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I'm finding the response people are having to this mail in voting thing to be...puzzling. It's not a ridiculous thing to wonder about how susceptible mail in v
by blhack 6y ago
I'm finding the response people are having to this mail in voting thing to be...puzzling.
It's not a ridiculous thing to wonder about how susceptible mail in voting is to fraud, and it seems like some of us are putting blinders on simply due to our distaste for the current president.
If we were to hold a hackathon with a $100,000 prize for the most plausible path to exploit mail in voting in order to swing an election, are people implying that there would be no entries? Or maybe no viable entries? That's ridiculous.
Here's some spitballing: (eh, I removed this. I don't think brainstorming how to committ election fraud is a good idea. I'm assuming that readers of hacker news can probably figure out some relatively obvious ways of casting doubt into the outcome of a mail in election)
How are people looking at what recently happened with 100s of millions of dollars of fraud being committed against various US unemployment systems, and not thinking that other systems might be at risk as well?
Remember the Iowa caucus? That was a hastily put together vote reporting system, not even meant for tallying, and look at what a disaster it was. Now we're expecting that states will radically alter their voting system, in 5 months, and that it won't be vulnerable to interference?
To be clear: I LIKE mail in voting. I have permanent mail in voting status in my state (Arizona), and my wife and I usually get breakfast at our favorite restaurant and spend HOURS meticulously researching every candidate and BI on the form. Being able to take that amount of time is fantastic, and a luxury I wish everybody could have.
But it doesn't have to be so polar. I like mail in voting, obviously, but I'm not so stupid as to think that it cannot possibly be criticized. I am a hacker after all.
Boo to twitter for this. This is twitter obviously putting their finger on the scale of an election, and after all of the drama surrounding the idea that foreign actors might have purchased a few 10s of thousands of dollars of facebook ads, I'd hope that Americans would have a distrust a company where foreign entities have a major stake doing such a thing. Not acceptable in my opinion.
Just to highlight my point a little further: here is an article from the nytimes highlighting that mail in voting is far more vulnerable to fraud than in person voting: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-by-mail-faulty-ballots-could-impact-elections.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-...
Here’s a quote from the article:
>Yet votes cast by mail are less likely to be counted, more likely to be compromised and more likely to be contested than those cast in a voting booth, statistics show.
and another:
> Election experts say the challenges created by mailed ballots could well affect outcomes this fall and beyond.
And another:
> The trend will probably result in more uncounted votes, and it increases the potential for fraud. While fraud in voting by mail is far less common than innocent errors, it is vastly more prevalent than the in-person voting
So who is to be believed here? Twitter? The New York Times? Why aren’t the experts from this article being listened to?
- draw_down 6y agoI think that only makes sense in terms of the delta between it, and the shitshow that is our current electoral system. In other words, we probably just don't want to admit how bad things are already.
- wwright 6y agoTrump isn’t really “criticizing” mail-in voting in a responsible and measured way here though, is he? He’s claiming that it is a scam by his enemies that will definitely result in massive voting fraud. Is there any evidence for him to make those claims at all? Is there any other way he could have responded, even if he did genuinely care about empowering citizens to vote?
- adrianmonk 6y agoYou got downvoted, but I'm not sure why since Trump literally made that accusation two days ago: "The Democrats are trying to Rig the 2020 Election, plain and simple!" https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1264717545787006976 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12647175457870069...
- CapricornNoble 6y ago>>He’s claiming that it is a scam by his enemies that will definitely result in massive voting fraud. Is there any evidence for him to make those claims at all? I think the rationale is that the existing incidence of local ballot fraud points at a widespread, under-reported problem that doesn't inspire confidence in the process. Voting by mail is pretty normal to me, being in the military and outside of my home state for most of my adult life, but it's about as secure as WEP encryption for your Wi-Fi. https://www.inquirer.com/news/voter-fraud-philadelphia-ward-leader-judge-of-elections-domenick-demuro-guilty-plea-20200521.html https://www.inquirer.com/news/voter-fraud-philadelphia-ward-... https://www.dailybreeze.com/2016/11/03/how-more-than-80-election-ballots-mysteriously-landed-at-one-address-in-san-pedro/ https://www.dailybreeze.com/2016/11/03/how-more-than-80-elec... https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/commentary/database-swells-1285-proven-cases-voter-fraud-america https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/commentary/datab...