[Lnc-business] Email Ballot 2018-12: INDEPENDENT AUDIT OF AT-LARGE VOTE RESULTS

[Joe Bishop-Henchman]

   My vote is no, for three independent reasons.
   First, while I would support an audit of all results as a matter of
   regular practice, that's not what this motion does. It singles out one
   race, this one time. It therefore sends the message that we think the
   problem with our elections is *inaccurate tabulation* in one race,
   rather than systemic problems, choice of voting system, scheduling and
   labor usage, and avoidance of technological solutions. While this
   motion does not foreclose those discussions, it distracts from them.
   Doing elections the way we do them, plus an audit, solves nothing.
   Second, this motion is moot. Ms. Mattson has already shown her work,
   perhaps because she would have anyway or perhaps because this motion
   was coming. But if Ms. Mattson rigged the election, this audit ain't
   gonna find it. (She  also should have rigged it to give herself more
   than a 1-vote margin.) In retrospect, Ms. Mattson and Mr. Starr
   probably should have recused themselves from counting the Secretary's
   race, although my sense is that the army of tellers double checking
   everything limited the ability to rig the results. More information on
   our procedures there would be helpful but this motion doesn't do that.
   The At-Large race is harder, since our voting method makes it very
   labor intensive to count and very few people in the room are totally
   disinterested in the race to be considered independent to be able to
   count it above reproach. I think it would be fruitful to have those
   discussions and adopt recusal standards for the future, but again, this
   motion doesn't do that.
   Third, this motion does nothing to grow our Party, nothing to allow us
   to move forward to focus on goals and plans, nothing to elect and
   re-elect Libertarians. I won't co-sponsor anything that doesn't do one
   of those or more of those things. This doesn't even do any of those
   things indirectly or tangentially: it's backward looking, pending
   because we must refute some rumor on Facebook or from one or two
   regions. We can easily spend all our time doing that, spending
   attention and resources trying to refute every conspiracy theory we may
   hear. Or we can act to grow and plan and elect, and be judged on the
   quality and the results. I also don't appreciate Ms. Harlos's repeated
   haranguing about why I'm a monster for not immediately co-sponsoring
   this proposal, or Ms. Adams' yesterday description of my proposal as
   "bullshit," "unacceptable," "gross," "vile," and "sickening" that I
   have yet to hear any sponsor of this condemn despite repeated
   discussions of tone and decorum, or the email exchange of accusations
   and counter-accusations last night that I find childish and
   embarrassing. Those tactics lose my vote, and the only way for that to
   be clear for the future is if I vote no now.
   JBH