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Seems like if you're able to poke at the idea in as much detail as you're providing that you might be able to draft your own. Have any ideas on how to do it? T

by nxzero 11y ago

Seems like if you're able to poke at the idea in as much detail as you're providing that you might be able to draft your own. Have any ideas on how to do it? That said, appears like given your points that I agree a better use of the idea would be to insure an election and reduce costs too. Meaning run a real campaign, stay behind, but close enough to not draw attention, which I'm guessing would reduce costs more than enough to cover the added costs of hacking.

burkaman 11y ago
None of my points have anything to do with cost, I'm (realistically) assuming a campaign with huge amounts of cash. The problem, as with most conspiracy theories, is the number of people that need to cooperate and stay silent, and the number of independent safeguards that already exist. Spending more money actually hurts you, because it makes it harder to hide where that money is going, especially with all of the campaign finance regulations. I can't think of a low-risk way to literally hack an election in the US at the moment. You would need a long-term plan to change election laws, homogenize voting machines and methods across the country, and then hack some centralized database. There is no way to get around the polling issue in a country with an even semi-free press, so you still need a pretty strong candidate that you just boost a little. Anybody in the real world who needed to rig an election would use indirect methods. Spying, spreading misinformation, ignoring campaign finance laws, gerrymandering, etc. All things that have happened and will continue to happen.
- cjslep 11y ago
  > The problem, as with most conspiracy theories, is the number of people that need to cooperate and stay silent, and the number of independent safeguards that already exist. It didn't seem like a problem for Diebold. The 2000 general election had a lot of awfully-convenient-for-Republicans scandals with their voting machines in place.
  - twoodfin 11y ago
    This is conspiracy-theory talk, especially without any citations. And outside of squeaking by in Florida with an assist from SCOTUS, the 2000 general election was terrible for Republicans. They lost a few extremely close Senate races (ultimately resulting in a 50-50 tie) that any competent conspiracy could have pushed the other way.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - burkaman 11y ago
    Yes, I agree that there were many issues with the 2000 presidential election. That's part of my point. Diebold sold their voting machine division for a huge loss, at least partially because of the controversies of 2000 and the many studies showing how easily their machines could be hacked. Most of the country today uses paper ballots that are counted by machine. Still exploitable, but it would be much more difficult.

by nxzero 11y ago

burkaman 11y ago

None of my points have anything to do with cost, I'm (realistically) assuming a campaign with huge amounts of cash. The problem, as with most conspiracy theories, is the number of people that need to cooperate and stay silent, and the number of independent safeguards that already exist. Spending more money actually hurts you, because it makes it harder to hide where that money is going, especially with all of the campaign finance regulations. I can't think of a low-risk way to literally hack an election in the US at the moment. You would need a long-term plan to change election laws, homogenize voting machines and methods across the country, and then hack some centralized database. There is no way to get around the polling issue in a country with an even semi-free press, so you still need a pretty strong candidate that you just boost a little. Anybody in the real world who needed to rig an election would use indirect methods. Spying, spreading misinformation, ignoring campaign finance laws, gerrymandering, etc. All things that have happened and will continue to happen.

cjslep 11y ago
> The problem, as with most conspiracy theories, is the number of people that need to cooperate and stay silent, and the number of independent safeguards that already exist. It didn't seem like a problem for Diebold. The 2000 general election had a lot of awfully-convenient-for-Republicans scandals with their voting machines in place.
- twoodfin 11y ago
  This is conspiracy-theory talk, especially without any citations. And outside of squeaking by in Florida with an assist from SCOTUS, the 2000 general election was terrible for Republicans. They lost a few extremely close Senate races (ultimately resulting in a 50-50 tie) that any competent conspiracy could have pushed the other way.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- burkaman 11y ago
  Yes, I agree that there were many issues with the 2000 presidential election. That's part of my point. Diebold sold their voting machine division for a huge loss, at least partially because of the controversies of 2000 and the many studies showing how easily their machines could be hacked. Most of the country today uses paper ballots that are counted by machine. Still exploitable, but it would be much more difficult.