Is The Digital Currency Group's Move A Shill Game For Stamford?

Barry Silbert, DCG founder

This Year's Sema4
Fresh on the heels of 2020's conflict-of-interest between Governor Lamont's $17 million coronavirus testing contract with Sema4 and his wife's financial ties with the same 2019 start-up (1), last November's introduction of the Digital Currency Group to Connecticut also enjoyed "legacy investment" backing from Annie Lamont's firm, Oak HC/FT. Not until April 2021--fully four months after relocation negotiations began between New York City-based DCG and David Lehman of the state's Department of Economic and Community Development--did Oak HC/FT sell its stake in the cryptocurrency/blockchain hedge fund.

While DCG received around $1 million upon its founding in 2015 from Mrs. Lamont's health care and financial technology investment firm (2), it did not disclose what the sale price was of its holding in a company valued at a hefty $10 billion as of November 2021, six years on. Nevertheless, this time around, it's the company soon to be operating in-state that could prove a bigger problem than the repeated  congruence of the Lamonts' public/private interests.

Premature Euphoria

Oak HC/FT's Annie Lamont

Beating out bids by sites in New York state and New Jersey, the move to Connecticut by a company with more than $50 billion in assets under management (AUM) is celebrated with general uniformity in the mainstream media and by Stamford's Mayor Caroline Simmons (3), who enthuses about making the city the "crypto capital of the world" (an aspiration also shared by the administrations of Miami and New York City [4]). Beginning with its relocation, along with several subsidiaries late in 2022 to the Shippan Landing office complex, at least 300 new jobs are promised over the next five years in exchange for $5 million in financial incentives from the DECD (5).

Given, however, the ongoing unpredictability of this still-evolving industry, typified by last June's dramatic sell-offs by prominent crypto business like Celsius Network and Dubai-based Three Arrows Capital (6), U.S. Representative Jim Himes' (D-CT) expectation in 2023 of a House proposal for a badly needed regulatory framework calls to mind nothing more appropriate than the ill-timed closing of barn doors for Connecticut (7).

Especially considering the questionable background of DCG and the actions of its boyish millionaire founder/CEO, 46-year-old Barry Silbert: in consequence, according to Charles Chancellor-Mackay (pseudonym for a group of industry advocates/investors and investigators), the crypto mogul has come to be known as "The Shillbert" among his peers (8).

From Houlihan Lokey, To WEF, To Stamford

Silbert's WEF profile

An Emory University graduate and former investment banker with Houlihan Lokey (a poorly-rated boutique investment bank whose co-president was sued last year for passing information to an equity fund seeking to take private the software company for which he also served as independent director [9]), Silbert moved on in 2004 to found what would be known four years later as SecondMarket, trading in illiquid assets, including bankruptcy claims and restricted stocks.

The year before his company was anointed at the World Economic Forum of 2010 as a Technology Pioneer, Silbert was singled out as an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, among other accolades from the financial world. Excited by crypto's promise, Silbert established Grayscale Investments in 2013, whose major component remains the Bitcoin Investment Trust, facilitating the then-novel opportunity for speculators to invest in Bitcoin like precious metals, without buying or storing it, themselves.

DCG followed in 2015, along with what would become a comprehensive suite of specialized subsidiaries covering real estate, Bitcoin mining and smartphone-accessible retail exchange activities (10).

Of particular interest, though, is Silbert's reliance on the aforementioned Grayscale, offering numerous other cryptocurrencies to choose from (Zcash, litecoin, XRP, etc.), attaining a total AUM of $5.9 billion as of September 2020, Genesis Global Trading (inherited from his SecondMarket days), a digital currency trading desk for institutional investors, as well as the industry news outlet CoinDesk, purchased in 2016 from Spotify backer Shakil Khan.

Keeping It In the Family--and In-House
Projecting an aggressive evangelical presence on Twitter, Silbert and his family members have a history of using the platform to "pump" what he is personally invested in--further boosting excitement in the last decade over Ethereum Classic (while shorting the competing Ethereum) via CoinDesk's reportage, facilitating transactions via Genesis and operating Grayscale, the go-to source for investment management of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. In flagrant disregard of federal regulations, this was done without clear disclosure to unsuspecting investors of each business' affiliation with the same parent organization (11). Silbert's unscrupulous oversight of BIT and SecondMarket, according to a 2016 SEC cease-and-desist order "broke rules that were designed to prevent manipulation of a security before an offering (12)."

Such behavior, of a piece with the weight of the field's backroom deals, inherent volatility, poor international regulation (enabling the disappearance of millions in Bitcoin in 2014 from Tokyo's MT.Gox registry [14]) no more serves to reverse what Chancellor-Mackay refers to as "Bitcoin's malfeasance culture" than to advance either Stamford's, or Connecticut's, economic/financial positions. It is difficult to understand how Thomas Madden, Executive Director of Stamford's Urban Redevelopment Commission (who first brought DCG to the attention of David Lehman of the DECD in October 2020), Lehman, himself, Mayor Simmons and the Lamonts could have all learned of this young man's meteoric prominence on the crypto scene without also learning of his unflattering nickname and how he earned it. 

 (this article will also appear in a forthcoming issue of the Connecticut Sentinel)

References:
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 1. https://www.myrecordjournal.com/News/State/Company-backed-by-Conn-first-lady-to-exit-COVID-testing.html

2. https://www.ctpublic.org/news/2021-12-01/heres-what-we-know-about-the-timeline-for-digital-currency-groups-move-to-stamford

3. https://portal.ct.gov/Office-of-the-Governor/News/Press-Releases/2021/11-2021/Governor-Lamont-Announces-Digital-Currency-Group-Relocating-Headquarters

4. https://www.ctpublic.org/news/2021-11-30/stamfords-newest-crypto-company-had-ties-to-annie-lamont

5. https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/qa-cryptocurrency-and-how-the-business-fits-in-connecticut

/2661809/ 

6. https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/major-crypto-hedge-fund-3ac-may-become-latest-casualty-ongoing-bloodbath

7. https://www.ctpost.com/opinion/article/Editorial-Hope-caution-greet-burgeoning-16669585.php

8. https://medium.com/@charlescmackay/barry-silbert-and-the-cost-of-bitcoins-malfeasance-culture-f83d15ad07d1

9. https://reportscamonline.com/list-of-unauthorized-cloned-firms/houlihan-lokey-review-report-a-scam-today/

https://nypost.com/2021/09/27/houlihan-lokey-co-president-accused-of-leaking-information-in-takeover-deal/

10. https://www.coinbureau.com/analysis/who-is-barry-silbert/

11. https://medium.com/@charlescmackay/barry-silbert-and-the-cost-of-bitcoins-malfeasance-culture-f83d15ad07d1

12. https://www.bizjournals.com/newyork/news/2016/07/13/sec-to-bitcoin-investment-trust-cease-and-desist.html

13. Mutton, Karen; „Blockchain: A Tool to Enslave Us?“, p. 27; Nexus, November-December, 2017

"When Eden Was So Near“: The Surrender Of Love and Filialism To Imperial Fealty

Better people… better food… and better beer!

Why rule around the world

When Eden was so near?

“Territories"

Rush

lyrics by Neal Peart

One of the more ignominious episodes of the Obama years was the government's unconstitutional response to the 2013 bombing attack of the Boston Marathon. Nearby Watertown was placed under lockdown for several hours while a door-to-door search for the

 surviving alleged perpetrator was conducted by black-clad, armed stormtroopers marching through the streets astride military vehicles, hustling families and seniors from their homes (1).

Embarrassingly enough, the historically ironic import of the violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 in the Boston area—a legal stricture against military enforcement of domestic law originally inspired by the nation's Colonial experience—seemed lost to residents who came out en masse to applaud the departing occupation force when "its work was done" (as it turned out, the surviving perpetrator was located by a civilian, David Henneberry, after the lockdown was lifted [2]).

What makes this so eerie, however, was not so much the overt threat of state violence, but its attempted softer conflation with the priorities of family life when early on the media glorified the decency of Brookline police officer John Bradley for delivering milk to a family imprisoned in their own home (3); in a sort of stateside example of Noam Chomsky's "military humanism".

Seward's Sculptural Follies

Exploiting the universal social veneration of the family in order to make war and authoritarian goals a part of day-to-day domestic experience doesn't just serve Pentagon or State Department needs, but also finds its place as part of the sentiment-infused self-image of a society that is frequently at odds with reality.

Such is the case with sculptor Seward Johnson, whose pieces (thirty-six of which comprise the “Timeless” exhibit in Stamford, Connecticut this summer) evoke historical/pop-cultural tropes of twentieth-century Americana with all the undemanding appeal of over-sized Danbury Mint keepsakes, like the iconic 3-D rendering of the elative sailor embracing a nurse on VJ Day in New York City, or a 25-foot-tall skirt-blown Marilyn Monroe from the 1955 romantic comedy The Seven Year Itch. A piece from 1992, “Coming Home” attempts to squeeze the more recent wave of imperialist conflicts into the same nostalgia box, in its depiction of a Gulf War soldier hugging his grade-school daughter while in camouflage uniform (4).

A familiar scene popularized on the news and via countless home video uploads to Youtube for years now involving faithful pets, flag-waving ecstatic spouses and partners, to be sure; what's disturbing about Johnson's interpretation is that, contrary to most real-life examples, “Coming Home” depicts the soldier, not his daughter, clutching the stars-and-stripes on a stick, as if to suggest that he is so righteously devoted to his sense of duty, that he can't bear to relinquish it, even while suffused with the relief of reuniting with those whose safety justifies his tours abroad.

Entraining a New Generation

A more recent wrinkle on the wartime homecoming theme extends to the school setting, where, besides capturing traditional functions, smartphones now record returning service fathers and mothers surprising their children before their peers in the middle of a game, in class (5) and elsewhere. As with the previously-mentioned public's "Boston Strong" fawning over the suspension of their civil liberties, this trend in public schools (so reminiscent of Erich Fromm's observation in

Escape From Freedom [1941] of citizens' self-driven furtherance of imposed regressive changes in open societies) takes advantage of peer sentiment to normatize perpetual foreign conflict and rolling military service in the minds of a post-9/11 generation which has never had the chance to know anything else.

On the surface, the lunch room playfulness of a returning military mother dressed like a school mascot may be endearing, but it also implies institutional endorsement not just of the emotional impact such public encounters might have on the classmates of a student with a parent in the armed forces, but what their father or mother is being called upon to do (6).

By contrast, when was the last time the media reported on such a surprise pulled on behalf of a child whose father or mother was away on relief work for something like Habitat for Humanity, or freshly-returned from a cross-country trucking run? As for children of military families, how many are living hand-to-mouth because of „stop loss“ extended deployments; how many reunited families shown online and on television may have to face the suicide of a veteran parent (a loss of 20 daily, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs [7]) down the road?

First Blood--By Way Of Lassie?

Entertainment has been part and parcel of such propaganda for as long as there has been mass media, but with 2017's Max, youth marketing/book packaging company Alloy Entertainment (responsible for both the 2015 young adult novel by Jennifer Li Shotz and its film version) struck a new low by perversely purveying the enobilization of conquest through a boy-and-his-dog coming-of-age storyline.

Much to his mom's frustration and his Gulf War veteran dad's outrage, Justin Wincott is an insolent early-teen whose older brother, Kyle, has just died in Afghanistan. Although his heroism stemmed from his service uncovering caches of enemy weaponry, as well as threatening to expose gun-running in his own Marine unit, back home, Justin spends his summer competitive biking and selling bootleg video games. Softening the absurdly unfair comparison between this petty mischief with Kyle's self-sacrificing character in order to sell, however obliquely, young viewers on the supposed justness of the graver criminal act of illegal foreign occupation is Max, Kyle's gun-sniffing German Shepard.

Though combat-trained like his human counterparts, Max returns home with PTSD, where  Justin reluctantly agrees to look after him. Kyle’s gun-runner comrade returns home, too,  enmeshing Justin and his family in his efforts to destroy all evidence of his activities, which includes Max. The plot makes for a rather desperate twist on the guilt-ridden convention of a parent or older family friend favoring one son over another, based on which one served in war and which remained home--a theme played out from the 1959 Cold War potboiler Atomic Submarine and Norman Lear’s 1970s sitcom All In the Family, up through 2013's politically obsequious The Butler, with Oprah Winfrey.

Just a few titles from the expansive
Gossip Girl YA series

Implicit in Max is the seriously warped message that to grow up means not so much graduating from wayward self-indulgence to thinking and acting responsibly in consideration of oneself and others, but to submit unquestioningly to state authority, without weighing individual responsibility of the greater human cost; at first blush, a rather pious prescription from Alloy (a Warner Brothers subsidiary [8]), which previously created the narcissistic teen fiction line Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar (later a series on CW, also Warner's), yet largely in keeping with the Mars/Venus stereotypes embodied by the spat of recent playing field marriage proposals to be discussed later.

Military Bigamy and the Citizen Soldier

Following the outcome of the 2016 presidential election and the success the same year of American Sniper, the biopic about the late Chris Kyle, co-founder of the mercenary contractor Craft International, a new crop of network and cable TV military dramas came on the scene last year, including the History Channel's Six, NBC's The Brave, Seal Team from CBS (9), as well as National Geographic's mini-series, The Long Road Home (10).

In these programs, typical of the genre, there are customary threads of boredom trading with fear, frustration with military bureaucracy and corruption (a reliable narrative evasion from confronting the underlying legitimacy of global hegenomy), punctuated by an Odyssean longing for loved ones and the comforting familiarity of even the most prosaic conveniences and commonplaces of the stateside life civilians take for granted, while the protagonists risk their lives in thwarting regional opposition the world over.

All the more unsettling because it is directly based in fact, the eight-part National Geographic effort from ABC News journalist Martha Raddatz's account of a 2004 ambush near Sadr City, Iraq costing the lives of eight US soldiers (wounding 65), however, stakes a semi-totalitarian equivalence between the sanctity of family with military affiliations, almost giving voice to Johnson's "Coming Home" through a quiet, homey moment between a father and son, wherein Dad explains to his child that, in essence, his platoon mates constitute a second family, whom he has to go to Iraq to support.

While the profound bonds shared by soldiers in active duty are undeniable, it’s also hard to ignore the visceral warning of where such competing obligations could lead, as exemplified in Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare's first (and most brutal) tragedy set in an historical composite of pivotal events covering the Roman era (not to mention a personal favorite of former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, who executive produced a futuristic film version [11]). In its unflinching depiction of the titular Roman general, we see the folly of how his conditioned allegiance to his decadent emperor and a flagging empire override his loyalty to his family, in the end, costing the lives of almost all of his 25 conscripted sons and resulting in rape and mutilation for Lavinia, his one daughter.

Martialization Of Romance

For those still single, the recent fad of returning service men proposing in crowded sports arenas to cheerleader girlfriends readily serves. Here, the attempted merging of military devotion with civilian custom and relationships is more overt and aggressive, given the long-standing utility of professional and college sports as a means of nationalistic conditioning of the populace toward a simplistic, polar perception of multi-layered political and foreign policy issues.

 

In the case of airman Travis Ross and Houston Rockets Power Dancer Casey Potter, however, a two-dimensional idealization of gender identity is also being projected. Secretly returned from active duty in 2017, Ross snuck onto the basketball court as part of a prank pulled on his future wife during the half-time show, wearing camo coveralls and bearing an engagement ring while kneeling before Potter--

Venus and Mars symbols--stylized
pictograms of a woman's mirror
and a soldier's shield with spear

in a sense, defined by a uniform of her own (12), instilling in both the rest of the dancers and a packed stadium an inflexible, almost archetypally sexualized perception of what constitutes the ultimate American couple—the groom as stalwart Warrior, the bride as comely Maiden.

Now, an innocuously romantic comparison might be drawn with teenage couples christened King and Queen of their senior proms every year in high schools across the country (and one wonders if this is, indeed, one of the comparisons meant to be invoked), but considering we are talking about adults in this example, among others, these gushingly-covered episodes nevertheless come off as somewhat demeaning by comparison, not to mention potentially doubly coercive for the prospective (or "targeted") bride—it's one thing to receive a marriage proposal in a public space like a crowded elevator; who would dare spurn an active-duty GI's appeal, projected to hundreds via Jumbotron (Military1.com's coverage of Air Force Captain Eric Straub's own dramatic proposal to his cheerleader girlfriend during a 2014 Arizona Cardinals football game pointedly credits the officer, as a 2010 graduate of the Air Force Academy, for "apparently gain[ing] enough intelligence before the mission to ensure its success" [13])?

Conclusion

The catabolizing contradiction of extended wars of aggression has always stipulated one way or another that other nations and cultures must be subjugated in order to preserve „our way of life“--even as the vicious gouging of the very things that help define it (civil liberties, education, labor rights, health care and more)--are sacrificed to perpetuate terminal conflicts.

So, in response, a complex of useful substitutions for (or diversions from) social values and commonplaces, be it manipulative media, or public stunts that cheapen honest affection and purpose, emerge as cynical palliatives, for as long as the collapse drags out.

However long that may be, it behooves us to be alert, to critique and challenge changes to that which define our universal humanity--be it love, filialism, friendship, conviction); for such things, there is never too little time.

--Rolf Maurer


___

Sources:

1. https://www.longislandpress.com/2013/05/14/u-s-military-power-grab-goes-into-effect/

2. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/09/29/man-who-found-boston-marathon-bomber-has-died/gptc5fZNG7C8yLBWbJvr4N/story.html

3. https://www.inquisitr.com/631020/brookline-cop-delivers-milk-to-boston-family-during-manhunt-photo/

4. stamford-downtown.com/events/timeless-the-works-of-seward-johnson/#.W2ZEJvZFzmQ

5. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/air-force-mom-surprises-son-13-basketball-game-article-1.1583543#

https://q13fox.com/2013/02/08/returning-military-dad-surprises-daughter-in-class/

6. https://www.inspiremore.com/mascot-military-mom/

7. https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/2016/07/07/new-va-study-finds-20-veterans-commit-suicide-each-day/

8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloy_Entertainment

9. https://deadline.com/2017/05/the-brave-seal-team-valor-trend-patriotic-dramas-military-heroes-upfronts-1202093571/

10. https://www.npr.org/2017/11/02/561334010/sadr-city-attack-on-u-s-troops-retold-in-the-long-road-home

11. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/11/29/titus-in-space/

12. https://thejewelerblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/10/returning-airman-proposes-to-blindfolded-rockets-dancer-during-halftime-stunt/

13. https://www.military1.com/air-force/article/539167-airman-brings-cardinals-cheerleaders-to-tears-with-marriage-proposal/

Rediscovering Our Political Voice

New Haven-based sculptor/painter, performance artist and teacher David Livingston will offer himself as a fictitious candidate for office in a mock speech to be delivered at The Ferguson Library this Saturday afternoon, December 3, using as his template the familiar tropes of national pride, gender, race and class, bound together by the provocative, yet deliberately imprecise imagery and language so typical of the mainstream political scene.

What makes this appeal distinctive from the canned character of the “real” thing is that

David’s presentation will be shaped by dozens of questions submitted to him by library patrons prior to the event—in response to a disarmingly convincing campaign video displayed in the library lobby since November 3.

In the aftermath of one of the most polarizing presidential elections in national history, Livingston’s “Vote Your Conscience” provides an opportunity to expand the conversation,  in the words of Terri C. Smith of Franklin Street Works, for the “many people living in the U.S. (who) find themselves to be more introspective than ever about what it means to be an American.”  

untitled, 2010

David is co-sponsoring his performance with the downtown art space/café and the library; "Vote Your Conscience" is part of the Ferguson’s contribution to The Aspen Institute’s national project “What Every American Should Know”, funded through a Regional Initiative Grant awarded to the library by the Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County, in partnership with the Connecticut Office of the Arts. David is an adjunct professor at the University of New Haven and Gateway Community College; he received his MFA from Pratt and has exhibited nationally.

After the presentation, be sure to join him at a reception at Franklin Street Works, just a block down from the library.

Both the performance and reception are free and open to the public.

Performance:

Third Floor Auditorium

The Ferguson Library

1 Public Library Plaza

Stamford, CT 06901

3-4 pm

Artist Reception:

Franklin Street Works

41 Franklin Street

Stamford, CT 06901

4:15-5:30 pm

Contact:

Terri C Smith

Creative Director

Franklin Street Works

203-253-0404

What Progressivism Is and Is Not: A Response To Anonymous Mail-In Propaganda

I suppose it's flattering someone would go to so much trouble at the last minute to generate confusion about the Stein campaign and what the Green Party is about. Please view before voting...

Submitted yesterday to the Stamford Advocate Facebook page

I wish to draw the attention of Stamford voters to Jill Stein, the Green Party’s candidate for president of the United States and the only candidate refusing to accept corporate contributions. As a local Green candidate for this year’s Stamford Registrar of Voters, I can attest to the amazingly low public awareness of Jill Stein’s run and what she stands for as a substantial alternative to the offerings of the Democrat/Republican duopoly.

This is no surprise, as, though it is the media that we look to to inform of us of our options, it is also this same media complex which presumes to define for us what is to be expected of our current political system and what is possible. 

When did we, as voting adults, lose sight that this is supposed to be OUR job? 

Even a quick perusal of her site (www.jill2016.com) and numerous Youtube interviews demonstrate that Dr. Stein is a practical, solutions-, rather than fear-driven, candidate who supports her convictions consistently and at repeated cost to her personal safety and liberty, such as in defense of those losing their homes at a New York bank protest in 2012. Trump and Clinton have yet to do anything comparable.

Contrary to what we are told, the numbers are actually against the Democrats and Republicans. A recent Gallop poll shows more than half of all voters are hungry for more than the limited number of options that can constitute a choice (Stein’s multiple proposals to eliminate student debt, alone, could mobilize over 40 million college voters to decide the election). 

A culture of bitterness and learned helplessness stoked by the “major” parties’ offensive and frightening antics, while the global scene stands on the cusp of nuclear war can no longer be defended by the same complaints repeated every four years of “Anybody but (fill in the blank)!”, or “I can’t wait until the election is over!” 

Overcoming these issues depends on inspiring more voter participation at all levels, which is why I stand with Stein in advocacy of reforming the winner-take-all, binary approach to elections that only fosters anger, powerlessness and the apathy and misplaced blame the two-party system thrives upon. 

Ranked Choice Voting encourages more participation by more of the electorate left out of the process due to gender, ethnic or economic disenfranchisement by allowing voters to choose from several candidates of various political views at once, based on order of preference, rather than on a straight win/lose basis. Portland, Maine elected its mayor in 2011 on this basis; Cincinnati elected two African-American city council members in the 1950s using RCV and the state of Illinois had it for almost 100 years following the Civil War (in fact, Abraham Lincoln was a third-party candidate). It forces candidates to become more detailed and dignified in their platforms and eliminates the “spoiler” or “lesser evil” rationales for and against candidates.

From the end of slavery and child labor, to victories in workplace rights/safety and civil liberties and more, we didn’t get this far as a society by settling for just A or B; it’s time we drew on that pride and courage to reconnect with our pluralistic heritage.

Rolf Maurer
Green Party Candidate for Registrar of Voters. City of Stamford
Co-Chair, Fairfield County Chapter
Green Party of CT

Fullfrontalcontext.blogspot.com
Vote-rolf.org

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill's Channel 3 Song & Dance

Denise Merrill

The opening segment with Secretary of the State Denise Merrill on Channel 3's Meet the State program from a week ago, preceding discussion with Libertarian Party representative Larry Sharpe and Green Party of CT's Cora Santaguida (State Coordinator for the Jill Stein campaign; State Senate candidate in the 27th District), was as embarrassingly fawning as it was lacking in relevant detail: Merrill attempted to claim a "save" over the fact that a few years ago when Bridgeport polls didn't have enough ballot forms on hand, it was supposed to be to the system's credit that on-site copies were quickly printed so that people could cast their votes.

Such overblown claims of her department's flexibility during a 2014 "crisis" overlooks the fact that it is hard to see how the number of sheets needed for any municipality is hard to get wrong in advance, given that they would naturally use the same number used to send reminder notices to all registered voters in the area in the days prior to the CT governor's race. Yes, mistakes happen (although they happen too often in areas predominantly non-white). What she failed to mention was that the scanners did not accept the copies.

Of course, the fact that write-in votes were not counted in Stamford, Hartford, Bridgeport (again) and other cities in 2012 resulting in no legal consequences for those doing the tallying, even though such an oversight constitutes a felony, was also not discussed, among other important issues regarding the state's electoral process.