Mad As Hell

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One of the most successful films of 1976 was “Network.” The movie featured Howard Beale, a network anchor with declining ratings. In a rage about his impending cancellation, he screams out a window, “I’m mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.” His anger becomes the feature of a new show and his angry man persona garners a large audience by using his rant as his slogan. He finds that his audience is also “mad as hell,” although not really about any common grievance. Beale becomes the face of their anger.

As an amateur political scientist, I have been puzzling over the continued support for Donald Trump. It defies conventional wisdom. At any other time, his personal failings, bombastic behavior, and legal travails would have long ago eliminated him as a candidate. But now is just not any other time.

I think Trump is a modern Howard Beale, but a presidential candidate instead of a news anchor. For quite a while, perhaps more than two decades, a growing segment of the US population has been undergoing a slow boil. Economics, taxes, government regulations, cultural breakdowns, seemingly endless war, and on and on have hit sore nerves and spiked anger. Who used to be called members of the Silent Majority are no longer silent and they are angry about the state of affairs in the nation. As with the followers of Howard Beale, they may be “mad as hell” about a wide variety of things but their anger coalesces around Trump. Trump says things about the establishment that they want to be said and attacks people and institutions they want to see attacked.

There were approximately 75 million citizens who voted for Trump in 2020 and polls suggest he may have similar support now. For how many of them Trump embodies their anger, who knows. I suspect a number that would surprise many. If only 50%, that means we have roughly 40 million Americans who are fed up with the status in the United States and angry enough to support a candidate for President that the intelligentsia cannot understand and dismisses them merely as deplorables. That is a problem.

Howard Beale’s audience grows bored with him and eventually moves on. Trump’s opponents believe the same thing will happen when Trump is defeated. By election day in 2024, however, Trump’s supporters will have been behind him for eight years. Unlike Howard Beale’s audience, they have not moved on even though they have a host of reasons to do so. The pundits believe Trump is the source of their anger rather than merely its face; that he is nothing more than a boil that, once lanced, will lose its force. But what if he is nothing more than the rod for the populist lightning? What if even if he is defeated, he leaves the angry energy behind? What if once Trump leaves the stage 40 million Americans or more remain “mad as hell” and determined to show they will not take “it” anymore? And what if they conclude they have given the ballot box a try and it no longer works fairly, and must try something else?

I have no idea what the answers are to the questions I pose. I know, however, that the anger is real. How broad and deep? I have no measure, but I think it is real enough that it should not be casually dismissed. Something is happening in this country and whatever it is, it strikes me as dangerous. If it was just the Trump supporters that would be bad enough. But I have a sense that many across the line from the Trump supporters are just as mad. How easily our streets filled with angry Hamas supporters may just be another coal mine canary.

The United States has been at such a crossroads many times before. Often, we have found a way to reconcile the competing interests and become a better society. But sometimes those who have been “mad as hell” have resorted to violence, which occasionally has been widespread. I am not a prophet and cannot foresee our future. I know only this: each crossroads presents the choice of a path. Nothing is inevitable until we make the wrong choice, and only history is the judge. But I fear our time at the crossroads is coming.

© 2023, Thomas Trezise

Election Fraud Evidence

The nature of evidence admitted in courts may not be as obvious as a lay person might think. Trials invariably involve two types of evidence: Direct evidence and circumstantial evidence. For example, in the context of a murder direct evidence would be testimony of a witness who says he witnessed the defendant shoot the victim. If no eyewitness is available, the prosecution may establish that a gun was found at the scene of the murder, that it had been recently fired, that the gun matched the bullet found in the victim’s body, and that the defendant’s fingerprints were the only fingerprints on the gun. That the gun was found at the scene is direct evidence, but only that the gun was found at the scene and even then a chain of proof would be required to establish that the gun in the courtroom was the same as the gun found at the scene. The rest of the evidence is circumstantial.

Lay people often think circumstantial evidence is unreliable and a matter must be proven by direct evidence. That is not accurate. In fact, most evidence adduced at trials is circumstantial. In the murder example above, the evidence is almost entirely circumstantial but would likely convict beyond a reasonable doubt. Nonetheless, the myth has great influence.

Nowhere is the myth more prevalent than in the arena of election fraud. Social media, pundits, the press, and indeed elected officials and courts, give the Trump allegations of fraud little to no credence because the discussion almost entirely focuses on one type of election fraud – actual fraudulent ballots. That almost always involves a challenge to the authenticity of the voter that cast the ballot. Moreover, the evidence required also is almost always direct evidence. Unless a campaign can show that a witness saw a ballot forged or altered, or that the voter was dead or ineligible under registration rolls, a challenged ballot will stand. The standard is almost impossible to meet and particularly so with a sufficient number of challenged ballots to overturn an election.

Election challenges in the United States almost always have focused on ballot authenticity, which is why almost all have failed. The burden of proof of sufficient errors to reverse an election is practically insurmountable. The challenge to the 2018 election for the Ninth Congressional District in North Carolina is an exception. The hearing into the legitimacy of the election heavily addressed fraud in the process used in the creation and counting of mail-in ballots. The evidence of actual fraudulent ballots sufficient to reverse the election was inconclusive. Evidence that the Republican campaign suborned the process, however, was very persuasive. As the evidence mounted and was heading toward a possible perjury charge against the Republican candidate, he conceded that a new election should be called and short-circuited the investigation. Whether the final conclusion would have been a new election because of process fraud instead of actual vote fraud will remain a mystery.

In the current presidential election fiasco, a complete hash has been made of the issues by all involved. The Trump campaign has alleged both vote fraud and process fraud. It has neither made a distinction between vote and process fraud, nor a distinction regarding direct as opposed to circumstantial evidence. That has proved to be fertile ground for Trump’s opponents in the Democrat Party, the media, the pundits, elected officials of both parties, and even the courts to narrow the analysis to direct evidence of actual fraudulent votes.

Despite allegations, the Trump campaign will never meet the standard of direct evidence of fraudulent votes. It has already lost its contest in the court of public opinion and will lose in most judicial courts, with perhaps an exception of Pennsylvania in the United States Supreme Court as there the US Constitution may have been violated by the court decisions over-riding state election law. Trump will eventually have to concede. The only question is how much pain he will cause his supporters and how much damage he will do to the nation.

Although the handwriting is on the wall for Trump, there is a very large baby in the bath here that I hope is not thrown out with the water. A significant number of Americans, of which I am one, have been losing faith in the legitimacy of our electoral process gradually over the last few elections. This election may push them over the edge if they have not already stopped believing in the integrity of the process. The number of irregularities across the country this time simply defy common sense. When tranches of mail-in ballots appear and are counted late in the process and all for one candidate, evidence that any individual ballot is a fraudulent ballot may be difficult to prove, but it defies common experience and sense that nothing was amiss. In the face of those irregularities, continuing to proclaim the platitude of the sanctity of American elections is difficult.

The irony is that the standard to which we hold ourselves for election veracity is far less than that to which we hold other countries. In 2018, the Scientific American reported on the analysis of a number of foreign elections by US officials. The methodology employed was statistical analysis which looked for statistical anomalies from disparate results from similar districts or variances from historical trends. Comparing the analysis of the foreign elections to US elections, the article observes that election data quality in the US is not as sound or transparent as foreign countries. Tellingly, the author concludes, “The most unexpected takeaway from electoral forensics may be that it is easier to analyze Russian elections than those in the U.S.”

The deadlines that must be met for certification of state election results and the voting in the Electoral College, and the evidence standards being employed, make us ill-equipped to address the irregularities of this election in a meaningful way in the short-term. That does not mean that because the irregularities will not be outcome-determinative in this election that they should be ignored. As a nation, we face an imperative. If we permit these to be swept under the rug voter confidence will be damaged, perhaps beyond repair. We have to examine carefully and thoroughly the results, not by a search for the elusive fraudulent ballots, but through a disciplined analysis of the statistical anomalies. Confidence in the process will not be strengthened by assertions that fraudulent votes were few when the process appears suspect. The process must be addressed.

I have little faith that the analysis of the electoral process that I believe is urgent will occur. The old maxim “to the victor go the spoils” will control. No matter the party of the victorious candidates, they will not support any analysis that might call into question the legitimacy of their election. The rug has been lifted and the sweeping is already occurring. Blaming the Democrats and the media is easy and they certainly bear much of it. Nonetheless I fault the Trump campaign. As too often the case, Trump has blasted with a shotgun without defining the target and seeming irresponsible in his fire. It is tough to raise a hue and cry when you cannot tell people what you seek.

I have never bought into the complaint that Trump’s words and actions destroy our democracy.  Until now. He has been served with a perfect opportunity to demonstrate the major problems in our electoral process. This election cries out for examination of process irregularities. There will likely be none better. Trump, however, has failed to embrace the opportunity with the clarity required. He has fallen into a trap of his own making. Unfortunately, I fear he has pulled the country with him.

The Election Mess

No matter who wins this election, I think most of us can agree that it has been marked by so many irregularities that it is easy to conclude if so inclined that the election results are not legitimate. I am not naive and cannot delude myself into thinking otherwise.

Issues of election integrity have long been with us. Our history is replete with them. I have seen at least the possibility of it personally. I was a Republican poll watcher once in Maryland. It was long ago, but I recall being escorted out of the polling location after closing, supposedly for a break or something similar while the judges could complete their process until ready for me to observe the vote count. The Democrat observer was not escorted out and when I was permitted to return the seals at the back of the machines had been broken. That was supposed to occur in my presence. I don’t recall the explanation given, but it was probably as simple as the judges forgot. I raised an objection, but it went nowhere.

I favor challenging some of the results for this election, but only to the extent that doing so will highlight irregularities and persuade people we have a problem. I hope, however, that charges of fraud are abandoned quickly unless something fairly dramatic emerges.

The simple fact is fraud is extremely difficult to prove. By its very nature, it takes place in secret. Unless someone confesses, it usually goes unproven. In my legal and insurance claim career that spanned 40 years I was able to prove it only once. The evidence there was pretty clear and the person effectively confessed by withdrawing the claim, as criminal insurance fraud was the likely result.

With the chances of fraud being proven extremely unlikely, whatever the results are after appropriate recounts, the country cannot afford another Bush v. Gore. We were a divided country then, but nothing like we are now. I have no doubt that neither Biden nor Trump can heal the divide, but we certainly do not need to drive it deeper unless the fraud is demonstrable. I think it will not be.

That brings us to the election process. We have to fix this and do it nationwide. There are probably constitutional issues around Congress doing so broadly, but it might be able to pass something applicable to Federal elections, which would likely be adopted by the states to avoid having parallel processes. Even if beyond the authority of Congress, it could establish a bipartisan review and provide enough incentives to make changes so that we might accomplish uniformity nonetheless.

The issues in my opinion are twofold: (1) authenticating voters, and (2) securing the actual votes of individual voters once authenticated as a legitimate voter. Taking the second question first, I know just enough about the bowels of technology to be dangerous. I know enough though to believe that we can create a secure process, even one that could occur online. No transaction can be completely secure. Anything invented by the mind of humans can be corrupted by humans. Nevertheless, if we feel that internet transactions are sufficiently secure to allow our money, even life savings, to be transmitted through the internet, I have to believe we can create a process for voting in which we can have the same confidence.

If we could create a process that permits in person and online voting, it would allow us to abandon paper ballots and eliminate, or restrict, early voting as a voter would not even have to leave home or could vote anywhere on election day. It could even happen from a smart phone. Designing a more convenient process than that would be difficult. We may still have to provide for absentee ballots for a small group without internet access or who would be unable to go to a polling place for a few acceptable reasons. Even with that, I have to believe we can fix this in a manner to create a high degree of confidence in the process.

The more difficult question is voter authentication. Here again, I suspect we have the technology to do this. Identification chips in voter cards similar to credits cards could solve the issue for in person voting. I imagine that something similar to a personally assigned QR Code could accomplish the same for online voting. Although I am out of my depth here, I still have to believe this is a solvable problem.

The bigger problem with voter authentication is political. We cannot create a secure means to authenticate voters without abandonment of the opposition to voter ID laws. It is axiomatic that if we refuse to connect a reliable means of ID with the voter registration we cannot securely identify the voter. We cannot move to any form of online voting without it. Indeed, we should not even be doing mail in voting without it.

If we are committed to accomplishing this goal, it probably will take a massive effort to reach voters and accomplish the new registrations. It may even take an effort similar to a census and require Federal funding not only for the registrations but also to create the voting systems at the states, to assure sufficient bandwidth at the states that votes will be received promptly once made, and to train voters to the extent necessary. Moreover, it must be a bipartisan effort and not be done in secret. Otherwise, we will have circled right back to the legitimacy question.

At this point I am ready to support any serious effort to accomplish these changes, no matter how expensive. Each election we slide further toward chaos in our electoral process. Whether spoken or unspoken, we are seeing large segments of our citizens losing faith in the legitimacy of our election results. Pretending that is not so will not make it go away. If we lose that faith, what we really are losing is faith in the legitimacy of our government. That is a very dangerous place for us to be.

© 2020, Thomas M. Trezise