Monday, August 3, 2020

Silent majority election manifesto

Most American voters object to the way the extremes on the two political sides, and their leaders and media cheerleaders, control the politics and the political discourse, and the way that this silent majority of American voters is sidelined.

This put upon, silent majority basically has to "suck it up."

Especially galling for having to "suck it up" is the current, outrageous disputations over preserving the integrity of the November election, intentional actions by one or both sides in advance of November to lay a basis for calling into question the election results, and failure of the combatant parties to make an effort to work to agree on things in advance to lessen problems once November 3rd arrives. 

Mail in voting is central in the disputations.

The most intransient actor in this Trump, who does everything he can to not engage reasonably with the other side and not agree on things in advance. Trump's motivations are solely for himself; Trump makes extreme claims about which he will entertain no reasonable, fair discussion about the legitimacy of the claims; and Trump's supporters follow his lead.

This may be one "suck it up" too far that the silent majority is being subjected to.

During the next 90 days, the silent majority should be agitated not to "suck it up" and the silent majority should be provoked to yell loudly.

8/15/20  Plan of action [draft]
[This is in draft form pending getting input from other Alabamians.]

8/30/20
To try to ward off litigation and other chaos come November 3rd that creates a national crisis of  there not being an accepted outcome of the Presidential election, I think the silent majority should look to the National Association of Secretaries of State, and its member state Secretaries of State. 

The Association's website says this:

THE ROLE OF CHIEF STATE ELECTION OFFICIALS IN ELECTION SECURITY:

40 members of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) serve as their state's designated chief election official, overseeing the conduct of elections according to law. Ensuring the integrity of the voting process is central to this role, which includes cybersecurity and contingency planning, as well as providing administrative and technical support for local election officials.

Given this responsibility and function of Secretaries of State, NASS and its members should compile details about how the Presidential voting will be conducted in each of the states and how the votes will be counted, which should be accompanied by each Secretary of State vouching for his or her state being able to provide an election tally within such time after November 3rd as may be needed to count mail in ballots and do lawfully required recounts. Based on this, the Secretaries of State should obtain acknowledgements from the Republican and Democratic parties in their states in advance of November 3rd that they agree  with the details about how the Presidential election will be conducted and how the votes will be counted.

Each Secretary of State needs to vouch for his or her state and should review and have confidence in the vouching that the other Secretaries of State do for their states.

With such vouching by all the Secretaries of State and with such confidence in one another, NASS should put out a public proclamation to that effect and should strongly denounce any actor, including the President, who disparages the security and fairness of the election and who seeks for the voters to question the outcome.

(As the NASS website discloses, only 40 members of NASS  serve as their state's designated chief election official, and the above suggested plan of action calls for drawing in one way or another the officials of the remaining 10 states. )

Vouching for Alabama 

The starting place is the Alabama Secretary of State's website Alabama Votes The State of Alabama's Election Center. 

In light of the unprecedented scrutiny to the election being fairly conducted, Secretary Merrill should consider in advance possible problems and complaints and endeavor to address them in various ways. This should include obtaining  an express acceptance from the Alabama Republican and Democratic parties of how Secretary Merrill addresses the possible problems and complaints.

An example might be possible complaints about "vote harvesting" at nursing homes. Secretary Merrill might propose that nursing homes may be entered to obtain a voted ballots from residents only if representatives of both parties are present. Further a neutral nursing home employee might be also required to be present and be allowed to make a "competency" determination that the representatives of the political parties will abide, and no voted ballot will be obtained from a resident whom the nursing home employee considers not competent.

Another possible complaint is about biased postal employees improperly diverting mailed ballots from proper post office processing. Secretary Merrill should coordinate with USPS officials about how this risk may be reduced and should be acceptable. The Alabama Republican and Democratic parties should expressly acknowledge that the risk is acceptable and they will not make any complaint before or after November 3rd.

To be able to declare which Presidential candidate has won Alabama's electoral votes as promptly as possible on or after November 3rd, Secretary Merrill should consider whether anything can be done to speed up counting of mailed in ballots, such as doing processing of mailed in ballots as they arrive before November 3rd. 

In Alabama, absentee ballots must be received by Absentee Election Manager no later than noon on November 3rd, so, in Alabama, announcing results should not be delayed because of a need to wait for absentee ballots to be returned.

On election night, Secretary Merrill should be prepared to issue a press release giving an estimate of when Alabama will be able to declare which Presidential candidate has won Alabama's electoral votes.

Secretary Merrill should endeavor to communicate to the judiciary in Alabama and urge the judiciary to use the judiciary's permitted discretion to expedite any litigation that is initiated to challenge election results.

Urging NASS to get all Secretaries of State to vouch
Secretary Merrill should inform NASS of what he has done to vouch for Alabama and should request NASS to get all the Secretaries of State to do similarly as Secretary Merrill has done regarding Alabama and to vouch similarly for their respective states, and NASS should make proclamation to all Americans that they should have confidence in the integrity and fairness of the 2020 Presidential election. NASS should denounce any actor, including Trump, who tries to cast doubt on the 2020 Presidential election.


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Saturday, August 1, 2020

Covid liability precipice

The country is on a precipice in trying to get another covid aid bill from Congress. 

There is a gaping divide over the amount of additional aid, with the Democrats wanting up to three trillion dollars and some GOP wanting to limit aid to one trillion dollars.

Besides being on a precipice as regards the amount of additional aid, the country is further on the aid precipice as regards the matter of protections from coronavirus liability.

On Tuesday Senate Majority Leader McConnell said he would not bring up a coronavirus aid bill in the Senate which does not include liability protections, and he will not negotiate with Democrats on liability protections in coronavirus bill. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/28/coronavirus-stimulus-updates-mcconnell-defends-liability-protections.html

The precipice that the country is on as regarding protections from from coronavirus liability needs to put in the context of a decades long battle that business, doctors and others, on one side, and lawyers, on the other side, have been fighting over tort and other legal liabilities and class action lawsuits.

In the battle, society and citizens collectively have a legitimate interest on both sides. On the plaintiff side, each member of society can be an injured party who desires rights to sue a wrongdoer who has caused his injury. On the other side, since all payments ultimately come out of the pockets of individuals, frequently in the form of small amounts coming out of the pockets of large numbers of individuals, there is a societal interest that imposing liabilities not be done too liberally in favor of the plaintiff side in a way that does not adequately take into account the general societal interest on the defendant side.

The lawyers are biased by their personal financial interests in favor of there being more legal liability, such bias causes the lawyers to seek for the law to provide for more liability, and the bias impairs lawyers from fairly seeking for the law to operate in a way that balances the interests that society and citizens generally have on both sides of the matter.

Ultimately, lawmakers determine the liability rules and it is their job to provide liability rules that fairly balance the interests that society and citizens generally have on both sides of the liability matter. 

Lawyers are a powerful lobbying force as regards how the lawmakers determine the liability rules.

Many believe that lawmakers have been unduly influenced by the lawyers in determining the liability rules, and there is a significant imbalance in the liability rules in favor of more liability, to the benefit of the financial interests of the lawyers.

The two sides are far from reconciled about the liability rules, and the long standing war between the two sides threatens the virus aid bill, which has the country on the precipice.

To get past this and get a virus aid bill, it would behoove the country for the voters to be informed about the battle over liability rules, and the arguments on the two sides, as to enable the voters to reach their own decisions about whether it is "right" or "wrong" for McConnell to require virus liability protection as part of the virus aid bill being currently considered by Congress.

8/3/20
Thank you, Montgomery City Councilman Clay McInnis.
Please take the lead in Montgomery in drawing out the local business community and the local bar and others to inform your Alabama citizens about virus liability protection in the aid bill.

You have a excellent roster of prominent persons who are directors of the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce (listed at https://www.montgomerychamber.com/board-of-directors). The directors include representatives from industry, utilities, finance, government, insurance and health care, plus members of two law firms.

Please also note the officers of the Montgomery Bar Association listed at https://mcbar.org/page/BOD.

Further, you have the academic resource of the faculty at the Thomas Goode Jones School of Law. https://law.faulkner.edu/directory/

With the nation on the precipice over the virus aid bill and liability protection, I think the foregoing persons have an obligation to speak to your citizens and help them understand better about the liability protection matter.


1/15/21
See Larry Nassar and AAG election, an earlier post giving more extensive discussion of this matter.

12/17/21
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