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Paper ballots can be destroyed easily too: I remember this in San Francisco in 2001, http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Scavenged-ballot-box-lids-haunt-S-

Paper ballots can be destroyed easily too: I remember this in San Francisco in 2001, http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Scavenged-ballot-box-lids-haunt-S-F-elections-3302604.php#photo-2450496 http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Scavenged-ballot-box-...

peterwwillis 9y ago
That's one of the methods of fraud. Many counties have had "lost" ballots. Many voters have not received their absentee ballots. Florida was actually not even close to finishing counting its ballots when Obama claimed victory in 2012. California had the same problem in June 2016. With regard to machines, many machines have recorded thousands of extra votes. Some machines run out of memory, and end up losing thousands of votes (those machines did not have paper trails). There's been plenty of problems with these machines - ones that can be fixed. But the fact that every precinct decides independently what to do and how to do it, there is absolutely no way (in the US) to provide a uniform solution to the problems of paperless voting.
- bluejekyll 9y ago
  I am not advocating for paperless, what I want to see is a combination of the two. Paper for auditing, Digital for backups and replication with on-site initial counting which should be validated as the ballots make it back to main election offices. This would mean there is a digital record on receipt of the ballot and the ballot itself. This seemingly would reduce the potential for fraud in both systems.
  - pedrocr 9y ago
    Implement that system and an attacker will then proceed to destroy your democracy by hacking the digital part, making the counts not match and causing complete distrust in the voting system. Properly implemented paper elections have no significant fraud possibilities and convince whoever lost the election that he indeed lost. There is no problem to solve here and technology only makes things worse.
    - peterwwillis 9y ago
      > Properly implemented Again, 5,000 independent districts, and every single district manages itself independently. There is no way whatsoever to ensure proper implementation. > have no significant fraud possibilities We have a ton of provisions implemented to curtail significant attempts at fraud of paper ballots. And in paper ballot and absentee voting, there are large numbers of problems virtually every election cycle in various jurisdictions. > and convince whoever lost the election that he indeed lost This isn't even close to accurate. If there is a wide margin in a result, it isn't officially contested, even when we have evidence of corruption. When the margin is small, and a recount could possibly swing the vote, then the electee becomes unconvinced and demands a recount. (Or when the election result is simply too extreme, and the necessity of a recount is obvious)
      - pedrocr 9y ago
        >Again, 5,000 independent districts, and every single district manages itself independently. There is no way whatsoever to ensure proper implementation. Right, so the evidence that the US sucks at implementing paper elections should be used to advocate the implementation of an incredibly more complex system that somehow will implement itself? >We have a ton of provisions implemented to curtail significant attempts at fraud of paper ballots. And in paper ballot and absentee voting, there are large numbers of problems virtually every election cycle in various jurisdictions. Most of the world runs these kinds of elections regularly without issue and electronic means only makes this worse. You not only don't make the count any more accurate you also add complexity and enable a bunch of denial of service opportunities. >This isn't even close to accurate. If there is a wide margin in a result, it isn't officially contested, even when we have evidence of corruption. When the margin is small, and a recount could possibly swing the vote, then the electee becomes unconvinced and demands a recount. (Or when the election result is simply too extreme, and the necessity of a recount is obvious) All of that is true in the US yes, but again that's because the process is poor enough. Other places have extremely close elections that don't require this. You have such poor confidence in your election process you sometimes have legally mandated recounts on a low enough margin.
  - specialist 9y ago
    Tabulating ballots as they are received (at central count) is a terrible idea. The gold standard is precinct-based tabulation of paper ballots, counted the moment the polls close.
    - bluejekyll 9y ago
      That's exactly what I said, the tabulation at at central office would be to verify precinct counts. I'm not sure I see an issue with multiple counts, if they don't come out the same then the system should be reviewed for issues.
      - jeltz 9y ago
        Sweden does two manual counts, one at the precinct and one by central election authority. The second count is the real one, but if there are too large discrepancies they would be investigate.
pedrocr 9y ago
Using US elections as an example is generally flawed because they are usually very poorly run. Proper election procedure doesn't have that failure mode. You run a lot of small precints each with representatives of all parties. The ballot box doesn't leave their sight during the whole day. When the polls close the same people will open the box and count the votes together and since they are adversaries they won't allow any one of them to steal. This is a highly scalable method that's very cheap to run and that also has the extremely important property that whoever lost is also fully convinced he lost.
- peterwwillis 9y ago
  Using that procedure, two of the largest states in the US have failed to complete counting their votes in time for an election to be called for a particular candidate, several times over the past four years. Saying we should ignore US elections as an example is totally ridiculous.
  - pedrocr 9y ago
    >"You run a lot of small precints" The US fails to do this and then has a problem counting fast enough. We should ignore the fact that the US is incapable of running proper elections since we have plenty of examples across the world of well run elections. >failed to complete counting their votes in time for an election to be called for a particular candidate This is another example of not running a proper election. If you haven't counted the vote the election is not over. There is no such thing as "not calling in time". In time for what? The news cycle?
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Using that procedure, two of the largest states in the US have failed to complete counting their votes in time for an election to be called for a particular candidate, several times over the past four years I'm not even sure what “failed to complete counting their votes in time for an election to be called for a particular candidate”; are election results perishable such that of a count takes too long it no longer counts? Specific examples of the phenomenon you are discussing would perhaps be useful.
specialist 9y ago
FFS. We know. And then the ballots are missing. Which is more preferrable than silent or undetectable failure modes. Isn't there a logical fallacy named for nitpicking (concern trolling) while ignoring the whole picture?
- bluejekyll 9y ago
  This was not trolling. This was a failure mode missed in the GP. I believe we need multiple modes of storing counts and ballots, such that one single system can't be overcome. My comment was merely in support of that.
  - specialist 9y ago
    Ok. We cool. I apologize for overreacting.

peterwwillis 9y ago

That's one of the methods of fraud. Many counties have had "lost" ballots. Many voters have not received their absentee ballots. Florida was actually not even close to finishing counting its ballots when Obama claimed victory in 2012. California had the same problem in June 2016. With regard to machines, many machines have recorded thousands of extra votes. Some machines run out of memory, and end up losing thousands of votes (those machines did not have paper trails). There's been plenty of problems with these machines - ones that can be fixed. But the fact that every precinct decides independently what to do and how to do it, there is absolutely no way (in the US) to provide a uniform solution to the problems of paperless voting.

bluejekyll 9y ago
I am not advocating for paperless, what I want to see is a combination of the two. Paper for auditing, Digital for backups and replication with on-site initial counting which should be validated as the ballots make it back to main election offices. This would mean there is a digital record on receipt of the ballot and the ballot itself. This seemingly would reduce the potential for fraud in both systems.
- pedrocr 9y ago
  Implement that system and an attacker will then proceed to destroy your democracy by hacking the digital part, making the counts not match and causing complete distrust in the voting system. Properly implemented paper elections have no significant fraud possibilities and convince whoever lost the election that he indeed lost. There is no problem to solve here and technology only makes things worse.
  - peterwwillis 9y ago
    > Properly implemented Again, 5,000 independent districts, and every single district manages itself independently. There is no way whatsoever to ensure proper implementation. > have no significant fraud possibilities We have a ton of provisions implemented to curtail significant attempts at fraud of paper ballots. And in paper ballot and absentee voting, there are large numbers of problems virtually every election cycle in various jurisdictions. > and convince whoever lost the election that he indeed lost This isn't even close to accurate. If there is a wide margin in a result, it isn't officially contested, even when we have evidence of corruption. When the margin is small, and a recount could possibly swing the vote, then the electee becomes unconvinced and demands a recount. (Or when the election result is simply too extreme, and the necessity of a recount is obvious)
    - pedrocr 9y ago
      >Again, 5,000 independent districts, and every single district manages itself independently. There is no way whatsoever to ensure proper implementation. Right, so the evidence that the US sucks at implementing paper elections should be used to advocate the implementation of an incredibly more complex system that somehow will implement itself? >We have a ton of provisions implemented to curtail significant attempts at fraud of paper ballots. And in paper ballot and absentee voting, there are large numbers of problems virtually every election cycle in various jurisdictions. Most of the world runs these kinds of elections regularly without issue and electronic means only makes this worse. You not only don't make the count any more accurate you also add complexity and enable a bunch of denial of service opportunities. >This isn't even close to accurate. If there is a wide margin in a result, it isn't officially contested, even when we have evidence of corruption. When the margin is small, and a recount could possibly swing the vote, then the electee becomes unconvinced and demands a recount. (Or when the election result is simply too extreme, and the necessity of a recount is obvious) All of that is true in the US yes, but again that's because the process is poor enough. Other places have extremely close elections that don't require this. You have such poor confidence in your election process you sometimes have legally mandated recounts on a low enough margin.
- specialist 9y ago
  Tabulating ballots as they are received (at central count) is a terrible idea. The gold standard is precinct-based tabulation of paper ballots, counted the moment the polls close.
  - bluejekyll 9y ago
    That's exactly what I said, the tabulation at at central office would be to verify precinct counts. I'm not sure I see an issue with multiple counts, if they don't come out the same then the system should be reviewed for issues.
    - jeltz 9y ago
      Sweden does two manual counts, one at the precinct and one by central election authority. The second count is the real one, but if there are too large discrepancies they would be investigate.

pedrocr 9y ago

Using US elections as an example is generally flawed because they are usually very poorly run. Proper election procedure doesn't have that failure mode. You run a lot of small precints each with representatives of all parties. The ballot box doesn't leave their sight during the whole day. When the polls close the same people will open the box and count the votes together and since they are adversaries they won't allow any one of them to steal. This is a highly scalable method that's very cheap to run and that also has the extremely important property that whoever lost is also fully convinced he lost.

peterwwillis 9y ago
Using that procedure, two of the largest states in the US have failed to complete counting their votes in time for an election to be called for a particular candidate, several times over the past four years. Saying we should ignore US elections as an example is totally ridiculous.
- pedrocr 9y ago
  >"You run a lot of small precints" The US fails to do this and then has a problem counting fast enough. We should ignore the fact that the US is incapable of running proper elections since we have plenty of examples across the world of well run elections. >failed to complete counting their votes in time for an election to be called for a particular candidate This is another example of not running a proper election. If you haven't counted the vote the election is not over. There is no such thing as "not calling in time". In time for what? The news cycle?
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Using that procedure, two of the largest states in the US have failed to complete counting their votes in time for an election to be called for a particular candidate, several times over the past four years I'm not even sure what “failed to complete counting their votes in time for an election to be called for a particular candidate”; are election results perishable such that of a count takes too long it no longer counts? Specific examples of the phenomenon you are discussing would perhaps be useful.

specialist 9y ago

FFS. We know. And then the ballots are missing. Which is more preferrable than silent or undetectable failure modes. Isn't there a logical fallacy named for nitpicking (concern trolling) while ignoring the whole picture?

bluejekyll 9y ago
This was not trolling. This was a failure mode missed in the GP. I believe we need multiple modes of storing counts and ballots, such that one single system can't be overcome. My comment was merely in support of that.
- specialist 9y ago
  Ok. We cool. I apologize for overreacting.