NASS & Election Transparency, Why the Fear?
Elections belong to the People, not the government; so why hide election information...
Cottonwood, AZ January 27, 2024… NASS is the National Association of Secretaries of State. The world of government is filled with such organizations that cater to the various government officials such as Governors (NGA, National Governors Association), Attorneys Generals (NAAG, National Association of Attorneys Generals), Elections Directors (NASED, National Association of State Elections Directors, and of course NASS.
Each has a mission statement that claims they promote the public good.
When we dig a little deeper and look behind the rhetoric, it almost appears to be a Jeckel & Hyde relationship with some of these non-government organizations (NGOs). NASED claims…
The National Association of State Election Directors promotes accessible, accurate, and transparent elections in the United States and U.S. Territories.
And then there is the mission of NASS…
NASS serves as a medium for the exchange of information between states and fosters cooperation in the development of public policy. The association has key initiatives in the areas of elections and voting, state business services, cybersecurity, and archives/records management.
While NASED “promotes accessible, accurate and transparent elections” their actions often run counter to the claims. When election watchdog groups seek election records for PUBLIC examination through public records requests, the People making the requests are often met with obfuscation and even outright denial of their request. They seem dedicated to the protection of machine tabulation, in spite of evidence of their defects.
The BS narrative “records security” is often thrown up as a shield…
In Nebraska for example, the Secretary of State and Legislature have attempted to criminalize the act of direct citizen oversight, which means you cannot have access to these records, citing information security and voter identity protection as the justification. But wait a minute, once they mail ballots out, voter information security goes out the door as well. Let’s not forget, “You must not be allowed to see or know this,” this is the favored tool of despots and tyrants.
In the republican form of government, there is supposed to be a “healthy tension” between branches of government. Yet in recent times there seems to be a shift where the executive branch, including Secretaries of State and Governors, tell the Legislature what to do. In a multi-state effort to deny the People access to election records, namely transparency, NASS members have demanded that Legislatures formally codify into law access denial legislation. Of course, when the People are denied access to public records, like the Cast Vote Record, how are We the People to verify the vote count? Moreover, how are we to have confidence in a system that denies access to public records arbitrarily and capriciously?
What is a Cast Vote Record and why is it important?
There is variation across the 3,143 counties and county-equivalents in America, but a working definition of what a cast vote record includes will help. This is something that the legislatures could define in law. To verify the end result, it is reasonable to ask that a public record be produced that includes the name, address, party, and means by which a person voted. There are two primary means by which people vote these days, in person and by mail.
Those who seek to game the system will tell us all that for voter protection they must not disclose who voted and how because “it could be used to reveal how they voted their ballot.” As absurd as this sounds, sadly, a majority of policymakers fall for the false narrative. We know that this record exists within the elections departments of every county because many of them sell the information —who has voted and by what means—to campaigns during the election period.
Whether county elections offices sell the information is not the issue, the fact is that they do indeed capture the information on who voted, when, and by what means. So if the information is available, why do NASS members want to hide it from the public?
Radical-leftist individuals like Jena Griswold (Democrat CO SoS), Katie Hobbs (Democrat AZ SoS), and Jocelyn Benson (Democrat MI SoS) are all members of NASS, along with many Republicans. Model legislation coming out of NASS and running through these Secretaries of State is designed to prevent public inspection of their election records. This amounts to a state-sanctioned anti-audit framework.
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