Hunter Biden’s laptop, the FBI and objecting to a closed source system for counting votes

Today, the most developed and populous province of Canada, Ontario votes for a new government. The likely victor will be Doug Ford, leader of the ‘Conservative’ party of Ontario. Mr. Ford’s government differs from the far left, basically revolutionary parties, namely The Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party (the NDP) and the Green Party, only in that he pretends to be reluctant when enforcing the same emergency measures all of them wanted. Reluctant, but passed laws and regulations like: lockdowns, closing public facilities, mandating mRNA injections for Ontario civil servants, closing outdoor public parks, new laws criminalizing protests at government discretion and much much more.

But what caught the eye of some Ontario voters was the switch from counting the votes to Dominion Voting machines. Traditionally vote counting had always been done by people from each party, scrutineers, who look over the ballots and argue between them which ones are valid and which are spoiled. Many people witness each ballot, and there is very little chance for widespread cheating.

This time, the machines which generated a lot of controversy in the 2020 US presidential election, Dominion Voting machines from Toronto are being used.

Unfortunately, a lot of problematic, and probably Russian originating disinformation about the machines was circulated. Some influential people like Mike Lindell actually held open and expensive forums where code reveals where supposed to take place showing how the machines had been hacked. This effort was a failure based on many Cybersecurity experts. Even ones who seemed to be supporters of then President Trump.

But there are still questions remaining about these machines. For one thing, they are not open source. This means that no one can access the code by which these machines operate and examine it to see what exactly it does. Linux for example is an open source system, and a lot of security software is open source, allowing anyone who can read code to find any back doors or other code that may cause a machine to do other than is intended. Even Android is open source even if all the apps one may get, may or may not be.

Dominion did provide the code when asked. Not being one who reads or writes code, I have no idea of knowing if the copy of the code that was submitted is actually what is in the machines, or how in fact that all works.

But the real issue is that it is not a transparent system to the average voter. Even if these machines deliver perfect and accurate counts of each vote, the fact that most people cannot know how they work means there is not perfect trust in the system. And voting and elections are entirely about trust.

With scrutineers, you know that someone with your interests are overseeing the count. You know that the records are kept for each polling station with the paper ballots in a way that can be easily verified with a hand recount.

The fact that there was so much propaganda about the machines circulated in 2020, true or false, and even if we are content that the most publicized aspects of it are indeed false, it leads to less trust in a system that is built on trust. This means we should not use this system.