IT'S NOT THE STAFF, IT'S THE MACHINES

photo from the Washington Post.

By Mike Lynch

Cortez

This article is about election integrity in Montezuma County. So right up front I want to make clear my position on the election staff of our county including the Clerk and Recorder. It is my belief that they did correctly everything that was required of them as instructed by our Colorado Secretary of State (SOS) Gena Griswald.

But I also believe that election laws were broken in our county in the 2020 election and every county-run election in our county since then. You might be asking yourself how it is possible for someone to hold both those beliefs concurrently because they seem to be contrary and even mutually exclusive. Hopefully I will explain well enough in this article that a reader will understand how that is possible. But also, I hope readers will come away with a sincere desire to question our elections for the purpose of either confirming their trust, or doubting their trust, that our elections are free and fair.

As I understand, the staff in charge of running the elections are trained to be able to use the tools they have at their disposal, including the Dominion computers (the machines) that can be used to cast votes on a ballot, read the votes on all ballots, tabulate or count the votes for all races, detect possible errors made by voters and send those ballot images to the election judges for adjudication, produce written reports to the staff on election race totals, as well as connect to the internet to upload results to the office of the SOS, among other functions.

All computers require firmware and software which are instructions that tell the computers what to do. These instructions, also referred to as scripts, programs, or code, force the computers to behave the way the programmers (Dominion) want them to behave. They can program what to show on their screens, how and what the computers communicate with other devices or equipment in the election management system (EMS), how input data such as vote counts are stored and managed, and who is allowed into the system with full privileges and with limited privileges, as well as many other functions. The machines used in our county are made by Dell, Canon, and Samsung. The programing is written by Dominion and is proprietary which means they will not let anyone else know or see their code to be able to reveal what the instructions are telling the computers to do with the election data.

The election staff are trained to operate the machines according to the training they have received which also was written by Dominion. If Dominion is the “bad actor” they are accused of being why would they teach the election staff what the machines are really doing with the data? They wouldn’t. They would do everything they possibly could to hide the stealing of an election.

I have a metaphor that I hope relates well with our election staff’s knowledge of the elections. Suppose a person goes down to a dealership and buys a 4 wheel drive pickup truck with an automatic transmission. It is a Ford and it runs on gasoline. What does the new owner of the pickup need to know in order to drive the pickup? What do the letters mean for the gear selector? Which foot pedal makes the vehicle go faster? Which pedal is used to slow down and stop? Where is the emergency brake and how do you set and release it? What do the gauges mean? How do you operate all the accessories? How do you engage or disengage the 4 wheel drive? How does the new owner learn all these things? Well, by previous experience or by reading the manual in the glove box, right?

Ford provides an operator’s manual for every vehicle they make. Where in that manual does Ford disclose the details of how the carburetor or fuel injection works? Where does it explain the speed or the rpm at which the transmission shifts from one gear to the next? Where does it explain the programming of the electronic modules that control the environmental devices on the engine? Where does it explain what measuring probes are installed on the engine and where they are located? Where does it explain what probe data criteria will cause the engine light to come on in the dashboard? It doesn’t. All those things are proprietary. Ford doesn’t give away any of their design secrets or other people could take advantage. Other people would know how things work.

So think of the new owner of the Ford as the election staff of our county. They learn how to operate the vehicle but they don’t know how all the parts of the engine do their part to make the vehicle go. The vehicle represents the machines. And Dominion is like the manufacturer of the vehicle, Ford.

When anyone suspects the machines are being used to commit election fraud and the election staff tell us they are driving the machines exactly like the manufacturer told them to, why should anyone expect the drivers to know the details about how the engine and all its components work or how to detect problems with each component? We must go to automotive technicians and auto specialists to troubleshoot why the engine is misbehaving or even if it IS misbehaving.

It is for this reason that cyber experts across our country have been asked to analyze the machines and the log files they generated and the data/voting records they produced. These forensic experts have found evidence in counties of swing states and even in Colorado showing the machines did not follow protocols required by state and federal laws. Much of the election integrity concerns can be found at https://magaraccoon.com/, including what was found in the Mesa County, Colorado forensic reports.

Don’t blame the election staff. It’s not the staff, it’s the machines. And the staff are not the experts when it comes to the machines. All they know is what’s in the driver’s manual and whatever our SOS and Dominion tell the staff to say.

In my opinion the election staff are not the experts when it comes to the machines. So why are so many people asking the election staff about the integrity of the 2020 election?

Note: This article was offered to the Four Corners Free Press on August 27, 2022 but was not published in the paper edition.