Freedom and the Contracts Our Govt Signed for Secret Vote Counting

[Land Shark]

Many of you know that the vote counting programs of voting machines are considered "proprietary trade secrets" such that the voting companies, such as Sequoia, have stated in writing, to people such as me, that my wish to inspect and/or test those voting machines as a citizen (or even to obtain a copy of the operator's manual) will be resisted by "all actions" necessary. This is despite the fact that my brother in law Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman and I co-wrote a 29 page research study showing irregularities favoring one party over another due to malfunctions and/or tampering. www.votersunite.org/info/SnohomishElectionFraudInvestigation.pdf

To imagine secret ballots is to imagine FREEDOM of the vote. To imagine secret COUNTING of the votes by a multinational whose parent company de La Rue was awarded a lucrative US contract to print Iraqi dinars, is to imagine actual or potential TYRANNY. To trust a political friend to count the vote in secrecy without verification is to be an actual or potential TYRANT, who claims to owe the people no duty. To imagine all of us adults together (WE THE PEOPLE), smart and dumb, old and young, of all races, creeds, orientations and beliefs all having the same vote as the President of the United States is to imagine an image of EQUALITY that many have paid a great price for. To imagine that vote not necessarily counting based on the whims of the secret counting corporation is to see the end of FREE elections. To see the end of free elections, especially during a "permanent war" on "terror", is to see the end of freedom itself.

Our greatest leaders have said there comes a time in each generation for the true meaning of freedom to be discovered and enhanced.

We can know that freedom not only by ejecting these secretive corporations from our vote counting, but also by rediscovering the radical equality inherent in our equal votes. Smart people don't get two votes, and "dumb" people who "don't follow instructions" in Palm Beach County don't get their votes taken away. Why? Because there is such a thing as WE THE PEOPLE. Endowed by their creator with certain INALIENABLE rights, meaning rights that we are born with that can not be taken away, and we were born with them BEFORE our government was ever formed.

All power ultimately comes from the consent of WE THE PEOPLE, but we forget that sometimes, getting down on our knees and begging the government for this and that. Sometimes that's necessary because the people have delegated certain powers, but on occasoin government asserts a power it was simply never granted by the people.

For example, when it comes to something as fundamental as democracy, the government lacks the power, through contract, to cede that power of vote counting in a democracy to a multinational corporation or to any individual to operate in secret, because vote counting is a public democratic right. It is a public right for which the government has literally never been given the power to give away. The government, plainly and simply, combined with all of the world's corporations, UTTERLY LACK THE POWER to privatize our votes. We ougt not legitimize that privatization in any way by assuming it has any validity, because it is void ab initio (from the beginning).

Most importantly, (to put it plainly but crudely) WE DON'T NEED TO PROVE SHIT, THE VOTING MACHINE COMPANIES MUST SIMPLY GET THE HELL OUT of our democracy. Period.

If they want to retain secrets or trade secrets, they are free to go back to the private sector, where they came from.

For the above reasons, a lawsuit will be filed in the coming week seeking the general relief stated above, plus the disclosure of all past secrets. I will have the assistance of one of the most able trial lawyers in Washington state, Mr. Randy Gordon. Mr. Gordon is a Harvard gradudate and member of the Board of Governors of the Washington State Bar Association as well as an adjunct professor at Seattle University School of Law. I am personally a retired (at a relatively young age due to term limits) member of the Board of Governors and voted a Rising Star in 2003 and 2004 for Washington state lawyers. I say this background only to attempt to say that we are not crackpots, but beyond that there is little point to credentials, because every citizen has an equal right to rise up and take their democracy back, and they don't necessarily need lawyers to do it themselves.

After all, the issue has gone far beyond corporate "control" of Congress. Corporations literally own/control our vote counting, and therefore own/control our democracy. If one asks for information on these secret vote counting machines of your government, the contract with Sequoia (for example) requires the county to provide immediate notice of the information request to the private corporation Sequoia and to cooperate with Sequoia in any response. Naturally, Sequoia immediately faxes back a letter from their lawyers indicating that all of the paper and electronic records related to vote counting software is a "trade secret". The county government then has a CONTRACTUAL DUTY TO COOPERATE with the secrecy claims of Sequoia, and denies the public records request.

Does this mean that this is how our government elections officials get their "marching orders". In a very real way, yes. Does this mean our government elections officials are not free to serve the public in the way they deem best? Yes, not if Sequoia disagrees.

But we the people need prove nothing to invite those who have privatized our voting to absent themselves from our democracy.

I urge everyone not to even bother to make public claims about the intent of those who have privatized our vote, because we can never know for sure what is in someone else's heart, and that uncertainty would simply be used against us and we'd share the fate of anyone else who dares to think and talk about what is intentionally kept secret: "conspiracy theorists". Instead, the voting machine companies are the trespassers on our open democracy, this is our democracy, and it is they who must leave, not us, and certainly not democracy.

All of the lawyers working on this case will do so pro bono publico (for the good of the public). All attorneys fees awarded go to charity. All money raised for expenses is for out of pocket costs only (like expert witnesses, travel, documents, blogging the case, deliveries, court fees, etc), and if reimbursed goes to charity as well.

Since we know that opposing counsel will have principles of their own to stick up for such as trade secrecy, we will in the future ask you to ask opposing counsel to also work on a pro bono basis, in order to best figure out through the legal process what is best for our democracy. Lawyers have few higher callings than bringing the people together to discuss democracy. Sequoia's lawyers will likely work for free in order to defend the important principles of trade secrecy and secret vote counting, so the issues can be most richly framed for the courts on both sides, without regard to the expense of lawyers fees. Therefore, when we meet Sequoia's lawyers in court, we will either meet like-minded public spirited lawyers who see the importance of the issues, or else we will meet paid mercenary lawyers (perhaps who are struggling to make ends meet themselves) or else we will find no lawyers prepared to defend Sequoia, because no one wishes to argue for secret vote counting at any price.

In the event we find no lawyers opposed, any possible opposition simply melts away. In the event we find pro bono publico lawyers on the other side, we know the arguments will be well served on both sides and justice ably served by a court very interested and listening to the debate. And, in the event we find paid mercenary lawyers, we shall sense that there comes a time every now and then when lawyering is not a job but a call to justice, and it will be hard for mercenary lawyers to beat We The People in a struggle for democracy, right here on our home soil.

We have no specific requests, other than this general request. Just please imagine what WE THE PEOPLE would do to restore the integrity of the vote, and do accordingly, knowing that it is important that you do it, but that "it" will not be televised by Sequoia or any of its allies, paid or volunteer. I know some of us have gotten so frustrated with the promise of America that we've become critics and dissenters, and have paid the price sometimes of being unfairly called anti-American when you've exercised your freedom to express difference: the only thing freedom is actually needed for. But unless you are so disappointed in the promise of America that your love is frustrated to no end, remember today the ones, those founding Patriots who pledged their lives, their fortune and their sacred honor. They were both many, and few, and yet they acted for the People nevertheless, in their time.

Paul R. Lehto, Attorney at Law
PO Box 1091
Everett, WA 98206-1091
425-257-2297
[email protected]