JONATHAN
SIMON
ENDORSEMENT
Dear Friends of Election Integrity, Security and Transparency --
Many of us have been at this work and on this quest for the better part of two decades. We, and those who have joined over the years, have found it hard to turn away, in spite of some mighty frustrations of our shared purpose.
High among those frustrations has been the virtual absence, among our duly elected leadership, of office-holders whose first (or second or third) dedication is to this cause. With a very few notable exceptions (e.g., Sen. Wyden), positive and meaningful reform of the way we cast and count votes has been very low on the lists of those with the power to effect such reforms. We, as advocates and activists, have stood very much on the outside looking in.
Now one of us is stepping up to change that! Our friend and colleague Peter Peckarsky has declared his candidacy for U.S. Senator from his home state of Wisconsin, and has entered the Democratic primary field with the express mission of bringing a strong voice for genuine electoral integrity (first on his list of progressive goals) to the Senate itself.
A quick check of Peter's new website https://www.peckarskyforwisconsin.com/about-peter will fill you in on his impressive resume and extensive experience in matters both political and scientific. He has, as they say, been around. Peter's particular dedication to election forensics and legal work extends back at least to 2004, when he was lead counsel in Moss v. Bush, the case brought in Ohio to challenge the cockeyed results of the presidential election in that state. We worked together there - presenting a compelling case to a stacked court and a derisive media - and we have worked together, in one way or another, in every election since.
In Election 2020, Peter's idea was to be proactive. The Election Software Project (ESP), directed by Peter at the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism operated by Bob Fitrakis, was established to deter Presidential election fraud in AZ, FL, MI, NC, OH, PA, and WI. Word was passed to the programmers of the equipment in these critical states not only that they were under intense scrutiny but that, if the same poll-vote count comparisons that are used to detect fraud all over the world signaled significant (i.e., potentially outcome-altering) mistabulation in any of these states, they could expect to answer for it in federal court on Wednesday November 4 at 9 a.m. It was threat, that is, not just of general scrutiny but of immediate evidence-based legal challenge.
We worked through the night to capture and analyze that baseline data -- as we had in 2016, when the results in four states were outside the margin of error of the unadjusted exit polls and outcome-determinative (i.e., reversed the winner), giving us the Trump presidency. In 2020, with Peter's ESP deterrence program active, there were no outcome-determinative shifts outside the margin of error in any of the seven ESP states. And add to that the GA Senate contests in January, where ESP was also put into operation.
As well as ESP seemed to work, I think Peter will be the first to tell you that there have to be better, more formalized and less ad hoc ways to protect and restore trust in our elections. In the wake of E2020, as ugly as it has been, we can be assured that election integrity concerns are no longer fringe. The spotlight is big and bright and those concerns are and will be with us, for better or worse, until we step up, dig in, and fix these broken processes.
That will take hard work, and lots of it, from both outside and inside the system. We who are outside will keep at it, keep shedding light and bringing pressure. Having a powerful advocate on the inside, especially representing a state so often at the epicenter of electoral suspicion, will be a game-changer for all of us, and for our country.
Peter has my full support and enthusiastic endorsement and I respectfully ask each of us here to check out his mission, lend all the support you can financially and otherwise, and spread the word, in person and via social media, throughout our community and beyond.
Thank you - Jonathan
Jonathan D. Simon
Executive Director, Election Defense Alliance (2006 - 2016)
Author: CODE RED: Computerized Elections and the War on American Democracy
@JonathanSimon14 (twitter)
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