What is a sheep’s tail?
As we watch how the election slowly emerges, I am reminded of an old riddle. The riddle asks that if you call a sheep’s tail a leg, how many legs does the sheep have? If you look at this picture and make a quick count, the answer seems obvious. There are five legs.
Wrong! The answer is that the sheep still has four legs. Just because you “call” a tail a leg doesn’t make it so.
Accurate vote counting is critical
Accurate counting, as we know, is important. It is especially so when it comes to elections. We must get the votes counted correctly in order to have fair elections. Trust in the integrity of our elections is fundamental to our democracy.
The 2020 election has been met with an inordinate amount of challenge as Trump claims it was rigged and that he won, “By a lot!” Feeling as he does, he has yet to concede the election to Biden, his opponent.
The claims have incited a fair amount of alarm and concern. Celine Castronuovo, in her article in The Hill,Half of Republicans in new poll say election was ‘rigged,’ solen from Trump, reports:
Roughly half of Republicans believe President Trump “rightfully won” the election, with 68 percent saying they had concerns about a “rigged” vote counting process in favor of President-elect Joe Biden.
Now after a few weeks have ensued, the anxiety and contention continue. Zeeshan Aleem’ article in VOX,Trump’s legal team advances yet another far-fetched lawsuit in Georgia, noted:
President Donald Trump’s campaign has filed yet another lawsuit contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, this time calling for a complete do-over of the election in Georgia. That’s despite two recounts in the state — overseen by Republican officials — both indicating Biden’s victory in the state is unambiguous and not going to change.
Unbiased opinion should prevail
Who should be believed? Should the truth not come from a neutral corner? Should either contender hold the key to truth, knowing that a bias will persist with a claim by any side? Neither party should be able to claim a voting verdict, when fairness is so critical, until a more neutral agency reveals the truth.
The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) reported shortly after the election that:
The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result.
When states have close elections, many will recount ballots. All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary. This is an added benefit for security and resilience. This process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.
Confusion and bias are common – it’s human
Remember back in 2016 when Democrats could not believe that Clinton had lost, though she had won the popular vote? Surely, they thought, something was amiss. How could the tables turn on them, their favorite, their chosen?
I’m assuming that the Democrats in 2016 wish the results had been different. In that they share a perspective with Trump – wishing. The wish persists: The election results are wrong. The sheep’s tail must be a leg!
Even now the Democrats are guilty of a similar bias. While some are shying away from claiming the win was a landslide, they point to how winning the election by millions of votes was unprecedented. No other president has captured as many votes. That’s true and a convenient spin but not one that warrants claim to an overwhelming winning mandate.
It’s difficult to step away from wishful thinking. We all do it. Our team lost because of bad officiating. Our team lost because the other team cheated. Our team lost because we played on the wrong day… whatever.
Numbers don’t lie
The point of all of this is that numbers don’t lie. People may lie by using numbers, but facts are facts. (Alternative facts is not a thing – that’s a fact!)
Here’s another truth: The Electoral College results depicted by that red and blue map does not reflect how the nation voted. It can’t! The map only reflects how the electoral votes were cast after so many ballots were tossed aside because of the Winner-Takes-All (WTA) filtering, preventing true voting representation. Over 68 million such ballots were cast aside this past election (the number is still escalating as the final tallies are coming in). What we see is false. The sheep’s tail must be a leg!
Equal Voice Voting (EVV) would give us a more honest and true result. It would remove WTA, give representation to every viable ballot and candidate, and make All Votes Matter!
Imagine: If we used EVV across the nation we could easily see how the nation voted. Contention and disbelief might still prevail. Recounts might still be called for. But as we view the Electoral College map, we could see how we voted.
We could recognize the truth of the riddle: That sheep’s tail is a tail and we’d not have any five-legged sheep. Ah, truth, it could look so good.
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By Jerry Spriggs and the Equal Voice Voting Team