NotTheBrightestOfEyesVille
Remember when the current premier of Alberta, UCP leader Danielle Smith, made a call to an anti-vaxx/separatist preacher named Artur Pawlowski and discussed what she could do to make the criminal charges he was facing go away?Well, as David Climenhaga documents, the Alberta Ethics Commissioner has now weighed in:
...(T)he purpose of Premier Smith’s call was to influence a decision of the Crown to prosecute Mr. Pawlowski. … It is improper for any elected official to try to interfere with the administration of justice by interfering in a prosecution. … It is a threat to democracy …”
Strong words of a kind we have not seen from an ethics commissioner on this, the left side, of the Rockies for longer than this old guy can remember.
But.
This is not the only threat to democracy brewing in Alberta at the moment...
In case you were not aware of it, there is is blink-and-you'll-miss-it election campaign going down in Alberta at the moment.
Ms. Smith's UCP has the rural parts of the province in the bag and the same is true for Rachel Notley's NDP in Edmonton.
Which means that Calgary is the battleground where many commentators are shading thing UCP, although most polls have things within the statistical margin of error.
So, while it is not a large one, there is a distinct possibility that Ms. Notley and the NDP could win on May 29th.
And if they do, I fear that is where the second threat to democracy may emerge from the mire.
Because it turns out that there is a fringe group of far-rightish folks in wild rose country that are attempting to recruit and 'educate' a small army of election scrutineers that can, if needed, make a fuss about, amongst other things...wait for it...
Voting machines.
But.
This is not the only threat to democracy brewing in Alberta at the moment...
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In case you were not aware of it, there is is blink-and-you'll-miss-it election campaign going down in Alberta at the moment.
Ms. Smith's UCP has the rural parts of the province in the bag and the same is true for Rachel Notley's NDP in Edmonton.
Which means that Calgary is the battleground where many commentators are shading thing UCP, although most polls have things within the statistical margin of error.
So, while it is not a large one, there is a distinct possibility that Ms. Notley and the NDP could win on May 29th.
And if they do, I fear that is where the second threat to democracy may emerge from the mire.
Because it turns out that there is a fringe group of far-rightish folks in wild rose country that are attempting to recruit and 'educate' a small army of election scrutineers that can, if needed, make a fuss about, amongst other things...wait for it...
Voting machines.
...“It is a fact that the 2020 election in the United States was an inflection point for a lot of people,” said (scrutinizer webinar) presenter Ryan Murray. “And I started asking: What happened down there? Was it real? Did it really happen? Could it happen in Canada?”Murray dived into his concerns with voting machines, alleging they have “documented issues,” pointing out they were not built in Alberta but by a company based in Omaha, Nebraska and raising questions about the “source code.”“What’s going on with the source code?” Murray asked. “Do we have access to the source code? If we don’t know the programming and how these tabulators are actually processing our ballots, how they’re scanning them, how they’re storing them.”“What’s going on inside of these machines?”“It is documented,” Murray said. “These machines do have issues.”...{snippety}...Anjelika Oulanova, a (scrutinizer webinar) presenter who previously hosted a Take Back Alberta event at her home near Okotoks, provided a presentation on “How to ensure integrity of our vote” that cast doubt on the reliability of voting machines and asked attendees: “If we have machines that don’t count correctly, how can we rely on them?”...{snippety doo-dah}...Oulanova also provided a “script” that gives scrutineers instructions on how to dispute votes with Elections Alberta poll workers and advises them on how to ask to physically examine voting machines...
Now.
In days of yore we all could just chuckle and mutter something like 'fringe gonna fringe' before moving on, safe in knowledge that such a ridiculous initiative would go nowhere.
But these are not those days, what with the prevalence of insanity boosting algorithms and legacy media organs more than willing to defringify any group whose mad ravings have the potential to attract eyeballs and clicks to their dying platforms.
Therefore, the concern is that, once defringified and injected into the mainstream after a Notley win, the no longer mad voting machine ravings of the scrutineers will soon spread like wildfire through social media feeds and crank websites.
And if that happens we could be in real trouble by mid-summer.
And not just in the Albertalands.
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Image at the top of the post?...The 'Old Market' in Omaha Nebraska...A very sinister place, indeed.
COberst-free Earworm in the subheader?...This.
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3 comments:
Voting machines?! We're still using paper and pencils here in TO. No wonder they're getting all upset in Alberta. Who brought in newfangled tech like voting machines? You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know…
that these are just simple farmers.
True but simple and rich , not your mom and pop operation !
Simple as in simply incapable of thinking outside the box?
Alberta is burning due to climate change, change due to the burning of fossil fuels which is all Alberta can offer!!
In BC we have paper ballots that are inserted into a 'voting machine' of which I have confidence.
Condemning voting machines before an election is nothing but preparation for a possible loss in an election.
This is promotion of anarchy?
TB
In 2011 Christy Clark made a BCL-leadership campaign promise to look into online voting and, once she won, commissioned the BC Chief Electoral Officer, Keith Archer to submit a report. Everyone should read it, an excellent synopsis of how and why our voting system works, “the Cadillac of voting systems,” paper ballots hand-marked at a designated voting-place, hand-counting scrutinized by party officials, and ballots archived for future use, including recounting. Oh, and BTW, Archer condemned online voting from the first sentence to the last: it fails on every one of the several essential criteria for a fair and democratic vote—every single one. (Really, the Report is succinct, interesting, and easy to read. Among other things, it explains why we can do e-banking but how and why we can’t do online voting.) After submitting it, Christy never brought it up again.
I’m not aware that any sovereign election in Canada is conducted any other way. Yes, some municipalities use machines—but they’re not sovereign (public spending is closely limited by the sovereign issuer of municipal charters); online voting was allowed for an electoral-systems referendum in PEI—but not for electing sovereign governments. Mail-ins—which have similar veracity and fraud problems as online-voting—have been used for overseas military and diplomatic personnel, and during Covid. Otherwise there is no reason to use anything but the Cadillac of voting systems for sovereign elections (Canada has 11 sovereign jurisdictions —municipalities and Territories not being sovereign). It’s spurious to complain that it takes too long to use the Cadillac of systems.
Using machines is a convenient way of questioning the result: if one doesn’t like the result, chi can always say, “the machines are faulty…” After reading Archer’s Report, one is left feeling that the only reason to replace what we already have is to cheat.
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