Reasonable doubt is not the standard of proof in civil cases. Generally, the standard is “preponderance of evidence,” that is, evidence that the claim is more likely true than not.
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If Dominion’s lawyers have not already foreseen this as a possibility then they are pretty worthless.
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Our elections are already highly transparent and auditable in terms of the actual vote. Only one state still uses machines without a seperate paper ballot, and machines without seperate, auditable, redundant records are rare.
It’s not 100% but it’s damn close. As you can see by how easily and quickly things were audited in the face of disingenuous claims of fraud.
There are still some issues with access to base code, maintenance schedules etc with voting machines. With certain companies restricting access, but that’s fading and the concerns usually have more to do with privacy, reliability, and general information security than anything to do with election fraud. Many states have already passed laws requiring access and audits, or restricting contracts to companies that offer it.
It’s other aspects on access to polls, voter suppression, the census, allocation of seats and electors where things are muddied up and transparency is seriously lacking.
A court decision couldn’t do that. The Constitution is fairly explicit on the broad strokes of our elections and how seats are apportioned. It not only doesn’t require proportional representation based on actual votes and population. But takes steps designed to prevent it.
You need legislation at a minimum, maybe amendments depending on how far you go.
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As an alternative to releasing the code to public view, Dominion might claim trade secret and ask that the code be examined by a special master, someone who reports results to the court and doesn’t expose the code itself.
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I love that even NewsMax had to interrupt him to clarify they didn’t support his baseless claims because they’re afraid of getting sued.
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I know. It sucks, and I agree with your analysis.
I am glad that most states are moving to a auditable paper-based ballot system. I was really glad to see my voting precinct go that way a couple of years ago, but I didn’t know how widespread it was!
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Wanker.
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Let me guess, he’s back on cocaine!
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Few enough people are. A lot of people seem to have stopped following the issue during the Bush Administration and are simply rolling with the concerns from back then.
We’re hearing a bit too often that “if we fixed voting machines then the GOP couldn’t XYZ” and “well maybe the GOP will take voting machines seriously”. All that’s doing is validating the fraud claims. We’ve pretty much fixed this, been well on our way to fixing it for a decade, and it wasn’t the GOP that drove the improvements.
They’re just aping past criticism to make their lies sound plausible.
As of 2020 almost no voting machine in the US lacked a paper record and redundancy. Only Louisiana still relies entirely on direct vote machines, where they’re used in other states it’s pretty limited. All the major vendors allow auditing of their code and systems, if not public ones.
Yet here we are hearing about socialist ghosts stealing your vote for China. There’s still issues with these voting systems. But they’ve got little to do with the right wing claims, and the GOP hasn’t even mentioned any of them.
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He’s high on his own supply.
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This is the well-known Trump Exception to the hearsay rule.
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I need to put this out here - I’d rather rest my head on a bag of rocks than ever use one of those fascist pillows.
Thanks for listening, internet.
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I think he forgot how many kilos he could buy with that much money
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Nah, he just revived an old way of making things to put on, below, or around your head. Mercury!
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When you say “our” do you mean Germany or the U.S.? And if you mean the U.S., which state.
I can tell you that the vast majority (but not all) of the machines in Indiana are like this. I would be surprised to learn we were the only state like this.
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I already provided a link.
Only 13 states still use direct vote machines in any capacity. Indiana is one of them, and those machines don’t have a high quality paper record. Which makes them an outlier. But it doesn’t mean they do not have an auditable record, and it looks like a slight majority of counties use them over scanners. Not the vast majority of all machines.
7 states still use machines like Indianas. Almost all in the South or the Red Midwest. The only state that uses direct vote exclusively (they also lack verified paper records) is Louisiana.
Many of the states that still have some portion of these machines are basically mid transition. With smaller counties dragging ass of replacing old machines. Almost all in states that lack a state wide standard.
And that is a problem. But these are generally not the same very bad machines from the 00’s. And critically they aren’t the ones Trump is blaming. Mostly don’t exist in the states he’s disputing, especially in counties that went for Biden.
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I assure you, there was no paper record or receipt when my entire family voted in the most recent election. Not for the voter, and not for the poll worker. I even complained at the time, and the poll worker shrugged her shoulders.
And counties aren’t a good indication of number of machines, as some counties have significantly higher populations than most.
I agree with you, though, that the machines being complained about by the Republicans are not the machines you or I would complain about.
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Well you can look up a county by county list from the state listing what machine and format. 40 Indiana counties are on the Scantron model, and from the looks of voter counts it mostly the more populous counties.
Receipts have largely fallen out of fashion, because all they really do is reassure the voter.
No paper record (which I already said Indiana’s DRE machines don’t do that) does not mean no record or that they’re un-auditable. As I understand the vast majority of such machines still in circulation keep redundant digital records. Often including raw inputs. Some of them still lack a check/confirmation step though.
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This isn’t a criminal case. The standard of proof is preponderance of evidence (or clear and convincing evidence for punitive damages, though that may depend on jurisdiction).
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Even if there were something plausibly “suspicious” in the source code, it couldn’t be a defence against libel unless he knew about it before he made the libellous claims. He’s repeatedly stated damaging things about their business as facts, so he will need to show that he believes it based on what he already knows.
This is why even Fox News and OAN’s lawyers ordered them to issue weaselly statements on air within hours of receiving the same legal threat. It might be easy to worm out of libel (in the US), but you have to do at least token worming. Mike Pillows thinks he’s being a Turmpy hero by doubling down on the lie, but I suspect he’s about to learn why non-crackhead public figures are so careful to say things like “allegedly”.
If you say something’s true and you can prove it, that’s likely to become a problem when you have to tell a judge “I don’t actually have the proof, please can you order someone to find it for me”.
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