The Moral of the Nuremberg Trials
Comply With Unlawful Orders at Your Own Peril
It may well be that the major moral of the post-World War II trials in Nuremberg, Germany is that one complies with unlawful orders at his or her peril. The common defense for Nuremberg defendants was something akin to, “I was obeying orders,” or “I was only following the law.” The decisions from the presiding judges demonstrated the “I was only following the law” when the law itself was immoral, was an insufficient defense for their personal unlawful actions. In my opinion the same may be said of unconstitutional decisions.
“In Such Manner as the Legislature May Direct”
The Constitution of the United States mandates that the respective state legislatures, and the legislatures only, shall direct the manner of the appointment of electors. “Executive” decisions that affect the appointment of those electors by “officials” other than the legislatures are, by definition, unconstitutional.
In a real sense, that means if the legislature mandated elections be held in a certain manner, e.g., signature verification for voters, or voting be held on a certain day, then no “official” has the constitutional authority to change, or modify it.
Electronic Tabulating is Inherently Unsafe
Electronic tabulation of votes is inherently unsafe. Voting machines are “black boxes.” By “black box,” I mean that what occurs in the actual tabulating processes of the machine can only be surmised, it cannot be known, except by the programmers. So called “certifications” of tabulating machines are merely statements of probability about the levels of confidence certifiers have that the machines will do as their manufacturers assert.
Their tabulations are derived by the programs written into their software or firmware, and those programs can easily be manipulated before and during the tabulating cycles, especially in this era of unfettered interconnectivity, which itself is a “black box.”
The Untapped Corrective Power of the Legislatures
I am not a legal scholar. However, as I understand the current electoral crises, unless a legislature has ceded their authority legislatively to state officials, they still have the authority and power to dictate to those “officials” how votes will be counted, and the criteria by which they will be validated as legitimate.
I sincerely hope there is a return to the Constitution, and not a acquiesance to bureaucracy, and the plutocrats.