I've finished reviewing the Georgia filing and I have a few comments to share with the socialverse in my capacity as a 30-year registered Democrat, former Oregon state elections official (with policy and admin experience), and former CIO.

I will not comment on the legal claims because, while I have familiarity with the law and court filings, I'm not a lawyer. I am also going to mostly stay away from alleged behaviors, too, as I wasn't there and, anyway, they add color but are more open to dispute.

The original intent of the software code (acc'd to affidavits) was to manipulate votes without detection. When you start with one goal in mind, it's tough to pivot to the opposite goal later — no matter how hard you might try. Not that it seems anyone tried... Absence of secure audit log (to record every action in the software) is so indefensible that I LOL'd when I read it. This fact alone should be enough to negate the results when there is ANY question about fraud because it cannot be proven that fraud DIDN'T occur Elections administration.

Lawsuit alleges that many procedures required in state law — for good, common sense reasons to ensure the one voter, one ballot rule is adhered to — were not followed, including Receipt of absentee ballots in their return envelopes was not recorded (this reduces risk of ballot box stuffing, i.e., to ensure that only one real ballot has been submitted by one real voter). Signatures were not verified against voter registration on return envelopes (same reason as 6, above). There might be missing envelopes, too; it wasn't clear to me in my reading or I missed it. Ballot processing is not allowed before Election Day in Georgia (this varies by state); in this election, by rule inconsistent with state law, Secretary of State Raffensperger allowed counties to start 3 weeks early. Absent a rigid accountability processes, this risks double or counterfeit voting.

Conducting one election with INTEGRITY is hard enough; when you overlay what is, in effect, a 2nd election (by mail) that has to be reconciled with what happens at the polls ... this is very high risk this "2 concurrent elections" risk was a primary argument for all elections being conducted by mail in Oregon, which was adopted after 20 years of practice with dual polling/mail elections — practice that none of these states whose elections are in question have had Observers were not allowed during the original count or the recount. There is no defense for this and intrinsically implies that elections officials had something to hide. There are other things to pick on, but these I cannot think of a way to defend and probably are sufficient to meet the apparent (according to the lawsuit) standard of "preponderance of the evidence" to "doubt the result." Eager to read defendants' response!

The lockdown to "flatten the curve" of COVID-19 has caused harm to many people globally. Over the past 6 months it has been nearly impossible to discern what the UK government strategy is in relation to the virus: suppression, or following of the model used in Sweden to foster community immunity? In mid-September, things became clearer: the UK is on a course for suppression until a vaccine or effective mass testing is in place. For good measure, UK residents have all been punished by new limits to the number of people socialising together, and have been warned that further restrictions could be imposed unless their supposedly reckless social behaviour improves. Frightening graphs depicting scenarios rather than predictions have been used to terrify people about the resurgence of the virus. However, it might be years before a safe vaccine is available, and the mass testing proposal dubbed moonshot is scientifically unsound and could do more harm than good.

There is another way. One which takes account of the fact that COVID-19 does not have equal effects across age groups: for young people the risk of COVID-19 seems to be very low but the mental health of young people has been disproportionately affected during this crisis. We should allow young people to go about their lives normally and protect those who are older and more susceptible in a humane and compassionate manner; infectious diseases specialists have good ideas about implementing this suggestion. However, in late September, hundreds of healthy, young students in Scotland and Manchester, UK, have been locked down, banned from visiting home and family, and threatened that they might not be able to go home for Christmas. It is hard to see how this policy is within the bounds of human rights and I am deeply concerned about the impact of such measures on mental health and wellbeing.

Many people have highlighted the need not to medicalise natural reactions to the global crisis that the global community is facing as a mental illness. However, the global community cannot, and should not, ignore the evidence amassing to suggest that people of all ages are struggling. Increases in suicidal ideation and self-harm have been observed among young people in China before and after lockdown according to prospective studies that were able to collect cohort data. It is clear that young children have been badly affected by lockdown.

Moving forward, nations should prioritise young people. They have suffered immensely in this crisis and sacrificed a lot. Moreover, the economic devastation will have an enormous impact on young people who will bear this burden for years to come. The association between economic downturn and suicide has been shown repeatedly across the globe.Services and support for those in distress should now be prioritised and made easily accessible, in the virtual and real world. Mental health should not be left behind in this crisis. For young people, whole-school approaches involving mental health awareness have been shown to reduce suicidal ideation and behaviour. Such evidence-based mental-health interventions should be implemented, urgently, at scale in the community.