In a comment on Skwawkbox a contributor expressed a doubt that is probably shared by many people regarding the potential rigging of the 2019 General Election, so it is worthy of analysis here. The point raised was as follows:
“….It would be foolish to deny any possibility of electoral fraud on a national scale but conspiracy theories have problems. Idox’s bosses (assuming they’re your prime suspects) would need to keep any hint of fraud or access to the real numbers from non-involved employees to avoid blackmail or whistleblowing and jail. Involved employees are guaranteed jobs for life – or death.
Any large scale election fraud would require a conspiracy. What all conspiracy theories fail to explain is how the conspirators guarantee none of them will ever blow the whistle, mention the crime in a drunken encounter, be caught in other crimes and name the conspirators for a reduced sentence, find god, make deathbed confessions etc etc. Only fools trust others with their freedom.”
My reply was to say that: “I respect your opinion, but while your reasoning appears to make sound common sense, and is reassuring to those who might have doubts regarding the security of our voting system, there are major flaws in this premise.” I went on to explain the reality of attempting to blow the whistle to expose any type of wrongdoing within a powerful corporation.
First of all in the case of Idox it is important to remember that, for pure practicality of producing such large volumes of ballots, the printing of ballot papers, their envelopes, etc would need to be fully automated. A select few trusted employees might know that there was double printing or pre-marked ballot papers being automatically inserted into the A envelopes and sealed ready for substitution prior to an officially viewed opening session. This greatly reduces the number of people in the know unless someone is consciously digging for evidence ahead of time.
However, the major disruptor with regard to those seeking to expose the truth remains the ruthless targeting of Whistleblowers. You would think that with an issue so momentous that someone would have the courage to come forward with such important information, but people are easily intimidated and rightfully fear serious reprisals. I speak from brutally raw personal experience as a Whistleblower myself. At first you believe that what you are exposing is so universally known about by fellow employees that you are in no danger bringing it to the attention of a supervisor; this is usually the tragic first step towards being blacklisted if you are a regular employee or the total destruction of your career if you are a skilled professional.
The second there is any hint that inside knowledge of corruption, fraud or safety violations are about to be made public the Whistleblower is ruthlessly targeted and discredited to the point of being falsely criminalized. In America I was marched out of Johns Hopkins Hospital by two security guards to the horror of shocked staff who observed this deeply humiliating spectacle. From that point on not a single former work colleague dared to communicate with me for fear of being targeted; I lost dozens of close friends overnight. Once the company or institution has managed to establish that it is you who is suspected of criminality, anything that you attempt to report regarding their dangerous or fraudulent conduct can be disregarded as merely the false accusations of a disgruntled former employee with an axe to grind!
This is a very effective tactic that will silence the most conscientious of workers since, beyond totally destroying your career, in almost every single solitary case, your honesty will accomplish absolutely nothing: sadly, no one will believe your reporting. The highly conspicuous “walk of shame” is just the very beginning of a horrific and precipitous decline that has led many Whistleblowers to take their own life; it is a truly devastating experience from which very few courageous individuals will ever fully recover. In my case a career in surgery was over, I lost my home in the US and everything I owned: I still suffer from PTSD. This process is just as effective here in the UK as the intimidation tactics of Dominic Cummings’s aggressive armed escort of the dubiously disgraced Special Advisor, Sonja Khan, out of Number 10 clearly demonstrated. What information did this SPAD possess that might have made her a target?
This tactic of shaming, suspicion and ostracizing a Whistleblower is used to silence any colleague who might be foolish enough to consider coming to their defence or supporting their allegations: for a government agency, public institution or powerful company it is remarkably easy to universally demonize a former employee to the point where their credibility is completely destroyed. In the exceptional rare cases that take years to expose, after the damage becomes too great to be ignored, there are frequently dozens of people who knew enough to have come forward with the truth, but who were so fearful of retaliation that they remained silent. There are precious few bold Whistleblowers who emerge from this torturous process unscathed, but it always requires extreme personal sacrifice of some kind.
In a Guardian article interview with the Cambridge Analitica Whistleblower the uncomfortable truth is laid bare by Christopher Wylie when he reminds us that:
“When you look at how, for example, the NCA [National Crime Agency] has just sat on blatant evidence of Russian interference in Brexit,”
Wylie says: “When you look at how you can go and commit the largest infraction of campaign finance law in British history and get away with it.”
The explosive revelations of a second whistleblower, Shahmir Sanni, fell inexplicably flat. Sanni revealed in the Observer how “Vote Leave deliberately broke the law in the way it funnelled money to the data firm AggregateIQ, an associate company of Cambridge Analytica. It’s believed to be the biggest breach of electoral law in a century, but it was given minimal coverage by the BBC and all but ignored by Britain’s political class. The law-breaking was confirmed by the electoral commission in July, and it has now been referred to the police.”
The suspicious death of Dr. David Kelly in 2003 after his life was torn apart for correctly accusing the British government of over-selling intelligence in order to justify the Iraq invasion. The murder of Seth Rich in Washington that remains unsolved despite rumours he was assonated after possibly passing DNC documents on to Wikileaks. The political prisoner Julian Assange has suffered solitary confinement in Belmarsh prison for his journalistic efforts in exposing the war crimes sanctioned by the US Government, if he is extradited he will likely die in an American jail. There are very serious consequences that deter any high-stakes Whistleblower from coming forward.
Look how the manipulation of our voting by Cambridge Analytica exposed by Christopher Wylie was essentially marginalized as irrelevant after it was exposed and you can begin to understand why Whistleblowers are reluctant to take such catastrophic risks for zero societal benefit. When asked in a Time article interview: “The Capabilities Are Still There.’ Why Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower Christopher Wylie Is Still Worried” what advice would he give to somebody who’s considering blowing the whistle? Wylie offered this response:
“Talk to a Lawyer. As obvious as that piece of advice is, this is something that whistleblowers almost never do. They jump to handing over stuff to journalists or they go public and they don’t think things through. You will be a far more effective whistleblower if you operate within a legal framework.”
Why did I feel the need to write about this here, possibly further scaring those who might be capable of supplying crucial evidence to expose the truth regarding the unfathomable “landslide” result of the 2019 General Election? It is really important to discuss the issues that might continue to cast doubt on the possibility of vote rigging and elaborate on the realities that negate such genuine concerns. This thread has also documented the fact that it is now really well recognized by Judges, MPs and the Electoral Commission that our current Electoral System remains wide open to fraud on an industrial scale.
By highlighting these facts and bringing them to the attention of the wider public we increase the possibility that if a whistleblower were to emerge they would stand a far better chance of being believed rather than cast aside as a discredited troublemaker. That does not offer potential Whistleblowers a risk free path to recognition, but it does at least offer them the solid refuge of our support.
