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PHOENIX Political parties have no legal right to observe extra audits that counties perform on election equipment beyond those required by state law, a judge has ruled.

In a decision published Tuesday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Joseph Mikitish said the Arizona Libertarian Party was invited to oversee the four audits that are required by state law. That includes two before each election and two afterwards, including the random hand count.

This year, the judge said, county supervisors agreed to two additional "forensic audits'' following complaints by some, including Republican state legislators, who questioned the outcome that saw Joe Biden get 45,109 more votes in the county than Donald Trump. That enabled the Democratic challenger to win Arizona and its 11 electoral votes by 10,457.

But in both cases, the county declined to have party observers. Instead, it invited the League of Women Voters and deputy registrars, arguing the space restrictions at the county offices due to COVID-19 precluded party participation.

The Libertarian Party sued, contending its exclusion violated the law. And the Arizona Republican Party filing arguments in support, arguing that keeping out the political parties "aggravates the atmosphere of distrust that the county has fostered over the past year through their own misconduct and lack of transparency.''

Judge Mikitish, however, said there's one major flaw to all of this: There's no basis for the argument in state law.

He said the record shows what the county wanted and conducted was an examination of its hardware and software to analyze its vulnerability to being hacked, verify there was no malicious software installed, test to ensure that tabulators were not sending or receiving information from the internet, and conduct a logic and accuracy test to confirm that there was no vote switching.

Judge Mikitish said both Arizona laws and the state Election Procedures Manual do have specific requirements for political party participation or observation of these. But what the county conducted, the judge said, is separate from these and not legally required.

He also also said there are procedures about who is entitled to watch the official counting of ballots. But that's not what occurred here, Judge Mikitish said."The forensic audits did not count or audit ballots from the November 2020 general election,'' he wrote. "Because the audits at issue in this case did not related to the counting of ballots, the statutes do not require that they include observation or participation by political parties.''

Judge Mikitish acknowledged nothing prohibited the county from including parties in the special audits. But he said it's not up to judges to decide whether they should have done so.

"Such policy decisions are left to other branches of government,'' the judge wrote.

Tuesday's ruling does not affect a separate audit of Maricopa County election results being conducted at Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

But there are links. Most notably, Republican senators ordered that audit after they said the county's audits the ones at issue here were insufficient.

And attorney Michael Kielsky, who represents the Libertarian Party, said there's a bit of irony in the county using the results of its own audits to boast of the accuracy of the 2020 general election and then criticizing the Senate for following up with one of its own.

"The fact is, what they did is everything they're complaining about now that the Senate is doing, which is just an audit with a pre-determined outcome,'' he said of the county.

"They hand picked who they wanted to do what they wanted to do,'' Mr. Kielsky continued. "And they didn't want anybody to look too closely.''

Mr. Kielsky also noted that the Republican-controlled Senate, unlike the county, invited members of other political parties to observe the process at Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

Mr. Fischer, a longtime award-winning Arizona journalist, is founder and operator of Capitol Media Services.

Excerpt from:
Judge: Arizona political parties don't have to be invited to extra election recounts - Your Valley

A group has taken the first step to asking voters next year to eliminate qualified immunity for police officers and other government employees accused in shootings or other actions.

The group calling itself Accountability Ohio Now filed paperwork Monday, and then gathered to promote the issue in front of the Statehouse.

Among those who came out to support it included family members of people who died in police shootings, community activists with Black Lives Matter flags, the far-right and armed Boogaloo Boys and libertarians.

Spike Cohen was the Libertarian Partys vice presidential candidate last year and lives in South Carolina. He said he flew in to join the cause of ending the civil defense for police officers and other public sector workers who say they were just doing their jobs.

By being able to do that, they arent held accountable. And what this would do is, it would disallow them from doing that. They would have to defend themselves on the merits of the case,Cohen said.

Law enforcement groupsare largely opposed to eliminating qualified immunity, saying police actions in volatile situations are complex but that officers who act within the law should be protected.

The group filed its petition language with the Ohio Attorney Generals office. If its certified, the group would have to gather more than 440,000 signatures from 44 counties to get it on next years ballot.

Read more:
Group Hopes To Ask Voters To End Qualified Immunity In Ohio - ideastream

This Monday, Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Nick Gillespie dish on their least favorite parts of President Joe Biden's State of the Union address and the messaging around the newest coronavirus guidelines. Plus, The Reason Roundtable answers a listener question about the ties between self-proclaimed libertarians and people against the coronavirus vaccine.

Discussed in the show:

1:36: Biden's SOTU address takeaways.

22:34: The government's newest coronavirus guidelines.

36:56: Weekly Listener Question: The current anti-vax sentiment within a significant portion of the libertarian world has me questioning everything. Weren't we the folks who, a mere couple of years ago, were saying "Get the FDA out of the way so big pharma can cure things?" That literally happened, and now a significant number of libertarians are kvetching about how quickly the vaccines were developed. How can I have faith in the rationality of libertarianism when there is a significant portion of the movement that is so breathtakingly wrong on vaccines?

48:52: Media recommendations for the week.

This weeks links:

Send your questions to roundtable@reason.com. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.

Today's sponsors:

Audio production by Ian Keyser.Assistant production by Regan Taylor.Music: "Angeline," by The Brothers Steve.

Read more here:
The Red Flags in Biden's State of the Union Address - Reason

Tuesday, 4 May 2021, 10:24 amArticle: Eric Zuesse

On May 3rd, the New York Times bannered Reaching HerdImmunity Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts NowBelieve and reported that there is widespreadconsensus among scientists and public health experts thatthe herd immunity threshold is not attainable at leastnot in the foreseeable future, and perhaps notever.

In other words: the news-sources thatwere opposing the governments taking action againstCovid-19 libertarian news-sites that opposegovernmental laws and regulations, regardless of thepredominant view by the vast majority of the scientists whospecialize in studying the given subject are lookingwronger all the time, as this novel coronavirus (whichis what it was originally called) becomes less and lessnovel, and more and more understoodscientifically.

The herd immunity advocates foranti-Covid-19 policies have been saying that governmentsshould just let the virus spread until nature takes itscourse and such a large proportion of the population havesurvived the infection as to then greatly reduce thelikelihood that an uninfected person will become infected.An uninfected person will increasingly be surrounded bypeople who have developed a natural immunity to the disease,and by people who dont and never did become infected byit. The vulnerable people will have become eliminated (died)or else cured, and so they wont be spreading the diseaseto others. Thats the libertarian solution, thefinal solution to the Covid-19 problem, according tolibertarians.

For example, on 9 April 2020,Forbes magazine headlined AfterRejecting A Coronavirus Lockdown, Sweden Sees Rise InDeaths and reported that, Swedens chiefepidemiologist Anders Tegnell has continuously advocated forlaid back measures, saying on Swedish TV Sunday that thepandemic could be defeated by herd immunity, or the indirectprotection from a large portion of a population being immuneto an infection, or a combination of immunityand vaccination. However, critics have argued that withacoronavirus vaccine could be more than a year away, andinsufficient evidence that coronavirus patients that recoverare immune from becominginfected again, the strategy of relying on herd immunityand vaccinations [is] ineffective.

The libertarianproposal of relying upon herd immunity for producingpolicies against this disease has continued,nonetheless.

CNN headlined on 28 April 2020, Swedensays its coronavirus approach has worked. The numberssuggest a different story, and reportedthat

On March 28, a petition signed by 2,000Swedish researchers, including Carl-Henrik Heldin, chairmanof the Nobel Foundation, called for the nation's governmentto "immediately take steps to comply with the World HealthOrganization's (WHO) recommendations."

Thescientists added: "The measures should aim to severely limitcontact between people in society and to greatly increasethe capacity to test people for Covid-19infection."

"These measures must be in place assoon as possible, as is currently the case in our Europeanneighboring countries," they wrote. "Our country should notbe an exception to the work to curb thepandemic."

The petition said that trying to"create a herd immunity, in the same way that occurs duringan influenza epidemic, has low scientificsupport."

Swedish authorities have deniedhaving a strategy to create herd immunity, one the UKgovernment was rumored to be working towards earlier on inthe pandemic -- leading to widespread criticism -- before itenforced a strict lockdown.

FORTUNEmagazine headlined on 30 July 2020, Howparts of India inadvertently achieved herd immunity,and reported that, Around 57% of people across parts ofIndia's financial hub of Mumbai have coronavirus antibodies,a July study found, indicating that the population may haveinadvertently achieved the controversial herd immunityprotection from the coronavirus.Furthermore:

Herd immunity is an approach to thecoronavirus pandemic where, instead of instituting lockdownsand other restrictions to slow infections, authorities allowdaily life to go on as normal, letting the disease spread.In theory, enough people will become infected, recover, andgain immunity that the spread will slow on its own andpeople who are not immune will be protected by the immunityof those who are. University of Chicago researchersestimated in a paperpublished in May that achieving herd immunity from COVID-19would require 67% of people to be immune to the disease.Mayo Clinic estimates70% of the U.S. population will need to be immune for theU.S. to achieve herd immunity, which can also be achieved byvaccinating that proportion of a population.

On 27September 2020, Reuters bannered InBrazil's Amazon a COVID-19 resurgence dashes herd immunityhopes, and reported that, The largest city inBrazils Amazon has closed bars and river beaches tocontain a fresh surge of coronavirus cases, a trend that maydash theories that Manaus was one of the worlds firstplaces to reach collective, or herd, immunity.

Rightnow, the global average of Covid-19 intensity (total cases of the diseasethus far) is 19,693 persons per million population. Forexamples: Botswana is barely below that intensity, at19,629, and Norway is barely above that intensity, at20,795. Sweden is at 95,905, which is nearly five times theglobal average. Brazil is 69,006, which is around 3.5 timesworse than average. India is 14,321, which is slightlybetter than average. USA is 99,754.

However, the dayprior, on May 2nd, America had 30,701 new cases. Brazil had28,935. Norway had 210. India had 370,059. Swedens latestdaily count (as-of May 3rd) was 5,937 on April 29th, 15times Norways 385 on that date. Swedens population is1.9 times that of Norway. Indias daily count is soaring.Their population is four times Americas, but the numberof new daily cases in India is twelve times Americas.Whereas India has had only one-seventh as much Covid-19intensity till now, India is soaring upwards to becomeultimately, perhaps, even worse than America is on Covid-19performance. And Brazil is already almost as bad as America,on Covid-19 performance, and will soon surpass America inCovid-19 failure.

There is no herd immunityagainst Covid-19, yet, anywhere. Its just anotherlibertarian myth. But libertariansstill continue to believe it they refuse to accept thedata.

Investigativehistorian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of TheyreNot Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican EconomicRecords, 1910-2010, and of CHRISTSVENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that CreatedChristianity.

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The 'Post-Covid-19 World' Will Never Come. - Scoop.co.nz

A group has taken the first step to asking voters next year to eliminate qualified immunity for police officers and other government employees accused in shootings or other actions. Statehouse correspondent Karen Kasler reports.

The group gathered to support the ballot issue at the Statehouse included Black Lives Matter and community activists, the far-right Boogaloo Boys and libertarians. Spike Cohen was the Libertarian Partys vice presidential candidate last year and lives in South Carolina, but says he supports ending the civil defense for police officers and other public sector workers they were just doing their jobs.

By being able to do that, they arent held accountable. And what this would do is, it would disallow them from doing that. They would have to defend themselves on the merits of the case.

Law enforcement groups say police actions in volatile situations are complex but that officers who are act within the law should be protected. The group filed its petition language with the Ohio Attorney Generals office. If its certified, the group would have to gather more that 440,000 signatures to get it on the next years ballot.

Link:
Diverse Group Files Petition To Put Qualified Immunity On The Ballot - WCBE 90.5 FM