Fitrakis, a lawyer, knows very well that even in the simplest court case, expert witnesses have to disclose to the court and to the other side the data they use and the methods of analysis they adopt. Even a radar technician in a speeding case will have to disclose the calibration, workings, and methods of a radar gun in a simple speeding case, if they are at issue. Same with the breathalyzer and any other courtroom analysis, due process requires that examination and disclosure.
But in elections and especially in Ohio, the data (ballots) and the methods of analysis (trade secret corporate software) are not disclosed at all. Should any party out of power trust this arrangement? Where are and what happened to the checks and balances?
Of course, Fitrakis still doesn't have all the election data or all the methods. But there's a boatload of citizen documents in this collection to help you decide for yourself what really went on in Ohio 2004.
Without Fitrakis' book, there's no rational basis for confidence in the Ohio election or our elections generally wherever the data and methods are kept secret (only blind faith can get you that confidence). With Fitrakis's book, you'll have a rational basis and a lot of evidence showing affirmatively the inaccuracy and fraud and suppression of the vote in Ohio. My only quibble with Fitrakis is the implicit idea that he has to prove something, when the burden is on those who are keeping things secret and who are also, by the way, paid to administer elections in many cases. We should remember, as one judge put it in 2002, that democracies die behind closed doors.
But, in the absence of such a realization that secrecy is totally inappropriate in democratic elections, this book's information and its significant size will both help prop up and re-open the door to free and fair elections in Ohio and around the country.
