moonsweeper -
Regarding election procedure, I think we might be talking past each other to a degree.
Going around to the big picture -- In general, I think that elections in the U.S. are sloppily run, and have been for decades. I've been aware of it since the 2000 election. However, neither party has shown any mainstream interest in reforming election procedure, and even when they have had the opportunity, they have not passed election reform. There is the For the People Act that was proposed in 2019 by some Democrats, but it had no chance of passing. For decades, the only people I saw complaining about details of election procedure like electronic voting machines have been liberal activists -- usually complaining about how procedures make things unequal for poor people and/or urban minorities.
In the 2000 election, suddenly that reversed. Trump supporters suddenly looked at the details of voting -- and were shocked to find, for example, how Republican administrations had been installing voting machines for decades. Many people seemed to believe that ballots were secured like bank vaults -- with top-of-the-line security and airtight procedure. Instead, it's often a bunch of geriatric volunteers walking the ballots around and counting them up like something out of The Office. That's been true across the tens of thousands of local polling centers since forever - it's not a shocking new development in 2020.
In general, I approve of reforming election procedure. It'll cost a little more money, but we should have some more thorough checks on things and security, to ensure that everyone's vote counts. Some liberals have shown bias defending election procedure in the case of Trump while criticizing it in previous years -- but the same is definitely true in reverse, where conservatives who had no problem with election procedures in 2016 turned around and started complaining.
---------------
I think the elephant in the room, though, is the enormous number of bogus claims in the 2020 election. You question about why I have brought up multiple times the false claim about the suitcases in State Farm Arena. That's because it was broadcast on multiple mainstream news channels, shared hugely across social media, and promoted by the President's own lawyers. Tons of people were sucked in by that story - so I think it's important to address it.
Bolded directly contradicts the affidavit, which says that people were told to leave and come back at 8:30 AM...
about the ABC Tweet...so ABC lied when they said Waller told them counting ceased at 10:30 or else Waller lied to ABC about the announcement to stop and go home (since she was present at the location when the announcement was made she should know)...pick one
No, I don't have to. Your assumption here is that no one ever makes a mistake or miscommunicates - there's only intentional lying. But in actuality, miscommunication happens all the time. Twitter posts are frequently wrong - not because of criminal conspiracy to lie, but because people post what they think they hear without checking. Just look at any conversation here on this forum, and there's tons of people talking past each other.
Have you ever sat on a jury? In virtually any court case, people's stories about a given event never line up. They'll tell different accounts of the same events -- even witnesses on the same side of a court case.
In this case, the procedure should be that the hours of processing are clearly posted. The observers shouldn't have to infer when work is based on an overheard command as they did. But given that they did leave based on an overheard command, I think miscommunication is clearly possible.
Taken in total...My curiosity is raised by the fact that it would be much simpler to just grant observers the access they are supposed to have and simply start counting...why would you complicate the process unnecessarily, thereby causing more work for yourself?
You're talking about where they were positioned here? For a secret and secure vote tally, the observers need to be in a place where they can see what is going on in general, but not so close that they can read the votes or interfere with the process. I suspect most places prefer for them to be behind a window or such, rather than have security keep them inside a roped-off area. Exactly where they need to be isn't perfectly defined - it's a judgement call. And again, this is something done by people working for a small stipend with little training across tens of thousands of polling places each with their own setup -- trying to conform to hundreds of detailed election laws that vary from location to location. They're almost all well-intentioned and trying their best, but I'm sure that no one gets it all right.