Tech association ITI is urging that all votes be counted in the hotly contested 2020 election.

"Tuesday’s election continues a two-century-old tradition of the United States’ democratic process allowing Americans to choose their leaders," said ITI President Jason Oxman.

President Trump's campaign has tried to stop vote-counting in some states while Biden has urged patience and for all votes to be counted.

"The historic voter turnout reflects the widespread civic engagement efforts that took place across the country, encouraging millions of Americans to exercise their right to vote," he said. "As the votes are counted, we continue to urge all Americans to support America’s long-standing and important tradition of peaceful and fair elections."

ITI said it was ready to work with whichever Administration emerges on tech issues, but it has been critical of President Trump over the President's pushback on some diversity training, its restrictions on immigration, his executive order on regulating social media, and tarriffs.

Tech companies are not happy with President Donald Trump's executive order (EO) prohibiting government contractors, which obviously include many tech companies, from providing diversity training that "suggests America has a racial inequality problem."

In a blog post, Jason Oxman, president of ITI (the Information Technology Industry Council) said the tech industry ITI represents was "deeply concerned" with the order and the message it sends about systemic racism. 

"Fostering inclusion for individuals from historically marginalized communities is one of the core values of ITI and the greater tech industry," Oxman said. "We know our industry has a long way to go in terms of addressing the harms of systemic racism. However, at a time when Americans are seeking racial justice more than ever, this EO instead attacks our broadly shared values and risks undoing real progress toward building racial equity in the tech industry and America writ large."

He also said the order was an "unprecedented overreach" of the government into the values of privacy businesses. "ITI sees this EO as an affront to our industry’s core values, an attack on free enterprise and, most importantly, an unacceptable step backward for racial equity," he said. 

In an executive order issued Sept. 22, the President called it a "pernicious and false belief" that the country is "an irredeemably racist and sexist country," and that "some people, simply on account of their race or sex, are oppressors." The order requires clauses in government contracts preventing diversity training that includes that belief.

The President called that concept of systemic oppression a destructive ideology and a misrepresentation of history rooted in the "discredited notions of the nineteenth century's apologists for slavery..."

The executive order said that ideology is "migrating from the fringes of American society and threatens to infect core institutions of our country." He cited a Department of Treasury seminar that he said promoted the argument that "virtually all White people, regardless of how 'woke' they are, contribute to racism," and that instructed small group leaders to encourage employees to avoid 'narratives' that Americans should 'be more color-blind' or 'let people's skills and personalities be what differentiates them.'"

It also references a Smithsonian Institution museum graphic that claimed "objective, rational linear thinking, 'hard work' being 'the key to success,' the 'nuclear family,' and belief in a single god are not values that unite Americans of all races but are instead 'aspects and assumptions of whiteness.'"

The executive order signaled the President saw that as coercion toward viewpoint uniformity and must itself be rooted out. As a result, the order said, no government dollars can go to contractors whose "workplace training" includes that "the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist" and "an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously" and "an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex; (8) any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex; or (9) meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race."

It also said the Armed Forces shall not teach these concepts or punish any member of those forces that rejects such concepts.

Tech companies are telling their representatives that voting for the compromise U.S.-Mexico-Canada [trade] Agreement (USMCA) is a "key vote."  

That came in a letter from the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), with copies to all House members. 

Related: Sec. 230 Language Remains in USMCA 

The association scores items that are must yes votes in terms of the interests of its tech constituency. 

ITI cites "first-of-its-kind, cutting-edge digital trade provisions." Those include promoting cross-border data flows, allowing data storage "where it makes most sense," preventing tariffs and tech taxes, protecting source code and algorithms by disallowing divulging those as a condition of doing business, and creating consistent testing and certification of tech goods. 

"[W]e urge you and your colleagues to support the implementing legislation for the agreement when it comes to the House floor," wrote ITT President Jason Oxman. "American companies of all sizes and across all industries leverage technology, and can expect to benefit from the USMCA’s digital trade and other tech-focused provisions." 

ITI members include Amazon, Apple, eBay, Google, Twitter and Microsoft. 

Jason Oxman, president of the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), took to the electronic pages of Fox to argue that D.C.'s current hits on Big Tech are misplaced, out of step with the rest of the country, and somewhat disingenuous given the platform they use to criticize his industry. 

Related: House Seeks Big Tech Document Drop 

That came in an op ed on the Fox Business web site. 

"[C]ertain elected leaders have launched misguided attacks on tech companies, even arguing that the industry is no longer innovating at the speed it once was," he said. "In a twist of irony, these same anti-tech crusaders share and amplify their opinions through social media postings that communicate with millions with the touch of a button. Decrying technology in one breath and posturing for likes and retweets in another." 

And in a nod to Fox's Middle America base, Oxman wrote: "Meanwhile, outside the Beltway cognoscenti, Americans continue to love and benefit from technology." 

Oxman said he welcomes "leaders" holding "important conversations" about "the good technology can bring," but says that "Suggesting that technology is not innovating as quickly as it once was is not fair to the millions of men and women that are innovating and disrupting industries every day." 

Among those who have suggested Big Tech may be depressing rather than spurring innovation were some members of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee. That came at a Sept. 24 hearing on whether the government has allowed the largest companies--Facebook, Google, Amazon--to become serial innovation killers by buying up tech start-up competitors before those competitors are large enough to raise red flags with regulators.  

Justice Department antitrust chief Makan Delrahim has pointed out that it is not size that is a problem, but size used anticompetitively, which is what the government is trying to figure out after treating the edge for years as plucky start-ups at the mercy of large ISPs.

The Trump Justice Department is looking into the same issue of "whether and how market-leading online platforms have achieved market power and are engaging in practices that have reduced competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise harmed consumers," the department said in confirming the investigation back in July. The Federal Trade Commission is also eyeing Big Tech.