It's time to rethink computer voting

Wyofile’s Maggie Mullen recently reported that, “all four candidates [for secretary of state] have made election integrity their No. 1 priority.” That is welcome news to Wyoming voters. One does not need reckless allegations of wrongdoing to have legitimate concerns about Wyoming’s voting law.

The 2000 presidential election traumatized American voters by opening the possibility that the highest office in the land might be decided by judges rather than voters. The danger to the American republic was obvious enough that congress overwhelmingly passed legislation called the “Help America Vote Act.” This act ushered in the age of computerized elections.

At the time, it seemed like a reasonable response. The world was enamored with the speed and accuracy of computer technology. Harnessing all that power to assist in the voting process seemed like a no-brainer. But that was two decades ago. The internet was barely a decade old, and smart phones not yet invented. 

Election activities that used to take seconds and could be observed with the naked eye now happen at the speed of light, in the unobservable recesses of a metal box. Meaningful observation is impossible. Security that could once be insured by locking a door or sealing a box now requires highly specialized knowledge of machine language and wireless technology. The years have seen an exponential rise in the sophistication of hacking. Even the thumb drives used to update software and transfer votes are capable of infecting a machine with hidden and malicious code.

County clerks and secretaries of state cannot be expected to be experts in cybersecurity. Therefore, to assist them, the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) outsourced the creation of Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSGs) to the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC), chaired by the director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

This dizzying array of acronyms produce an evolving set of guidelines that require highly-skilled technicians. Elected officials are unable to examine the hardware and software of our computerized election machines, not only due to lack of expertise but because every contract between voting machine manufacturers and the states that lease them forbids state officials from personally performing the inspection (Wyoming Contract, Section 13.B, pp. 7-8).

Instead, the EAC has certified two Voter System Test Laboratories (VSTLs) to do the inspection. These VSTLs are selected and paid by the machine manufacturers to tell the states whether or not the hardware and software meet VVSG standards. You read that right. Wyoming voters are absolutely dependent on the expertise and integrity of third-party technicians paid by Election Systems & Software (ES&S) to certify its machines.

Wyoming signed a contract with ES&S in March 2020 which included three attachments. “Attachment B-Statement of Work,” which presumably details the “who, when, and where” of the VSTL certification, is deemed “confidential” and withheld from a public records request. 

Thus, Wyoming voters are required to trust that the certification contract between ES&S and an anonymous VSTL is on the up-and-up (Section 8, p. 5). Not only so, but the details of that contract are considered “trade secrets and confidential commercial data.” This lack of transparency requires an inordinate amount of trust from Wyoming’s voters.

Wyoming’s contract with ES&S also stipulates (Section 13.E, pp. 8-9) that it retains full rights to update the machine software—apparently even after the VSTL certification. However this updating is done, it calls for a recertification of the machines; but this is not provided for. As the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently admitted, a thumb drive infected with malicious software can change the machine code merely by being plugged into the machine.

The confidence of Wyoming voters in the integrity of our voting machines depends upon the faithful performance of duty of a great many persons unknown and unaccountable to them. This is a far cry from the simplicity of the method mandated by our Constitution (Art. 1, Sec. 27, and Art. 6, Sec. 11). This is not illegal. But neither is it right. It is high time to reconsider our unwarranted faith in the supposedly neutral and efficient computer. 

None of this is an indictment of Wyoming’s election officials. They are doing their best to implement laws that were hastily written in the aftermath of the 2000 election. The passage of time has revealed that the laws, themselves, are flawed. 

If election law permitted a stack of ballots to be left unguarded on the side of the road, voters would rightly be upset. County clerks and secretaries of state would be the first to call for a law to tighten security. And the legislature would pass such bills unanimously. Nobody would require prior proof that the sloppy practice actually changed vote totals.

In exactly the same way, Wyoming’s electronic voting system has insecurities that leave it vulnerable to outside interference. The legislature can address the vulnerabilities without waiting for proof that they have been exploited. Tens of thousands of Wyoming voters are eager for the secretary of state to lead the way.

Defend the rights of the poor and needy

America is holding her collective breath and waiting. Will the highest court in the land judge righteously? Will the Supreme Court of the United States defend the rights of the neediest and most vulnerable people in the land?

For nearly five decades has America thus been waiting. Year after year, all eyes look to see if nine black-robed judges might utter the magic words that would protect the lives of all. Year after year another million children have been lost, their parents wounded, their families hollowed out.

But why are we waiting? Is not God’s command clear and immediate? “Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy” (Proverbs 31:9). The imperatives are personal and singular. Nothing in these words requires others to act. Much less do they require you to wait for permission to act.

Imagine a nation where citizens are legally forbidden to stop a public lynching. Consider a country where it is illegal to defend some ethnic or religious class. 

Would such laws be valid? Should we obey them? Would the situation be improved if such outrages were performed in a clinic dedicated to the purpose? Would the perpetrator be justified if the legal guardian first signed a form granting consent?

These are not imaginary scenarios. Looking back, we are not hampered by moral uncertainty. We judge evil harshly—and rightly so. Corrie ten Boom, Oskar Schindler and Harriet Tubman are uncontested heroes. The Nuremberg defense abjectly failed to lessen the villainy of Rudolf Hess and Herman Göring who were “only following orders.” The cold, steady eye of posterity inevitably sees through even the densest fog of the cultural wars.

With this 20/20 vision, we assure ourselves that we would have been on the right side of history had we lived in those days. But we blind ourselves to what our own posterity will judge us to be. 

And what is it, exactly, that we praise in Schindler, ten Boom, and Tubman? The word is “interposition.” They interposed themselves between innocent victims and government actors who hunted them down. They saw injustice in real time and acted to protect the innocent. 

Interposition is neither insurrection nor complicity in evil. It is the full and free use of your own resources and position to do always, and only, the right thing. Ten Boom lied to the Nazis. Tubman defied the Fugitive Slave Act. Schindler bought slaves from the Nazis in order to save them. 

In every case, interposition involves both wisdom and personal risk. It recognizes that government authority has limits. “Under God,” means that the most powerful ruler remains subject to “Nature’s God.” It also means that even the lowliest official has a divine mandate to resist evil from above. 

In early May, an anonymous actor leaked a draft opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson, written by Justice Samuel Alito. The leak triggered pro-abortion activists into obnoxious and illegal contortions designed to keep the draft from becoming the official opinion of the Court. Will the five signatories hold the line, or won’t they? We will soon find out.

But Alito’s draft is far more than just one possible opinion. It changed the game by exposing both Roe and Casey for what they are. They are not constitutional, statutory, judicially sound, or moral. Even if the assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh, or the illegal protests at Justice Barrett’s home, or the current blockade of the Supreme Court were to succeed in cowing the Court and suppressing this opinion, Alito’s words cannot become unsaid.

Roe and Casey have forever lost the fig leaf of judicial legitimacy. They were nothing but naked power grabs from the start. Through this leaked draft, the world has been given the rare opportunity to know the judgment of posterity in real time. What will our children and grandchildren say about us? Read Alito’s opinion and you know. 

Nevertheless, the draft stops short of justice. It declines to protect every human life as legitimate governments are duty-bound to do. Rather, it merely takes the federal judiciary out of the game. 

One illegitimate claim to power has been deflated. But justice will still require wisdom and courage on the part of every office holder. If SCOTUS’ ultimate opinion follows Alito’s draft, the battleline will shift from the judicial branch to the legislative—where it properly belongs. But the duty of interposition will not have changed in the slightest. 

The unborn will still need governors to protect them from federal injustice. State legislators will still need to craft laws that defend the innocent from congressional overreach. County commissions, city councils, fathers, mothers and grandparents can no longer wait for nine black-robed judges to do the right thing. Each one, every day, without exception must be both wise and bold to do always, and only, the right thing. “Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

It’s time to disarm federal bullies

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently released a statement threatening to withhold lunch money from any “state and local agencies, program operators and sponsors that receive funds from FNS [Food and Nutrition Service]” unless they “investigate allegations of discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation,” and “update their non-discrimination policies and signage.” 

Annually, Wyoming schools receive about $90 million from the FNS to provide lunches to Wyoming’s poorest children. Like a bully, the USDA is using Wyoming’s poor as leverage to force the Wyoming Department of Education, every school district in Wyoming, and sundry other public and private operators to adopt globalist policies.

These policies are not new. Wyoming’s legislature has debated and rejected them for more than a decade. Every time they come up, globalist stakeholders like the National Chamber of Commerce, Walmart, Microsoft, and a cabal of multinational corporations typically threaten to disrupt the economy unless they are adopted. Rank-and-file Wyomingites, on the other hand, view them as Orwellian Newspeak that does not combat discrimination, but creates it.

Spirited discussion on "discrimination policy"
Cheyenne, WY, December, 2018

No matter which side you support, you are a free person. Your freedom consists in hearing the arguments, weighing the facts, and supporting the policy that you believe is best. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and coercing your decision.

But the USDA just changed that. It just pointed a loaded $90 million gun at the Wyoming Department of Education, and every local school board. With a finger on the trigger, it now says, “you must accept the very policies that you have rejected in the past, or else.”

How should free people respond to such a threat? What is the best way to respond to a school lunch bully? Wyoming’s superintendent of education, Brian Schroeder, led the way. In a statement released last Friday, he said: “[it is] both disheartening and astounding that our federal government could become so cynical as to tie the school lunches of little kids to its ever-relentless agenda of social engineering.” “In any other world, this would be sized up for exactly what it is: extortion.”

Extortion is the proper word. Every single Wyomingite should be appalled and outraged. 

Even our friends who support the “non-discrimination policies” of the USDA should stand with one voice against the bullying tactics of the federal government aimed at states and school districts. They should recognize that the USDA’s resorting to extortion undermines their own good-faith arguments. For extortion, by its very nature, is an abandonment of reason and moral authority. It replaces right with might.

We should also take this moment to remember how we got into this situation. How did the USDA come into possession of this $90 million gun that is now aimed at Wyoming’s children? The sad answer is that we armed the federal government by accepting its largess. 

Money is power. Every lawmaker, every school board, every state agency that empowers federal agencies to tax Wyoming citizens, so they can give it back with strings attached, gives potential bullies a gun. This gun can be turned on us in an instant. Now, it has been.

Superintendent Schroeder’s statement was bold and clear. But it lacked any indication of how he could protect our kids from this armed assault. Instead, he appealed directly to Wyoming citizens. “I only hope that ‘We the People’ have the stomach to stand up to it, because it won’t stop until the people say ‘enough.’ If we don’t, we will be guilty of enabling an overbearing and oppressive federal government that is completely out of control.” So, what exactly can we do? 

First, we can say, “No.” School board members in every county, vocally supported by the Wyoming School Board Association, should absolutely refuse to vote on any policy whatsoever in response to the bullying of the USDA. They should send a clear message that the federal government cannot coerce their vote—whether they agree with the policy, or not.

Second, Governor Gordon should protect our children against this bullying by instructing the attorney general to coordinate with other states that are planning to sue the USDA. This will not only support schools, it is also good politics. Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota, just won her primary challenge after she promised to hold the USDA accountable to US law.

Third, it is time that every Wyoming citizen implement federal “gun control.” Now that we have seen how federal agencies can turn the powerful gun of money against our children, we need to disarm them by electing representatives who will shut off their supply of money and keep us out of the position of dependence on federal handouts. With primaries only 10 weeks away, now is the time to act.

To end the public warfare, stop the war within.

Photo credit: Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

The tragic loss of life in Uvalde Texas should be an occasion for coming together. As one, our hearts break at seeing the photographs of 19 tiny victims, two female teachers, and a husband who died of a broken heart. We needed time to process, time to grieve. We did not need the immediate exploitation of the crime for political ends.

Only two days before the horrific shooting, the WTE editorial board published a call for civility. Its tone was sincere, but pessimistic. “It almost seems like a waste of words to ask for and expect anything else. Yet we can’t help but try.” I think they articulated the hopelessness felt by an overwhelming swath of readers.

We know that we want to be left alone to live in peace the lives that God has given us. We want to raise our children in an environment where all our neighbors and teachers help us to protect them both from those who would murder their bodies with bullets and those who would murder their souls with lies.

Uvalde victims

I believe that nobody in this entire state would disagree with that simply stated desire. And yet, I can already feel the tug at the leash as the dogs of war ready themselves. Two sides of an incessant cultural war long to sink their teeth into that red meat and pull it in two vastly different directions, tearing its unity right down the middle.

Before the words of unity even leave our mouths, the noise of the mob turns them into words of war. One mob accuses the proponents of gun control of killing children by leaving them defenseless. The other mob accuses the opponents of gun control of killing children by arming irresponsible and troubled people. Both consider the lies that kill children to be in the mouths of the others.

Our pessimism arises from the repeated experience that neither side can possibly concede an inch to the other. It’s not that they don’t want to do so, but that they cannot. It is not merely about willfulness and hard-headedness. We are—all of us—chained into a way of thinking that prevents thought. We have been drawn into a liberty that enslaves us.

Alasdair MacIntyre, the Scottish philosopher, began to uncover this impossible situation in his 1981 book, “After Virtue.” There he wrote about how the emerging redefinition of “liberty” threatened to enslave us all in the hopeless world we are now experiencing. When freedom is reduced to the unfettered ability to do whatever the bleep I want, we simply lose the ability to have civil discourse. When truth ceases to exist, the only value that matters in the public square is “what I want.”

In a particularly lucid paragraph, MacIntyre writes, “Contemporary moral experience has a paradoxical character. For each of us is taught to see himself or herself as an autonomous moral agent; but each of us also …[practices] manipulative relationships with others. Seeking to protect the autonomy that we have learned to prize, we aspire ourselves not to be manipulated by others; seeking to incarnate our own principles and stand-point in the world of practice, we …[direct] towards others those very manipulative modes of relationship which each of us aspires to resist in our own case.”

Once we define “freedom” as the ability to live completely and absolutely by our own inner desires, we have no alternative but to stop up our ears to any and every external authority. Other people’s opinions become threats to our very existence. Not only people, but also facts, logic, Bible, and even God Himself become mortal enemies. That is the prison that encloses us.

This lie about freedom isolates us in silos of individuality that are oppressively lonely. It prevents us from having civil discourse. It poisons the world that we want to be safe for our children. It is precisely this false view of freedom that unleashed the demons in Buffalo, Uvalde, and across our own state.

But I am not pessimistic. The chains that enslave us in this hopeless thought-world may be impossibly strong, but they are also brittle. Built on a lie about human freedom, they can be broken by a single word of truth. For truth exists not in each private will, but as a public gift from God. This truth frees us from the slavery of pretending to be gods.

Thus, we are freed from the slavery of obligating others while, we ourselves, avoid every obligation. We are freed, instead, to submit to the obligations that God lovingly gives us. These are gifts, not debts. Under God, we neither manipulate others, nor are we manipulated. 

Civility returns because we have stopped the endless war within ourselves.