8 ms·

Or, people are just inconsistent and not thinking about things beyond their politics. People will praise the Arab Spring organizing on Twitter without consider

Or, people are just inconsistent and not thinking about things beyond their politics. People will praise the Arab Spring organizing on Twitter without considering the implications for the events at the Capital on Jan 6th. People are fine with Parler getting banned by all their vendors for not moderating violence and threats. But people would loose their minds if the same thing happened to Facebook for their failure to moderate violence around the Rohingyan genocide.

caseysoftware 6y ago
> People will praise the Arab Spring organizing on Twitter without considering the implications for the events at the Capital on Jan 6th. This is a great point. It's also key to consider that some of the groups that praised the Arab Spring were the Obama State Department which was led by Hillary Clinton at the time. It appears the threshold is "support violent insurrection in other countries but stamp out the discussion of it here".
- mcguire 6y ago
  Or, perhaps, "support violent insurrection after peaceful protests against authoritarianism, human rights violations, political corruption have failed, when there is no further peaceful opportunity for opposition." (The United States had an election, right? One with no more than the usual, minor, issues, right? One where legal actions were taken and weighed appropriately, right? One where one specific loser seems only to be complaining about losing, right? One where all of the other contemporaneous votes were not objected to, right? One that will be revisited in 2 to 4 years, right?)
  - caseysoftware 6y ago
    Serious question: Which of the lawsuits went into discovery and were heard to weigh those claims? I'd love to read the details as that could dispel rumors and bs.
    - mcguire 6y ago
      Ok, now I've been sucked in. I started from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-election_lawsuits_related_to_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-election_lawsuits_related..., which lists a number of the cases, mostly in federal court, and mostly (I think) appeals, which don't deal with matters of fact. I'm having to dig through those to the original cases, in state courts. For example, Bowyer et al. v. Ducey et al., which has a currently unresolved (https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/USCOURTS-azd-2_20-cv-02321/USCOURTS-azd-2_20-cv-02321-0/context https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/USCOURTS-azd-2_20-cv-023... is the latest federal dismissal) but the dismissal refers to Ward, CV 2020-015285 (Ariz. 2020); (Doc. 81-1) (and has a short explanation of the ruling that goes into the evidence). So, that brings me to Ward v. Jackson et al (CV2020-015285) (https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/records/election-2020/cv2020-015285 https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/records/election-2020/...). https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/Home/ShowDocument?id=1928 https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/Home/ShowDocument?id=1... is the minutes of the first evidentiary hearing and https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/Home/ShowDocument?id=1930 https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/Home/ShowDocument?id=1... is the minutes of the second evidentiary hearing and ruling. (The minutes don't include the evidence, just who gave testimony and what the evidence is.) The ruling is 1) Background, 2) The Burden Of Proof In An Election Contest ("The Plaintiff in an election contest has a high burden of proof and the actions of election officials are presumed to be free from fraud and misconduct."), 3) The Evidence Does Not Show Fraud Or Misconduct (see below), 4) The Evidence Does Not Show Illegal Votes, 5) The Evidence Does Not Show An Erroneous Vote Count, and 6) Orders. P: "A.R.S. § 16-672(A)(1) permits an election contest “[f]or misconduct on the part of election boards or any members thereof in any of the counties of the state, or on the part of any officer making or participating in a canvass for a state election.” Plaintiff alleges misconduct in three respects. First is that insufficient opportunity was given to observe the actions of election officials." C: "The observation procedures for the November general election were materially the same as for the August primary election, and any objection to them should have been brought at a time when any legal deficiencies could have been cured." P: "Second, Plaintiff alleges that election officials overcounted mail-in ballots by not being sufficiently skeptical in their comparison of signatures on the mail-in envelope/affidavits with signatures on file." C: "Maricopa County election officials followed [the Secretary of State’s Election Procedures Manual, with multiple verification steps] process faithfully in 2020. Approximately 1.9 million mail-in ballots were cast and, of these, approximately 20,000 were identified that required contacting the voter. Of those, only 587 ultimately could not be validated.[...] The Court ordered that counsel and their forensic document examiners could review 100 randomly selected envelope/affidavits to do a signature comparison. [...] Of the 100 envelope/affidavits reviewed, Plaintiff’s forensic document examiner found 6 signatures to be “inconclusive,” meaning she could not testify that the signature on the envelope/affidavit matched the signature on file. She found no sign of forgery or simulation as to any of these ballots. Defendants’ expert testified that 11 of the 100 envelopes were inconclusive, mostly because there were insufficient specimens to which to compare them. He too found no sign of forgery or simulation, and found no basis for rejecting any of the signatures. [...] None of them shows an abuse of discretion on the part of the reviewer. Every one of them listed a phone number that matched a phone number already on file, either through voter registration records or from a prior ballot. The evidence does not show that these affidavits are fraudulent, or that someone other than the voter signed them. There is no evidence that the manner in which signatures were reviewed was designed to benefit one candidate or another, or that there was any misconduct, impropriety, or violation of Arizona law with respect to the review of mail-in ballots." P: "Third, Plaintiff alleges errors in the duplication of ballots. Arizona law requires election officials to duplicate a ballot under a number of circumstances. One is where the voter is overseas and submits a ballot under UOCAVA, the Uniformed And Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. Another is where the ballot is damaged or otherwise cannot be machine-tabulated." C: "The Court ordered that counsel could review 100 duplicate ballots. Maricopa County voluntarily made another 1,526 duplicate ballots available for review. [...] Of the 1,626 ballots reviewed, 9 had an error in the duplication of the vote for president. Plaintiff called a number of witnesses who observed the duplication process as credentialed election observers. There was credible testimony that they saw errors in which the duplicated ballot did not accurately reflect the voter’s apparent intent as reflected on the original ballot. This testimony is corroborated by the review of the 1,626 duplicate ballots in this case, and it confirms both that there were mistakes in the duplication process, and that the mistakes were few. When mistakes were brought to the attention of election workers, they were fixed. The duplication process prescribed by the Legislature necessarily requires manual action and human judgment, which entail a risk of human error. Despite that, the duplication process for the presidential election was 99.45% accurate. And there is no evidence that the inaccuracies were intentional or part of a fraudulent scheme. They were mistakes. And given both the small number of duplicate ballots and the low error rate, the evidence does not show any impact on the outcome." The Arizona Supreme Court decision (https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/Home/ShowDocument?id=1984 https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/Home/ShowDocument?id=1...) makes for good reading. It's pretty clear, with a summary of the evidence (for the parts that were appealed). Weirdly, it takes the three claims in reverse order. I particularly liked the statements that the Secretary [of State, of Arizona] represented an error of 0.37%, while the appellants say it represented an error of 0.55%; the trial court accepted the appellants' number but it and the Supreme Court note that extrapolated to the total number of duplicated ballots, that doesn't come close to what would be required for a recount. The appellant offered no evidence that 1626 ballot sample was inadequate. The court accepts that there were irregularities, but that they did not even render the result uncertain. So, there's one. I'll go fishing for more. From what I know about law (NOT A LAWYER!), they're probably all in state courts---elections are state procedures---and thus not reported like the federal cases (which seem to fall into two classes: appeals, which deal with laws and procedures, not evidence, and them as were dismissed due to lack of standing since state procedures are a matter for state laws.
Apocryphon 6y ago
It's been a decade, I think people's opinions of the Arab Spring have been revised since then. The Arab Spring worked out best for the actual country it originated in, Tunisia.
garden_hermit 6y ago
> People will praise the Arab Spring organizing on Twitter without considering the implications for the events at the Capital on Jan 6th. The reason why someone might hold these competing beliefs is simple: they strongly value democratic institutions. Violence, in the name of promoting democratic institutions, and ideally expanding human rights, is justifiable. Violence in the name of authoritarian insurrection is not. Now, of course this gets really tricky, because many people on Parler, and in the capitol riots, fully believed that they were protecting democracy from massive voter-fraud. No clear answer to address that issue, but it is something that democratic societies will need to reckon with. How does one preserve democratic ideals (including promoting free speech, to whatever extent possible), while still maintaining a healthy society that doesn't tear itself apart?

caseysoftware 6y ago

> People will praise the Arab Spring organizing on Twitter without considering the implications for the events at the Capital on Jan 6th. This is a great point. It's also key to consider that some of the groups that praised the Arab Spring were the Obama State Department which was led by Hillary Clinton at the time. It appears the threshold is "support violent insurrection in other countries but stamp out the discussion of it here".

mcguire 6y ago
Or, perhaps, "support violent insurrection after peaceful protests against authoritarianism, human rights violations, political corruption have failed, when there is no further peaceful opportunity for opposition." (The United States had an election, right? One with no more than the usual, minor, issues, right? One where legal actions were taken and weighed appropriately, right? One where one specific loser seems only to be complaining about losing, right? One where all of the other contemporaneous votes were not objected to, right? One that will be revisited in 2 to 4 years, right?)
- caseysoftware 6y ago
  Serious question: Which of the lawsuits went into discovery and were heard to weigh those claims? I'd love to read the details as that could dispel rumors and bs.
  - mcguire 6y ago
    Ok, now I've been sucked in. I started from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-election_lawsuits_related_to_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-election_lawsuits_related..., which lists a number of the cases, mostly in federal court, and mostly (I think) appeals, which don't deal with matters of fact. I'm having to dig through those to the original cases, in state courts. For example, Bowyer et al. v. Ducey et al., which has a currently unresolved (https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/USCOURTS-azd-2_20-cv-02321/USCOURTS-azd-2_20-cv-02321-0/context https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/USCOURTS-azd-2_20-cv-023... is the latest federal dismissal) but the dismissal refers to Ward, CV 2020-015285 (Ariz. 2020); (Doc. 81-1) (and has a short explanation of the ruling that goes into the evidence). So, that brings me to Ward v. Jackson et al (CV2020-015285) (https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/records/election-2020/cv2020-015285 https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/records/election-2020/...). https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/Home/ShowDocument?id=1928 https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/Home/ShowDocument?id=1... is the minutes of the first evidentiary hearing and https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/Home/ShowDocument?id=1930 https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/Home/ShowDocument?id=1... is the minutes of the second evidentiary hearing and ruling. (The minutes don't include the evidence, just who gave testimony and what the evidence is.) The ruling is 1) Background, 2) The Burden Of Proof In An Election Contest ("The Plaintiff in an election contest has a high burden of proof and the actions of election officials are presumed to be free from fraud and misconduct."), 3) The Evidence Does Not Show Fraud Or Misconduct (see below), 4) The Evidence Does Not Show Illegal Votes, 5) The Evidence Does Not Show An Erroneous Vote Count, and 6) Orders. P: "A.R.S. § 16-672(A)(1) permits an election contest “[f]or misconduct on the part of election boards or any members thereof in any of the counties of the state, or on the part of any officer making or participating in a canvass for a state election.” Plaintiff alleges misconduct in three respects. First is that insufficient opportunity was given to observe the actions of election officials." C: "The observation procedures for the November general election were materially the same as for the August primary election, and any objection to them should have been brought at a time when any legal deficiencies could have been cured." P: "Second, Plaintiff alleges that election officials overcounted mail-in ballots by not being sufficiently skeptical in their comparison of signatures on the mail-in envelope/affidavits with signatures on file." C: "Maricopa County election officials followed [the Secretary of State’s Election Procedures Manual, with multiple verification steps] process faithfully in 2020. Approximately 1.9 million mail-in ballots were cast and, of these, approximately 20,000 were identified that required contacting the voter. Of those, only 587 ultimately could not be validated.[...] The Court ordered that counsel and their forensic document examiners could review 100 randomly selected envelope/affidavits to do a signature comparison. [...] Of the 100 envelope/affidavits reviewed, Plaintiff’s forensic document examiner found 6 signatures to be “inconclusive,” meaning she could not testify that the signature on the envelope/affidavit matched the signature on file. She found no sign of forgery or simulation as to any of these ballots. Defendants’ expert testified that 11 of the 100 envelopes were inconclusive, mostly because there were insufficient specimens to which to compare them. He too found no sign of forgery or simulation, and found no basis for rejecting any of the signatures. [...] None of them shows an abuse of discretion on the part of the reviewer. Every one of them listed a phone number that matched a phone number already on file, either through voter registration records or from a prior ballot. The evidence does not show that these affidavits are fraudulent, or that someone other than the voter signed them. There is no evidence that the manner in which signatures were reviewed was designed to benefit one candidate or another, or that there was any misconduct, impropriety, or violation of Arizona law with respect to the review of mail-in ballots." P: "Third, Plaintiff alleges errors in the duplication of ballots. Arizona law requires election officials to duplicate a ballot under a number of circumstances. One is where the voter is overseas and submits a ballot under UOCAVA, the Uniformed And Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. Another is where the ballot is damaged or otherwise cannot be machine-tabulated." C: "The Court ordered that counsel could review 100 duplicate ballots. Maricopa County voluntarily made another 1,526 duplicate ballots available for review. [...] Of the 1,626 ballots reviewed, 9 had an error in the duplication of the vote for president. Plaintiff called a number of witnesses who observed the duplication process as credentialed election observers. There was credible testimony that they saw errors in which the duplicated ballot did not accurately reflect the voter’s apparent intent as reflected on the original ballot. This testimony is corroborated by the review of the 1,626 duplicate ballots in this case, and it confirms both that there were mistakes in the duplication process, and that the mistakes were few. When mistakes were brought to the attention of election workers, they were fixed. The duplication process prescribed by the Legislature necessarily requires manual action and human judgment, which entail a risk of human error. Despite that, the duplication process for the presidential election was 99.45% accurate. And there is no evidence that the inaccuracies were intentional or part of a fraudulent scheme. They were mistakes. And given both the small number of duplicate ballots and the low error rate, the evidence does not show any impact on the outcome." The Arizona Supreme Court decision (https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/Home/ShowDocument?id=1984 https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/Home/ShowDocument?id=1...) makes for good reading. It's pretty clear, with a summary of the evidence (for the parts that were appealed). Weirdly, it takes the three claims in reverse order. I particularly liked the statements that the Secretary [of State, of Arizona] represented an error of 0.37%, while the appellants say it represented an error of 0.55%; the trial court accepted the appellants' number but it and the Supreme Court note that extrapolated to the total number of duplicated ballots, that doesn't come close to what would be required for a recount. The appellant offered no evidence that 1626 ballot sample was inadequate. The court accepts that there were irregularities, but that they did not even render the result uncertain. So, there's one. I'll go fishing for more. From what I know about law (NOT A LAWYER!), they're probably all in state courts---elections are state procedures---and thus not reported like the federal cases (which seem to fall into two classes: appeals, which deal with laws and procedures, not evidence, and them as were dismissed due to lack of standing since state procedures are a matter for state laws.

Apocryphon 6y ago

It's been a decade, I think people's opinions of the Arab Spring have been revised since then. The Arab Spring worked out best for the actual country it originated in, Tunisia.

garden_hermit 6y ago

> People will praise the Arab Spring organizing on Twitter without considering the implications for the events at the Capital on Jan 6th. The reason why someone might hold these competing beliefs is simple: they strongly value democratic institutions. Violence, in the name of promoting democratic institutions, and ideally expanding human rights, is justifiable. Violence in the name of authoritarian insurrection is not. Now, of course this gets really tricky, because many people on Parler, and in the capitol riots, fully believed that they were protecting democracy from massive voter-fraud. No clear answer to address that issue, but it is something that democratic societies will need to reckon with. How does one preserve democratic ideals (including promoting free speech, to whatever extent possible), while still maintaining a healthy society that doesn't tear itself apart?