is driving this evaluation. A better evaluation of information is whether it is TRUE or FALSE. TRUE information should be allowed to be created, spread, repeated, or published, and all without punishment or suppression. FALSE information should be allowed to be created, spread, repeated, or published, and all with the expectation that the recipient has the right to rebut, ignore, counter, and/or dismiss all false information. The 9 th Commandment (of the Ten) is about lying and bearing false witness. Both are prohibited by the Almighty. So, those who are involved in false information should know that the penalty is gonna involve extreme heat.

Our Founders knew there was a better way than to have ANYONE determining what speech is “allowed”. They enshrined this RIGHT to free speech in the First Amendment to the Constitution which says, “Congress shall make no law …abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” And yet, the mantra about protecting democracy by doing this very thing is proceeding unabated. Look around. Do you have free speech? Is there freedom of the press? Why are we allowing that right to be curtailed by those who want to restrict it? No country can ever be considered Free unless her citizens are allowed to speak
freely. No one should have the right to tell them what, when, where, how, or if they can say what they want to say. No one. Any effort to suppress speech is, by definition, censorship and unconstitutional.
The next time you are told something is Mis-, Dis-, or Mal-Information, maybe you should focus on whether or not the information is TRUE or FALSE and react accordingly.

The countdown is on for the 2024 election. Now that many states have imposed early voting so many people wonder how and when they should vote. (SC added 14 days of early voting in the election bill of 2022; prior to that we had 1 day of voting except for 2020 where they had a temporary emergency 29 day early voting period). Furthermore, many “influencers” are giving advice that doesn’t make sense to those of us fighting for election integrity 24-7 for the last 4 years.

There are many options: vote early in person?, by absentee ballot?, on election day?

After studying this issue with election integrity experts for the past 4 years we have some answers for you.

In addition, please do the following prior to voting and consider helping ensure your vote counts by:

• Check your registration status; you must be registered at least 30 days prior to the election
• Vote in person on election day; confirm your precinct location beforehand (please refrain from voting early). In this must-see video, Laura and Rick from the Gold Standard Elections team discuss why.

• Encourage your friends to vote; drive them to the polls
• Have a neighborhood picnic for people who voted
• Sign up with your political party to be a poll watcher
• Observe the absentee ballot processing and tabulation
• Attend your county logic and accuracy machine testing
• Attend your county provisional hearing and canvassing/certification of the vote
• Attend your county hand count audit of the results
• Stay up to date on breaking election news at our Telegram channel