At some point you have to trust some sort of authority that provides you with those records, along with the required context.

Why is that? Why can't you keep an open mind, traverse multiple sources and draw your own conclusions? Think of it as a diversified portfolio. I'm not asking for more time, just that it we spread out.

Without that, we get the barely binary system that we have. The MSM can be lazy and non-journalistic because no one bothers to notice. No one cares.

unfortunately an average of two opposing lies is not always the truth

True, but some evidence is harder to fake than others, especially when there are multiple independent items that corroborate some fact or another.

Granted, there are definitely things that aren't amenable to this, but it's not exactly hopeless, either.

No it's not hopeless, but when done right it becomes indistinguishable from true investigative and research work; wouldn't be nice if you could share the results of that extensive effort put into uncovering the truth so that others could benefit? Oh, wait...

Are you insinuating that voting records are faked? Because raw data of voting is what I'm referring to.