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Maybe this was a reasonable stance if you were a hardliner skeptic. But it's March 2018. 5 of Trump's senior campaign staff are indicted. Multiple Russian acto

Maybe this was a reasonable stance if you were a hardliner skeptic. But it's March 2018. 5 of Trump's senior campaign staff are indicted. Multiple Russian actors are indicted. The Russian government doesn't even deny it, Putin literally blamed Jewish people. CA's c staff was just on video talking about using human trafficking to compromise politicians and their CEO just disclosed that some state governments were cooperating with the Trump campaign. All this is astride the long understood fact that American election security is so bad that there aren't reliable records to disprove a machine that's been tampered with. What's more, the we've also seen corroborated evidence that the machines election officials in some swing States we're compromised by sophisticated actors. These machines aren't just where emails happen, they're the machines where the software that configures the voting machines runs (for some models). None of what I've said is even an uncharitable reading of the facts. The final statement might be surprising but it's well supported in security literature. But sure, you be skeptical as a well-measured and coldly logical citizen.

jessaustin 9y ago
All this is astride the long understood fact that American election security is so bad that there aren't reliable records to disprove a machine that's been tampered with. In this context, is it curious that no one has signed on to co-sponsor the following bill? https://congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/5147/text https://congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/5147/tex...
- KirinDave 9y ago
  People could kick up a big stink about it, but the reason it won't go anywhere is that Ryan can hold it in committee in perpetutity. , isn't it? The voting machine observations aren't new. They're old, some dating back to Bush-era elections. I think technological illiteracy and States refusing to replace costly machines represent the bulk of the opposition.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    I thought they were trying to win back the House? One couldn't imagine a more evocative campaign issue, for independents suspicious of both parties like me. "We care about democracy and Paul Ryan doesn't! Tell Paul Ryan to restore trust to democracy!" OK, tell me that and I'll vote Democrat. Crickets.
    - KirinDave 9y ago
      You probably won't, but I'm not going to engage an obvious troll any further.
      - jessaustin 9y ago
        Is it the fact that I like Gabbard, or the fact that I voted for Bernie, which earns me such a commendation from such a valiant defender of the status quo (war) machine?
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > I thought they were trying to win back the House? One couldn't imagine a more evocative campaign issue, for independents suspicious of both parties like me. "We care about democracy and Paul Ryan doesn't! Tell Paul Ryan to restore trust to democracy!" And that’s the electoral (as opposed to policy) side of why 84 of them are cosponsoring a much broader election security bill than Gabbard’s HR 5147 (and, to be clear, one that was introduced before Gabbard’s “me too” bill.)
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > In this context, is it curious that no one has signed on to co-sponsor the following bill? No one has signed on to HR 5147 because everyone (84 members, all Democrats) who cares enough about election security to cosponsor a bill on it has instead signed on to cosponsor HR 5011 [0], which is a much broader election security bill; to the extent the specific requirements in HR 5147 are desirable and not address by HR 5011, they probably make more sense as an amendment to HR 5011. [0] https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/5011/cosponsors https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/5011...
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    Terms that don't appear in everyone's favorite bill: "voter-verified", "open-source" (not sure why Gabbard has that hyphen), "preservation". On the other hand, it does begin with "It is the sense of Congress that, in light of the lessons learned from Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election..." so it ought to play well with the military-intelligence-enforcement-industrial-media complex. If Gabbard somehow got all those important things amended into this most favored bill, it would lose all its co-sponsors. Democrats and Republicans are like Coke and Pepsi. If we had actual democracy we might end up with something palatable.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > Terms that don't appear in everyone's favorite bill: "voter-verified", "open-source" (not sure why Gabbard has that hyphen), "preservation". HR 5011, rather than trying to cobble together a bandaid over hackable electronic voting systems, has its central mitigation the voting system problem (it addresses more election infrastructure than just ballot-casting) incentives and grants to get rid of electronic voting altogether in favor of the proven system of voter-marked paper ballots. Voter-marked ballots that are the thing that is counted in the normal case is much better than voter-verified receipts that are selectively or conditionally used to audit counts, and open source is irrelevant when there is no software, and the idea that open source is somehow equivalent to secure has been refuted time and again. Now, sure, it arguably [0] wouldn't be bad to add something like HR 5147s requirements for hold-outs that aren't going to abandon electronic voting into HR 5011, and that would be a very good debate to have when HR 5011 (or, more realistically, the similar bill introduced in the next Congress) is heard in committee. [0] Arguably not, though, because that could encourage people to see electronic voting as safer than it is; maybe better would be to amend in a hard deadline requirement for abandoning electronic voting in favor of voter-marked paper ballots, a stick to go along with the grant-money carrot.

jessaustin 9y ago

All this is astride the long understood fact that American election security is so bad that there aren't reliable records to disprove a machine that's been tampered with. In this context, is it curious that no one has signed on to co-sponsor the following bill? https://congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/5147/text https://congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/5147/tex...

KirinDave 9y ago
People could kick up a big stink about it, but the reason it won't go anywhere is that Ryan can hold it in committee in perpetutity. , isn't it? The voting machine observations aren't new. They're old, some dating back to Bush-era elections. I think technological illiteracy and States refusing to replace costly machines represent the bulk of the opposition.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  I thought they were trying to win back the House? One couldn't imagine a more evocative campaign issue, for independents suspicious of both parties like me. "We care about democracy and Paul Ryan doesn't! Tell Paul Ryan to restore trust to democracy!" OK, tell me that and I'll vote Democrat. Crickets.
  - KirinDave 9y ago
    You probably won't, but I'm not going to engage an obvious troll any further.
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      Is it the fact that I like Gabbard, or the fact that I voted for Bernie, which earns me such a commendation from such a valiant defender of the status quo (war) machine?
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > I thought they were trying to win back the House? One couldn't imagine a more evocative campaign issue, for independents suspicious of both parties like me. "We care about democracy and Paul Ryan doesn't! Tell Paul Ryan to restore trust to democracy!" And that’s the electoral (as opposed to policy) side of why 84 of them are cosponsoring a much broader election security bill than Gabbard’s HR 5147 (and, to be clear, one that was introduced before Gabbard’s “me too” bill.)
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
dragonwriter 9y ago
> In this context, is it curious that no one has signed on to co-sponsor the following bill? No one has signed on to HR 5147 because everyone (84 members, all Democrats) who cares enough about election security to cosponsor a bill on it has instead signed on to cosponsor HR 5011 [0], which is a much broader election security bill; to the extent the specific requirements in HR 5147 are desirable and not address by HR 5011, they probably make more sense as an amendment to HR 5011. [0] https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/5011/cosponsors https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/5011...
- jessaustin 9y ago
  Terms that don't appear in everyone's favorite bill: "voter-verified", "open-source" (not sure why Gabbard has that hyphen), "preservation". On the other hand, it does begin with "It is the sense of Congress that, in light of the lessons learned from Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election..." so it ought to play well with the military-intelligence-enforcement-industrial-media complex. If Gabbard somehow got all those important things amended into this most favored bill, it would lose all its co-sponsors. Democrats and Republicans are like Coke and Pepsi. If we had actual democracy we might end up with something palatable.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Terms that don't appear in everyone's favorite bill: "voter-verified", "open-source" (not sure why Gabbard has that hyphen), "preservation". HR 5011, rather than trying to cobble together a bandaid over hackable electronic voting systems, has its central mitigation the voting system problem (it addresses more election infrastructure than just ballot-casting) incentives and grants to get rid of electronic voting altogether in favor of the proven system of voter-marked paper ballots. Voter-marked ballots that are the thing that is counted in the normal case is much better than voter-verified receipts that are selectively or conditionally used to audit counts, and open source is irrelevant when there is no software, and the idea that open source is somehow equivalent to secure has been refuted time and again. Now, sure, it arguably [0] wouldn't be bad to add something like HR 5147s requirements for hold-outs that aren't going to abandon electronic voting into HR 5011, and that would be a very good debate to have when HR 5011 (or, more realistically, the similar bill introduced in the next Congress) is heard in committee. [0] Arguably not, though, because that could encourage people to see electronic voting as safer than it is; maybe better would be to amend in a hard deadline requirement for abandoning electronic voting in favor of voter-marked paper ballots, a stick to go along with the grant-money carrot.