Swimming in Election Denial
Election Boards Can Do No Right-- Now With Trump Back In The Race--Until They Submit to Standards... And How One Ugly Agency Showed Us The Way
We're hearing a lot about ELECTION DENIAL these days.
And actually it’s good that we know it’s out there before it’s too late.
Because if public trust is the lifeblood of the private sector, it’s life-or-death for public sector. Without consent of the governed, you have tyranny or anarchy.
Politicians and bureaucrats must submit to the standards they impose on others. Or they are swimming in denial that leads to the collapse of civil order, and worse.
And Trump’s re-entry into the political process only accelerates this risk the longer they delay.
State and local election officials must ACT NOW—not to protect secure, or harden their systems. That’s been done. But to confirm those systems are performing to the standards they claim to be following, and re-earn the trust of a skeptical public.
We'll review the real-life story of a real-life agency faced with its own real-life demise, and how they turned a real life-or-death situation around.
The Earth Is Flat. The Earth is Round
It's a curious turn of phrase, this denying elections thing.
As far as elections go, I have experienced my own fair share. I have voted in elections. I have been a poll worker. I have worked on election equipment and infrastructure.
And I can assure you 1000% that elections do exist. I do not know of a single person who denies that, in the literal sense of the word.
Five hundred years ago, there were people who denied the world was round. And shut down those who said otherwise. Until the world's #1 FLAT-EARTH DENIER, Chris Columbus, finally found a court to hear his arguments -- the court of the King and Queen of Spain -- sponsor his proposed proof, and provide standing for his findings.
Since that time, HORIZON DENIERS have pretty much ceased to exist.
Prior to this year, the term ELECTION DENIER had near-zero currency in the English language. But since May, it has been weaponized by legacy media into a malword for shutting down those who question election practices favoring Uniparty candidates.
ELECTION DENIER has been increasing in frequency of appearance, peaking on November 9, the day following the midterm elections, at 34 words per million linguistic units (WPM). That's an increase of 380% in less than a month, bringing it within shouting distance of that critical 50 WPM threshold.
Malwords are keywords weaponized for information warfare. They function within public discourse as intellectual malware, verbal viruses designed to spread quickly for the purpose of a) silencing dissent through control of language, narrative, and speech, b) increasing public tolerance for government-sanctioned atrocity against perceived enemies, and c) emboldening officials to commit those acts of atrocity.
Malword strength is measured by their frequency of appearance in the published body of language (corpus), and expressed in words per million (WPM) linguistic units (words, numbers, symbols, acronyms, etc). The average person processes 20,000-30,000 linguistic units over the course of a day, so if a particular malword shows up in the news corpus at a frequency of over 50 WPM, chances of hearing that term at least once in daily consumption of news is high.
OUTCOME DENIER, a more accurate description for those who disagree with election results, occurs but once in the news corpus over the last decade--on Sept 30, 2022 interestingly enough, in a hit piece on Roger Stone by NBC News. OUTCOME DENIER can also be used to describe Hilary Clinton and Stacey Abrams, which may explain why it has not achieved more traction.
FRAUD DENIER, on the other hand, is nowhere to be found in the corpus. But FRAUD DENIERS are everywhere now-- in the regime, in the media, even law enforcement.
Along with the actual in-your-face FRAUD and disorder which they are DENYING, happening real-time in places like Arizona.
And this is interesting— when you really push them on it—
ELECTION DENIERS do not deny the existence of elections.
FRAUD DENIERS do not deny the existence of fraud.
Both simply point and sputter that each other is the problem
Many FRAUD DENIERS were, until recently, ELECTION INTEGRITY (3yr avg 0.98 WPM; peak 7.1 WPM) DENIERS. Insisting the 2000 election was stolen by George W. Bush. And that Russians interfered in our elections to tip the scales to Donald J. Trump in 2016. We can even recall congressional hearings, a special prosecutor, and impeachment proceedings.
No Trust, Less Verification
Problem is, you just don't know who to believe anymore. Every time a winner is declared, the opposing side begins hollering about voter suppression, democracy under attack, our country has been lost, end of the world, etc.
You know the drill.
But is all this DENIAL making us any happier? Has it made your life better? Are you mentally more focused? Spiritually more at peace? Are you hopeful for the future? Is this the kind of country you can leave to your children and grandchildren?
Public trust is an important thing, especially in the private sector. Squander it, and your sales, stock price, human capital, etc. can take a hit from which you may never recover.
And that's why well-run companies guard their reputations zealously. They submit to and even welcome a variety of audits— financial, compliance, security, etc. Not to root out incompetence and malfeasance, but to preserve public trust, and to confirm their systems are performing to the standards they claim to be following.
The Next Train Is Scheduled To Leave… Maybe Never?
NJ Transit is a large public transit agency, whose reputation was so damaged by a series of natural and man-made disasters, that few of their customers trusted them, or believed anything their leadership said. There was talk of breaking the agency up and spinning it off into separate entities. Incoming New Jersey governor Phil Murphy called NJ Transit a national disgrace, and vowed to audit the organization from top to bottom.
The audit took a year, and what they found was ugly-- no strategic plan, organizational bloat, outdated technology, glacially-paced procurement, and inadequate plans to replace employees as others retired or left.
All contributing to chronic breakdowns, delays, and accidents making commuters lives nightmarish on any given day.
Key executives were fired, more were forced into retirement. New management was brought on from the private sector, including a new IT team who came aboard and started separating strategic from non-strategic vendors.
As reward for making the cut, my firm was brought in and told that because things were in such disarray, NJ Transit was going to apply for ISO/IEC 27001 certification, and they needed us to either get in the boat and row, or part ways.
ISO/IEC 27001 certification proves to the world that your organization meets the two widely-recognized gold standards of information management—NIST 800-53 for cybersecurity, and SOC 2 for compliance. Certification involves a rigorous audit of people, process, and technology controls, and is typically sought after by world class organizations seeking new channels of revenue.
For an agency like NJ Transit, it was going to be the equivalent of climbing Everest without an oxygen tank.
I had the temerity to ask why-- in the midst of all the woes described-- NJT was going for a certification sought by organizations who are much further up the maturity model -- in other words, have their shit together.
Good question, they said. And I’ll never forget their answer:
We need to start restoring public trust by holding ourselves accountable to recognized and respected industry standards. If we fall short, we'll know where the organization needs to improve, even if that means losing our jobs. If we pass, it will be a win for the team. And right now cyber is our strongest hitter.
The audit process took another year. There were a lot of naysayers, foot-draggers, and folks rolling their eyes. But the NJ Transit team completed the audit-- all the while they were working at their current jobs.
And passed.
Nobody could believe it. First public transit agency in history to pass an ISO/IEC 27001. It was huge news across the industry, and executive boards everywhere began asking their CIOs, "Why don't we have ISO certification?"
And at NJ Transit, it was a complete game-changer. Morale shot up. KPI's improved across-the-board. They were not a national disgrace. They had proved that a failing state agency with nothing going for it-- unionized rank-and-file, governance by a one-party state-- could pull together under a crisis of public confidence and turn things around.
Half of the People, None of the Time
Governing bodies would do well to follow NJ Transit's example. When major constituencies are crying foul after every election, you're bleeding credibility regardless of who "wins."
As vessels of the public trust, both election boards AND their vendors should be welcoming audits against rigorous and respected standards like ISO/IEC. To root out corruption and inefficiency, of course. But, more important, to demonstrate to citizens that the elections funded by their taxes are indeed beyond reproach. Not perfect, but damn close.
No government can expect to survive by continually antagonizing half of its constituency. But that is what our state governments are doing. Your fans may adore you, but you've got enemies plotting revenge Game of Thrones-style. And we've had enough Game of Thrones in this country, looking at the results: high inflation, border chaos, mass indoctrination, high crime, random violence.
Right now America is on a path to civil war, due in large part to lack of confidence in our elections. And that confidence is only going to drop with Trump back in the race. Because his supporters are saying, Fool me thrice…
Especially in Arizona, where results are an in-your-face, smash-and-grab by those in power. For that regime to certify that election means that they have no standards except their own self-preservation.
Anyone who trusts that kind of governance is either in on the scam, or a REALITY DENIER. That is the kind of regime we saw the people of Sri Lanka rise up and force from office earlier this year.
There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide— John Adams, second President of the United States
He’s a few hundred years late, but here we are, shoving our squeaker results and sub 1% majorities down everybody else's throats, and ruling like we have mandates to destroy our opponents.
The way out of this DENIER HELL, where your trust is on a glide path to zero, is through adhering to publicly trusted standards.
And opening your systems to scrutiny against those standards--fail or pass. If you fail, you know exactly how to hold yourselves accountable. If you pass, you silence your critics. And boy, is that a good feeling!
So bring on the audits--annual top-to-bottom audits of process, and random audits of results— before the 2024 elections.
Yes, there will always be a few bad actors who find a way to slip under the radar. But right now there are no standards, and in the name of “saving our democracy” the radars are broken.
We're adults, if they haven’t noticed. We can deal with the news that our elections are broken. We already know they are. Even FRAUD DENIERS are honest in at least that regard. We all prefer standards to anarchy and disorder. And want to return to a system in which all voters regardless of belief or affiliation can trust and participate.
We all are in denial on something— because it’s a free country, and we cherish our right to choose and withhold our choice for any reason we like.
Just don't be an AUDIT DENIER!
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Harvey Oxenhorn, is a cybersecurity consultant, founder of Malwords Weekly, and author of the upcoming book, The Atrocity Algorithm, How The Media Became The Enemy of The People. He writes The Five Stages of Unf*ck, Red Pill Journey to January 2.0. , also on Substack. Follow him on Gettr, Gab, and MeWe @HarveyOxenhorn
Great idea! But that assumes that our Pennsylvania lame-duck Governor Tom Wolf, as well as our governor-to-be Josh Shapiro (throw the PA Supreme Court in there, too) have the humility and self-awareness to look at themselves and conclude that they are in fact in election denial that has disenfranchised almost the whole commonwealth, save a handful of counties. Neither of them do. They are both hubristic to the point that any mention of election fraud that comes up in a bill has been and will be met with a veto. As far as I know, we don’t have recall abilities, so there’s no way to get rid of either of them, except by Sri Lanka’s method, and I don’t see that happening for a whole host of reasons. Shapiro, especially, claims to be “the Governor for all Pennsylvanians,” which is code for kowtowing to the unions, especially the teachers’ unions and all the other special interests who saw fit to back door him (read: fraud) into office. So if there’s a way around all of that, I’m all ears.