Category Archives: ethics

Who’s Eligible to Vote?

Posted on by
Reply

Recall the Georgia runoff elections for two Federal Senate seats and the parallel efforts by both parties to register new voters—including encouraging folks from out of State to become citizens of the State and register to vote on that 5 Jan 21 election day.

Here’s Tracy Beanz of UncoverDC.com:

In reading the GA constitution, it appears that newly registered voters should NOT be eligible to vote in the runoff election.

Here’s the Georgia Constitution.  Here’s Section II, Paragraph II of that Constitution, which deals explicitly with runoff elections (some folks really do plan ahead):

Paragraph II. Run-off election. A run-off election shall be a continuation of the general election and only persons who were entitled to vote in the general election shall be entitled to vote therein; and only those votes cast for the persons designated for the runoffs shall be counted in the tabulation and canvass of the votes cast.

Thus, any citizen of Georgia who hadn’t registered to vote in the 3 Nov 20 election, and so wasn’t entitled to vote then, doesn’t seem entitled to vote in the continuation (runoff) election, even if he registers now.

That would seem to leave all the Johnny-Come-Latelies now entering the State to register and vote on 5 Jan still ineligible to vote on 5 Jan, although they can register to their heart’s content and vote in other, separate, elections in 2021. If they hang around and don’t leave (which latter could expose them to felony charges for violating Georgia election laws).

Who Was Audited?

Posted on by
Reply

Recall the hoo-raw over the Dominion Voting Systems machines in Georgia. Georgia’s Secretary of State  Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, authorized an audit of those machines and last month announced the audit’s results: “no evidence of the machines being tampered.”

Pro V&V, “a US Election Assistance Commission certified testing laboratory,” was the company Raffensperger hired to do the audit. The company, according to its Web site,

was founded in 2011 by individuals possessing a combined testing experience of over 30 years[]

and it was accredited by the US Election Assistance Commission in 2015.

The company doesn’t identify its founders, or how many of them there are, so it’s impossible to assess the value of those combined 30 years of experience. Two guys, averaging 15 years each, which would be serious experience?

Five guys, averaging 6 years each?

Software (and hardware) testing is what I did, as Test Director for a defense contractor, in another life. Six years of testing software isn’t all that, not when the tester needs to have a clear and extensive level of understanding of the nature of the software being tested. Software driving a fighter aircraft simulator is vastly different from software driving Windows Word™ software is vastly different from software driving your laptop’s firewall…is vastly different from software that drives voting systems computers. How qualified are these guys, really? Maybe thoroughly qualified, maybe not so much.

But here’s the thing, folks. Pro V&V has a several-years-long relationship with Dominion, which Raffensperger plainly knows, or should have known.

[Pro V&V] has for several years overseen testing of Dominion’s voting software, federal records indicate.

And

US Election Assistance Commission records show that Pro V&V has for multiple years served as the “testing lab” for Dominion’s Democracy Suite voting software. Records from 2020, 2019 2018 and 2017 all list Pro V&V as the tester for several successive iterations of Democracy Suite.

Who, indeed, was it being audited?

Hmm….

Wrong Resolution

Posted on by
Reply

Recall that Huawei Technologies Co’s Deputy Chair and CFO Meng Wanzhou is facing US criminal wire and bank fraud charges related to her alleged violations of US sanctions on Iran, which she did on Huawei’s behalf. She’s in the middle of extradition proceedings in Canada en route to getting her here.

Now there’s a resolution in the works: DoJ officials are talking about a “deferred prosecution agreement,” in which Meng would admit her wrongdoing in those cases and then be allowed to return to the People’s Republic of China directly from Canada.

This is the wrong resolution. The case should be resolved by bringing her into the US and letting a trial court resolve the matter.

NASDAQ is in the Quota Business

Posted on by
Reply

The stock exchange has proposed a rule—and it’s actually serious about it, if you can imagine that—regarding business governance that must be satisfied if a business is to be considered by the Know Betters of the exchange fit for listing on its exchange.

The second largest exchange in the world has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission for permission to impose a quota system on the boards of its listed companies. The new rule would mandate that corporate boards have a minimum of one woman director and one who is a minority or LGBTQ.

So: a black lesbian–a three-fer.

It would be not just an idiotic rule, it would be immoral. It also would be coarsely unfair to the board member. Did she get the job because she was qualified, or did she get it because she filled three squares? She’d always be faced with that stigma.

It’s also a naked interference in the way a business governs itself, which is far outside a stock exchange’s DOC.

Maybe it’s time for NASDAQ’s several hundred companies to take themselves off the exchange.

Time to Buy

Posted on by
Reply

Ex-President Barack Obama (D), he of the open contempt for ordinary Americans, us bitter Bible- and gun-clinging denizens of flyover country (i.e., the vasty expanse of America that lies between the western coast and the northeastern coast), is at it again.

Former President Barack Obama, in his latest memoir, criticized Americans for liking “cheap gas and big cars” more than they care about “the environment”—even during a catastrophic event like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

And

…many American voters for decades had “bought into the idea that government was the problem and that business always knew better….”

That last is fully vindicated by the arrogant Know Better attitude of Obama and his ilk, who insist that Government is the only solution, and us petty voters need to sit down, shut up, and do what we’re told.

It’s true enough that business is imperfect and often screws up. However, even with that, it’s axiomatic that business always knows better than Government.

With Obama spouting off again, it looks like it’s time to go out and buy a Humvee and a muscle car or two.