Encounter, Transaction, and Counted Vote

The act of voting requires an encounter between a voting citizen and some other person who is delegated to represent the Secretary of State of the state in which the vote is cast.

The encounter contains two elements: First a voter with the courage to be, and Second a person with delegated authority to receive a document or information from the voter.

“Courage to be” entails several elements: You know what your name is, your are able and willing to say your name, you are willing to appear before the person with delegated authority and show your face, you reside in the precinct, you know where you reside, and are willing to tell the delegated authority where you reside.

Delegated authority means that the person collecting the ballot is a US citizen, is not a felon, and is actually designated as a properly identified person authorized to receive a ballot on behalf of the Secretary of State of the state in which the encounter and transaction occurs.

“Ballots” are just pieces of paper with markings on them. Ballots cannot vote. Elections are about votes cast not about “ballots” in a tally machine. Ballots are anonymous. Only persons can vote, not anonymous pieces of paper with markings on them. There can be no encounter or transaction between a ballot and a delegate of the the Secretary of State in any state. Only people can participate in encounters. Only people can be parties to a transaction.

So “vote harvesting” is a contradiction in terms. If it really is a vote, it cannot be harvested — brought to the tally machine by somebody who may be a foreigner, or a felon, but whose identity features and traits are unknown or unverified. Votes always entail an encounter between the voter and an authorized vote recipient with specific qualities, skills and duties.

By allowing this contradiction in terms in US elections, we make a chaos out of US elections. By a failure of logic, we create a failure of democracy. Where there is no reliable and verified chain of custody, or authority, and thus there can be no lawfully counted vote. Random mules gathering anonymous pieces of marked paper from unverified persons is a Potemkin charade, not an election.

The democrat party is supremely skilled at performing this charade and thus creating a fake election. They have the skills to game the system.

The GOP has faith. Misplaced faith that people know what they are doing and will do right. The state legislatures have been gamed to allow slipshod rules that make ballot harvesting legal, normal, totally OK, and with no guidelines or constraints.

The states then proceed to send out 250,000 mail-in ballots, in one case to unverified persons. The whole election after that becomes a ballot chase for pieces of paper with markings on them. Such a ballot chase has nothing to do with actual voting, or a legitimate election. It is a fraud sanctioned by law, like US currency, or “education”, or “charitable” donations.

Democracy could work in USA, but state legislatures need to take steps to make it work. We are at least a decade away from taking such steps. So the 2024 election will be much like the 2022 midterm elections.

The idea of 50 states legislatures each making their own rules, with no standard that all must meet to the encounter, the transaction, and the counted vote would be highly suspect to any rational mind. It is some sort of Rube Goldberg machine, that is laughably improbable, and yet, “supposed” to work. It does not work. So, fix it.