Alabama Supreme Court issues late night stay blocking preservation of Tuesdays digital vote records

[questionseverything]

36. and the repub sos thanks you for your trust

In his Dec. 11 Order Granting Preliminary Injunction, Judge Roman Ashley Shaul order simply required that all "counties employing digital ballot scanners in the Dec. 12, 2017 election...to set their voting machines to save ALL PROCESSED IMAGES in order to preserve all digital ballot images. This order applies to those machines that have such a setting and does not apply to any machine that does not allow for processed images to be saved."

The court noted that "there was little argument...that the law requires digital images to be preserved as a matter of Alabama law and Federal Law. The Secretary of State's Office..does have the ability to provide election information to election officials as a matter of course and routinely does so; and...all parties agreed that the relief requested would require nominal resources and cost on the part of the Defendants."

Subsequently, Greg Palast Tweeted that he had been informed by attorneys John Brakey and Chris Sautter that the GA Supreme Court had stayed Judge Shaul's order based up an ex parte complaint filed by the State.

If accurate, that is deeply troubling for two reasons.

(1) Under Rule 3.5 of the Alabama Rules of Professional Conduct, it is ordinarily unethical for an attorney to engage in ex parte communications with a judge --- communications about the substantive merits of litigation in which the opposition does not have adequate notice and opportunity to be heard.

2. Given the absence of significant costs and the clarity of the legal obligation to preserve the record, it is difficult to comprehend any reason for the stay --- other than a desire to preserve the ability of local election officials to alter the outcome of this pivotal election without leaving the evidence of that alteration for all to see via the preserved digital images.