Justsomeguy

That means that I'll have some time to spend in the shop, which is good. I'm happy about that. I have three smaller projects that I'd like to finish so I can move on to some bigger things. Looks like my circular saw isn't coming home, so I need to find another one of those too.

I have election work as well. Dallas is filing more nonsense and it needs to be responded to and I'll start working on that today in addition to the three projects that are already in work.

To start getting my personal stuff back in order and keep up with my must do election stuff, I had to cut off news and social media almost entirely. I'm way behind now and need to see if I can catch up. Much of my understandings come from putting small and seemingly inconsequential things from different sources together, so I tr to be thorough in my reading. I need to get back on that horse too. Several good papers have been written that I need to read too.

Make it a great day and rejoice in the day you have been given.

That smarter thing has been a problem. It’s not a lack of intelligence in the traditional sense, but a lack of knowledge or “intelligence” on how the system really works. Most of us try to avoid “the system”. Few of us ever file an open records request, and fewer yet file briefs to defend the requests. Hell, I didn’t know anything about that process two years ago, now I’m kind of an expert in parts of it. Lawyers are expensive, and the bad guys know that the little guys can’t afford them. Because there are some that would work on their own behalf and there are some good folks with money to pay these huge costs for others, the lawyers that would step up have been attacked. The more effective you are, the greater the attack. Paxton anyone?

This fight can be extremely demoralizing. I’ve been knocked down several times as I realized just how deep this corruption is, and how much resistance the bad guys can put up. If weren’t for the help and support of people like the indomitable TK Campbell, Dayna Oliver, small helps from guys like Buck Albright and many others too numerous to name, I don’t know how I could keep it up. All of the folks I work with, at least if they are deep into it have gone through the same things. This is tough stuff.

If you read my Facebook posts, you know that I think we are in trouble and I’m afraid that some of y’all still don’t get how deep the trouble is. Our election, banking, farming, education, legal, medical, and energy systems are all under attack. It’s time for all of you to pick a field and to go stand in the gap. I have a mix of experience that fits well with elections. Moms seem to be best equipped for the school fight. We need accountants, and finance people, doctors and nurses, agricultural folks and lawyers to stand up. I’m asking that you ensure your county commissioner and state rep know you by name and that your county judge and state senator recognize you. I’m asking that you take a couple of folks with you and go speak to them from time to time about what it is that bugs you. You are in trouble, and worse than that your kids and grand kids are in deep stuff if we don’t turn this around. All of those dystopian novels and movies are on the verge of happening if you don’t act.

I equate today's election system to the days of Tammany Hal and of Athens Tennessee. The system is that opaque to you. I’m not asking you to recreate the battle of Athens, in fact I’m trying to avoid that. The few that are willing to go for it will only get themselves thrown in jail. Folks like me are working the system everyday, but it would be easier with people behind us. You have to stand up, spek the truth and be counted.

The situation is not all negative. We have made some progress here. In one or more of the smaller counties in PA, there was some good documentation of the fraud, and even though the kitchen sink has been thrown at the folks pushing that investigation, it is ongoing. In Michigan, THE office responsible for investigating election fraud was the sheriffs office, and some of those took the job seriously. Every clerk in the country isn’t corrupt and with the support of a real and fully legal investigation, they have cooperated. My understanding is that everything we believed as happening is being validated. These sheriffs didn’t have the budget or expertise to handle this - particularly in the face of the opposition they got, but donors such as Patrick Byrne have stepped up, and they hired a firebrand of a young woman lawyer as the main investigator. They have faced opposition from the AG and SoS, and they should because the investigation is pointing right at them, but the sherriffs have the legal authority and have stood fast. Michigan and PA, may blow this thing up. In the mean time, the good guys are getting smart. I stated one day that criminals are gonna crim, and sure enough they do. The people that would traffic ballots will do other stuff too. We’re just getting started at look in that direction, but it might be easier to break. Fake people may make fake COVID loans? Fake student loans? Fake medical claims? Fake SS Claims? Fake political contributions? I suspect that we will find that much of our society is fake.

The one entity I haven’t discussed is God. Many of us have felt through this that He has led us to the answer and we are going to break it loose! It hasn't happened. He’s certainly led many of us into greater understandings, but those understandings haven’t turned to results as yet. Man proposes, but God disposes and I don’t pretend to know His mind or His plan. I do know that His Hand is here, and this is not just a political, but it is also a spiritual battle. Didn’t think that when this started, but a few months ago, it seems that many of us started coming to that conclusion. Many people coming to the same conclusion at about the same time probably means something.

Stand up, speak the truth, ensure you are heard, and pray

Certain election crimes were returned to being a felony. That might be good news if anyone was ever charged with those crimes, but that rarely happens. A bill was passed that would lead to us leaving ERIC. ERIC is an organization that we spend a lot of money to support. It’s supposed to help clean up the voter rolls, but since it’s formation, the rolls have become even more bloated. Just this week the Secretary of State sent notice to ERIC of our pending resignation from the program. This is a big victory.

A bill was passed that would allow disabled people to receive a ballot via the internet that would allow even the blind to vote without a person to aid them in interpreting the ballot. This is one of those things that sounds wonderful, but in practice it will be abused, and it would have been yet another camels nose under the tent in helping to destroy security. Security would have gone out the window when people can print their own ballot, on their own printer, and/or send a ballot in electronically. The UOCAVA system which is used by the military folks to cast their ballots is already badly abused, and this measure would have piled on. Fortunately Abbott vetoed this bill, and that’s curious because it was said that he was the one pushing for its passage. This was a bullet dodged.

Lastly a bill was passed that should help with securing many of the documents that I have been going after. Several bills were filed to help accomplish that and most of the weren’t very good. Not to brag, but yours truly has done more work to find the problems in this area and nearly every bill failed to address some part of the problem. HB 5180 is the one I decided to support, but at the same time I lobbied hard for changes to that. Many of you may know that Brewster isn’t exactly Mr. Personality, and due to that, and preparing for the hearings on the lawsuits, my lobbying efforts fell short. Way short. A couple of other ladies did get changes made in the senate, but I’m afraid that they will confuse the situation. We do know have ballot access guaranteed 61 days after an election, but there are provisions in the bill that I think will allow for the chain of custody to be broken that could make that worthless. We’ll see how this plays out in real time. It goes into effect in September.

There was another tragedy during this session. Mr. Allen Vera, a former Ranger Captain and a man that fought for election integrity way before it was cool to do so, had a massive heart attack and died at the Capitol while there to testify on legislation. I knew Allen. He had been around for a while and knew ropes that most of us don’t and won’t for a very long time, and I’d hoped to learn from him. This is a great loss to me, but also to the whole state. Allen was effective while most of us are running around like headless chickens.

Of course, we also had the impeachment of Paxton that was headed up by that sniveling weasel Phelen.

I don’t believe in coincidences and the day the impeachment was announced was also the day that the decision on both court cases was announced. That narcissistic little punk and the satirists that support him were sending a message. They are all traitors to the country and to their neighbors.

Today we are in a kind of a limbo place on the election document thing. Tarrant County seems to be more cooperative, but most counties are taking a wait and see approach. There are split decisions in the lower courts on the issue of whether they were public or not under the old legislation and there are reasons in the law that this can make a real difference. We are waiting on the new law to come into effect. I’m hoping the counties will be stepping up and do the right thing. There is more to that, that I won’t go into in this forum. I’ll finish bringing y’all up to date tomorrow.

The whole thing is a long process. The entity has 15 business days to give a detailed response to the ORD, then the ORD has 45 business days to respond. I think that the county then has 30 days, to decide if they will file suit. If they do file, it has to be in Travis County where the AG’s office is. They can suck up huge amounts of time with this game and understand that we are just now learning how to play.

The requestor is able to file a brief with the ORD although few people actually do. The ORD is supposed to look at every request on its individual merits, but once they have decided an issue, it becomes a cookie cutter operation. They simply pull the stock answer off the shelf and send it. In the case of the documents, I am going after, a wrong decision was made back in the 80’s and that has been the “rule” since. No one had seriously challenged that ruling.

More to come...

After the 2020 election, many of us knew things were not right. If you have any real experience with numbers, these didn’t add up. Much of the country started trying to get audits done and we had little success. At least not publicly. More on that in a day or so. The AZ audit and others did bring out a good bit of information and if you paid attention to all of the material, it was pretty damning. It failed to result in traction and most people moved on to simply trying to get rid of the machines. In my mind, it doesn’t matter how the votes are counted, it has to be done in a very open manner, and has to be audited just as any other critical transaction is. That’s where I’ve been focusing my efforts.

I have been working on more than a full-time basis to get the documents necessary for us to understand how our elections work. We actually have some good laws, but they have been saddled with some lousy interpretations. I believe that we should have access to nearly everything, and I’ve been fighting for that. Over the next week I’ll recap the fight and where we are now. At first, I thought I’d be requesting documents and the reviewing data, but I’ve hardly touched the data. I’ve been entirely consumed with the fight for the documents. The main requests were for the images that are captured of the ballots, and for the Cast Vote Records, which should detail how the ballot was voted, but there were other documents needed as well.

When I make a request, I always learn something. I learn how much of a fight you are going to make to keep me from having it. I learn who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. If I get the document, I learn a bit more about the election system, and if I don’t - I learn where the resistance is and what arguments they are using to keep me away from it. At times I’ve framed a request just to evoke a response.

One such effort was for manuals on the voting equipment. The law is very clear that we should have access to them, but I knew nobody wanted to give them up – so with the help of Dayna Oliver, I requested them. From over 20 counties. The purpose was to try and get as many versions as possible, but failing that, to find the resistance. There was a lot. Because of the way the law works, the equipment manufacturers were notified that I had made the request and were able to respond with their arguments. I got a 14-page response from both Hart and ES&S. I took them on, but this was a lot for an old Crew Chief to handle. One of my readers arranged a meeting with a prominent lawyer who would be known to many of the people on my pages, and he advised me to drop it. I considered doing so, but nah. I don’t quit. The “court” in this instance was to be the Open Records Division of the Attorney General's office. A staff lawyer. It’s not a huge victory, but I won on every issue but copyright. Copyright law is tough, and I knew it was over my head, but it’s also not well-developed law as to how it pertains to public how copyright and public information intersect is not well-developed law. In the end, I won the right to go review the documents, but not to copy them. I already had many of them, I just wanted to fill in the holes and see what their arguments were. This helps us know how legislation needs to be changed.