Update: Clarkson "can't have tapes to audit voting machines" [View all]

[Stevepol]

Here's a more complete explanation for the strange ruling.

The source: http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article61222187.html

The key legal issue comes toward the end:

"A Sedgwick County judge has ruled that a Wichita State University statistician won’t get access to paper tapes from voting machines to search for fraud or mistakes.

"Judge Tim Lahey denied a motion by Election Commissioner Tabitha Lehman to dismiss the case brought by statistician Beth Clarkson. But that was a hollow victory for Clarkson. Her point in filing the lawsuit was to gain access to the tapes to check the accuracy of the voting machines, searching for an answer to statistical anomalies she has found in election results."

snip

"Clarkson sued last year seeking access to the tapes under the Kansas Open Records Act. Representing herself without a lawyer, she lost.

"Since then, Randy Rathbun, a former U.S. attorney, has taken up the case (pro bono)."

snip

"He changed strategy and sought a recount of votes, on the assumption that Clarkson would be able to watch the process and get the information she wants.

"Lahey ruled that Clarkson had already brought the issue of access to the tapes to court and lost, so he couldn’t order Lehman to turn them over now. THE LAW PROHIBITS FIGHTING THE SAME LEGAL ISSUE TWICE (my emphasis)."

As expected, of course, nobody gets to look at the vote when electronic voting machines are used, but readers might notice that concern about voting machines isn't just a phenomenon in large metropolitan areas. Wichita and its environs have around 350,000 I would say, but notice the interest that citizens had in the outcome of the case. At some point in the future, the law and the politicians who are the beneficiaries of the unverifiable machines are going to have to pay attention to the people.

"More than 100 people, almost all of them voting-rights supporters, packed Lahey’s courtroom to standing-room only.

Lahey said the audience was not only the largest he’d seen at a motion-to-dismiss hearing, it probably exceeded all the people who had ever observed such a proceeding in his courtroom in his 26 years as a judge."

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article61222187.html#storylink=cpy