Begin with Election 2020

Why the people of South Carolina should care about our elections

Most of us know that future elections – including the most local – are basically useless until the Election 2020 mess is solved and remediated.

At this point, it’s less important to know who did it as opposed to how it was done. We have examples of the methods too. And by recognizing them (universal mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting, counterfeit ballots, ghost voters, duplicate ballots, corrupt officials) we can take action to limit and eliminate them.

Break the habit.

But before we can do all of that, as a state we must admit that we have a problem here. Think of a forensic study of our November 2020 election as an intervention in the addiction of greed. Yes, greed. Money and power. Not for us, the electorate. Rather, to indulge the uniparty ruling class. Just as substance abuse harms the abuser’s family, so does the rulers’ drive to control us harm South Carolina’s people. We pay for their fun.

Interventions are uncomfortable, and they reveal to the abuser his own destructive behavior. If he has a conscience, he can admit his wrongdoing and take steps to correct it. But he may have to be transported to rehab against his will.

So, now, what should be our first move? Demand a thorough forensic compliance study of our entire election process in South Carolina, beginning with November 2020.

What is a compliance study?

On the official election website of South Carolina, audits for every election are proudly touted. But closer inspection reveals that these ‘audits’ are simple recounts, to match the number of votes to the number of voters. This presupposes that each election is fair and honest.

People, we haven’t had a fair and honest election for over 20 years. Listen to Clint Curtis tell about being hired to rig elections. Just because President Trump won in SC, that just means that either it was planned, or he got a big enough landslide to overcome the voting machine algorithms.

Think of the basic difference between a simple audit and a forensic study in this way.

Look at the photo of a tray of ‘apples’. It appears that you have 16 edible apples. They’re all more or less the same shape, though some differ in color.

Count them. You have 16 apples. You can use your apples – or whatever — to make a pie, even if you have to make substitutions and have a different kind of pie. It can be compared to, ‘my candidate won, so it’s all good’. This is the countable, verifiable result of a simple audit. If you count correctly, you’ll always get the outcome you want.

Now examine them closely. You have 9 edible apples, 3 more with rotten spots, a tennis ball, an orange, a lemon, and a decorative marble egg. So, in reality, you have 9 apples. And you may even find a plastic one, in which case you end up with 8 apples. Is that enough to make your pie? Would that even be possible, with the apples you really have? Which candidates actually won?

This is the result of a compliance study, where you compare each ‘apple’ to the standard of ‘perfect, edible, genuine apple’.

Trump won, so what’s the problem?

It’s true, in South Carolina the results put Donald J. Trump in the win column for our state. But maybe the count would have been far more of an advantage in a fair fight. And what about the down-ballot results? Who really won their respective races? Maybe some NASCAR drivers would have something to say about dirty tactics and apparent finish line outcomes. This issue is a nonpartisan one. Citizens of all political affiliations should be concerned if a race was won through nefarious means and their vote was stolen.

All politics is local. And it goes all the way down to the precinct level. A forensic study of the ballots may reveal election rigging in every precinct of a county. Or just some. And that begs the question: Why is there such determined resistance to even the mention of an inspection of our voting system and votes? If there is nothing to hide and if our elections are open, honest, and properly conducted, what’s the harm in a study to reassure us that our individual vote really does count?

What should a compliance study of Election 2020 include?

The following information is adapted from the wording of a resolution demanding the complete forensic audit of select counties in South Carolina for the 2020 election–primarily Lexington, Greenville, and Horry as they were identified as being potentially fraudulent by Seth Keshel’s analysis. This resolution has been adopted by Lexington county and is being considered by additional counties as of this writing. Unfortunately, GOP leadership in some SC counties refuse to even entertain discussion in their county leadership meetings. Why is that?

A study should be public, live-streamed, available to poll watchers, candidates or candidate representatives of any party to witness. None of this business of pizza boxes covering the windows, or fake water main breaks. And the examination should include (but not be limited to):

All paper ballots (from the 2020 General Election and the pre-election system test ballots):
  • Kinematic forensic analysis (utilizing high speed, high definition, digital forensic police cameras, and optical character recognition) of paper ballots
  • Digital forensic analysis of ballot images both computer and human created, and any and all image codes,
  • Forensic analysis of the paper and the print system utilized
  • All possible ballots:
    • How many versions of ballots were there?
    • How many of each version could be counted?
    • How many of each version were counted?
    • How did the digital images of each affect the operation of the election equipment?
    • Was there any forensic variation within each ballot version?
    • Did the handling of ballots alter the effect of the ballot’s interaction with any election equipment?
The tabulator tapes:
  • Kinematic forensic analysis of the tabulator tapes
  • A forensic analysis of their correlation to the equipment used, the software and the paper ballots
  • The machines all equipment and software utilized before during and after the 2020 General Election:
  • Nationally recognized computer forensic analysts to find, extract, analyze and document all electronically stored information found on the counting/tabulator machines, pollbook machines, disability abled machines, routers, thumb drives, SOS laptops, and any other equipment not listed
  • Forensic and kinematic analysis of all equipment used
The networks:
  • Full forensic network, and packet analysis of all connectivity
  • Canvassing of precincts to measure rates of phantom and lost votes
  • Verification of the voter rolls

And all of the results and reports derived from them should be fully transparent and available to all citizens of South Carolina. According to our own state Constitution, Article 2, Sections 1 and 2:

Section 1

“All elections by the people shall be by secret ballot, but the ballots shall not be counted in secret. The right of suffrage, as regulated in this Constitution, shall be protected by laws regulating elections and prohibiting, under adequate penalties, all undue influence from power, bribery, tumult, or improper conduct.”

Section 2

“No power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage in this State.”

Election officials claim that they already conducted audits after the election but apparently they only reviewed the smaller local races in the state and only small samples were hand-counted. From the Freedom of Information Act response that the we received from the SEC, it appears that there was no audit of the federal races!

We do not trust our elected officials.

That’s what this all comes down to. From the time we had electronic voting pushed on us, we haven’t had an honest election. Our own SC state director of the Election Commission (for 18 years!) worked for Unisys Corporation sales from 2000-2003. She was ‘responsible for public sector accounts in GA, SC and NC in the areas of justice and public safety, imaging, and environmental permitting.’ In 2001 Unisys jumped into voting systems with Microsoft and Dell. Guess they saw a great opportunity from the Bush v Gore hanging chad debacle: Hide the cheating electronically.
So, knowing that Marci Andino was responsible for sales to state agencies, and knowing that SC installed its first electronic voting machines around 2004, it’s logical to assume who engineered the sale. And why not hire that person to oversee the Palmetto State’s voting using that system? Makes sense, right? Especially since Andino sits on the ES&S advisory board. No conflict there. And now, she’s climbing the ladder again, resigning her position early to become director of the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center. That should inspire confidence.

Authored by Barbara Williams, Spartanburg county SC Safe Elections member