11:32 p.m. on #GivingTuesday

This Substack is not going out before midnight. We’ve been fundraising all day. We posted on Instagram, Bluesky, Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Threads, and X. Those are listed alphabetically, because we’ll be pegged as left or right depending on if we list BlueSky or X first.

We’re building a new website, and some time was spent today with the web designer. Then we added the names of the 4,000 donors who contributed this year to the 5,000 names already on our email list and sent them all our roadmap for election security reform. My husband brought me dinner at my desk. He’s familiar with Giving Tuesday by now. He’s already a donor.

1:01 a.m.Falling Asleep at My Desk

I’ve finished editing the new montage for the website header. We have a meeting with the web designer at 9am. I have to sleep.

1:14 a.m. Stay Focused

There’s a lot going on right now. Venezuela Regime Change. A Mass Blackout. ICE. A War Crimes Investigation. Peace Talks. Multiple Lawsuits. The Epstein Story. I myself am a survivor of childhood sexual assault and find the Epstein coverage simultaneously riveting and painfully triggering. Regardless of the increasingly surreal headlines as our daily life descends into a parody of a dystopian science fiction novel, it’s important to stay laser-focused on the task at hand.

1:27 a.m. Still Awake Somehow

There are rare moments when certain things that were impossible before, become possible—because everything else is so horrible that the thing that seemed hard before, now looks like your best shot.

Charles Duhigg in The Power of Habit says, “During turmoil, organizational habits become malleable enough … to create a more equitable balance of power.” (p. 175) Which is a fancy way of saying that a crisis can be a unique opportunity to make change.

Our politics and electoral system are currently in a state of shock and now is the time to make long-needed transformations to our elections.

But just because it is possible doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. U.S. voters have been told for decades our elections are perfect, and their blinders seem to be stuck on with crazy glue. The media is especially attached to this narrative, making it difficult to reach a mass audience with accurate information, although problems with our elections are well documented.

2:13 a.m.The Left-Right Paradigm

There is growing agreement on both the left and the right that U.S. election results are not trustworthy. That is as far as the agreement extends, but it is a start for what might initially seem unthinkable: a left-right alliance on election security.

According to a June 2024 YouGov poll, 38% of Democrats and 72% of Republicans do not trust the results of one of the last 2 presidential elections.

Obviously, they each distrust the election that they lost. But that in and of itself, speaks volumes.

One of the key goals of a democracy is to convince the loser that they lost, and our democracy is failing miserably at that, as I discuss in this interview I did with investigative journalist Scott Carney.

2:35 a.m. A Roadmap to Election Security

One reason I understand the potential of this moment, is that I’ve been working on this issue for a long time. I started filming my first documentary on election reform in 2004, so more than 20 years ago.

What’s happening now is that there are competing but parallel scenarios on the left and the right that revolve around stolen software, illegal access to technology and electoral manipulation.

Those narratives are fascinating, but will have to wait for another Substack. The end result of these swirling stories is that the ground is fertile for change. It’s a perfect storm for election reform.

That change will not be simple or easy, but it is doable.

• We are already working on much of it.

The Roadmap:

• Radically transform the security landscape of U.S elections:

  • Overhaul election security infrastructure, testing labs & protocols at the state & national level

  • Move to open-source software for all voting machines

  • Eliminate voting systems with built in security issues, like machines that encode the vote in a QR code

  • Conduct transparent, hand-counts or comprehensive random hand-count audits in as many jurisdictions as possible

• Massively increase the reporting transparency of election results

• Educate people in every county about their local elections

• Develop election observation as a part of annual activities, like voting

• Teach advocates what to look for & how to file formal complaints, public records requests, lawsuits and alert the media every time there is a problem

• Conduct a national publicity campaign to change the narrative around our election security

• Continue to do statistical analysis and report on irregularities in election results

2:44 a.m. Seize This Crisis

As Duhigg points out in The Power of Habit, a crisis offers unparalleled opportunities for change.

A year from now the political and emotional landscape may be completely different, but right now, people understand instinctively that something is wrong and they want to take action.

3:01 a.m. Create a Transpartisan Mass Movement For Election Reform

This is the time

• To get structural change in the agencies that regulate our voting equipment

• To demand transparency and higher security standards from our testing labs and vendors

• To pass legislation that mandates the availability of hand-marked paper ballots and requires meaningful transparent audits

• To teach the public a new habit - the habit of election observation & verification—where advocates collect data in real time and learn to assess if there are red flags that something is amiss

3:38 a.m. It’s The Day After #GivingTuesday

Our fundraising drive is just beginning.

In order to spearhead this mass movement for election reform, we believe we must raise at least $500,000.

Research shows that most nonprofits raise 30 - 50% of their funds in December and the 1st week of January. So our goal is to raise $250,000 by January 11th, 2026.

This is a massive undertaking, but it’s necessary to hire top organizational, outreach and communications talent. We must not squander this opportunity. It could take decades to come again. It might never come again.

3:48 a.m. You Can Help

• Please make a donation, or better yet, sign up for monthly donations. Donations are tax-deductible

• Please share our roadmap and our fundraising goal with everyone that you can

• Ask your friends, family & networks to donate

• List us in your estate

We’re in it to win it. You’re already a part of it. This is just the next step.

THANK YOU FOR DONATING!

We are deeply grateful to all our donors and volunteers.
We appreciate all that you do

Think for yourself, or others will think for you without thinking of you.

~ Henry David Thoreau