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I know I'm not the first to point out this risk, but why should we assume that the reported vote count represents the actual vote? Becasue there is no smoking g

I know I'm not the first to point out this risk, but why should we assume that the reported vote count represents the actual vote? Becasue there is no smoking gun yet? That's like assuming your critical network hasn't been hacked, and doing nothing to protect it, because you haven't seen evidence of an attack yet. Interestingly this exact same argument applies to fraudulent voting. We take no reasonable steps (e.g. requiring ID, same as for buying a beer or a gun) to prevent it, and have no way to detect it if it occurs, yet we assume it doesn't.

burkaman 11y ago
We do have ways to detect it, nobody just assumes. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/09/7-papers-4-government-inquiries-2-news-investigations-and-1-court-ruling-proving-voter-fraud-is-mostly-a-myth/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/09/7-pap... Much of the country does require ID: https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state And requiring ID is not a reasonable step unless you provide a free and easy way to get an ID.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  The first two links cited by the washington post suggest there is little evidence of fraud. That totally misses the point of hackuser's critique: why do we pretend it's not happening until there's a smoking gun?...That's like assuming your critical network hasn't been hacked, and doing nothing to protect it, because you haven't seen evidence of an attack yet. To refute this claim, you need to show that fraud would be easily detected if present. In stats terms, show P(evidence|fraud) is large. I suppose that requiring ID before purchasing a firearm, alcohol or opening a bank account is also unreasonable if said ID is not free and easy?
  - burkaman 11y ago
    Well, there are more than two links in the article. Many of them lay out methods that would detect fraud if it were happening. Nobody is "pretending", we have investigated and concluded that it is not happening. For example: http://apr.sagepub.com/content/42/2/311 http://apr.sagepub.com/content/42/2/311 "Although voter ID laws have become a hot topic of political debate, existing scholarship has failed to produce conclusive evidence concerning the existence or frequency of electoral fraud, especially the type of fraud that would be prevented by photo identification laws and signature verification protocols for voting by mail. We propose a new method of measuring election fraud, especially identity fraud, that is superior to previous measurement efforts because it measures actual instances of fraud rather than waiting for conclusive proof of fraud produced in a criminal prosecution. We test our method in multiple jurisdictions, including two known cases of electoral fraud, and we find no additional cases of fraud. We speculate that public access to voting and registration records play an important role in preventing this type of election fraud, suggesting that these practices are perhaps more important than voter ID laws in preventing election fraud." Requiring an ID for alcohol is not unreasonable because there is no constitutional right to be able to purchase it. I imagine there are some gun control opponents who argue that requiring an ID to buy a gun is unconstitutional, but there is ample evidence that not requiring an ID causes immense societal problems, and infringes on other people's constitutional rights. This is not true of voting, as you can see in that article.

burkaman 11y ago

We do have ways to detect it, nobody just assumes. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/09/7-papers-4-government-inquiries-2-news-investigations-and-1-court-ruling-proving-voter-fraud-is-mostly-a-myth/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/09/7-pap... Much of the country does require ID: https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state And requiring ID is not a reasonable step unless you provide a free and easy way to get an ID.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
The first two links cited by the washington post suggest there is little evidence of fraud. That totally misses the point of hackuser's critique: why do we pretend it's not happening until there's a smoking gun?...That's like assuming your critical network hasn't been hacked, and doing nothing to protect it, because you haven't seen evidence of an attack yet. To refute this claim, you need to show that fraud would be easily detected if present. In stats terms, show P(evidence|fraud) is large. I suppose that requiring ID before purchasing a firearm, alcohol or opening a bank account is also unreasonable if said ID is not free and easy?
- burkaman 11y ago
  Well, there are more than two links in the article. Many of them lay out methods that would detect fraud if it were happening. Nobody is "pretending", we have investigated and concluded that it is not happening. For example: http://apr.sagepub.com/content/42/2/311 http://apr.sagepub.com/content/42/2/311 "Although voter ID laws have become a hot topic of political debate, existing scholarship has failed to produce conclusive evidence concerning the existence or frequency of electoral fraud, especially the type of fraud that would be prevented by photo identification laws and signature verification protocols for voting by mail. We propose a new method of measuring election fraud, especially identity fraud, that is superior to previous measurement efforts because it measures actual instances of fraud rather than waiting for conclusive proof of fraud produced in a criminal prosecution. We test our method in multiple jurisdictions, including two known cases of electoral fraud, and we find no additional cases of fraud. We speculate that public access to voting and registration records play an important role in preventing this type of election fraud, suggesting that these practices are perhaps more important than voter ID laws in preventing election fraud." Requiring an ID for alcohol is not unreasonable because there is no constitutional right to be able to purchase it. I imagine there are some gun control opponents who argue that requiring an ID to buy a gun is unconstitutional, but there is ample evidence that not requiring an ID causes immense societal problems, and infringes on other people's constitutional rights. This is not true of voting, as you can see in that article.