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Voting in person the old fashioned way for all but those with a good physical excuse seems to be the best way to maintain the integrity of our voting process. Y

Voting in person the old fashioned way for all but those with a good physical excuse seems to be the best way to maintain the integrity of our voting process. Yes, in-person voting has the potential for fraud, but mail-in voting has all of the same problems and more. It's hard to find a mechanism for fraud that applies to in-person but not mail in. Furthermore, the issues with COVID seem overblown. I've waited in line to vote, but the lines were never longer than the lines at my local supermarket on Saturday morning. If we can shop for food in person, we can vote. If you want to understand the fears over mail-in voting, just imagine what you could do if you control the mail sorting for a large apartment building or nursing home. It is just much harder to cheat when you require a physical body to be present at the polls. Not impossible but harder.

srj 6y ago
I voted by mail in Seattle for years and never had an issue or even heard of one. The ballot goes in a tamper-evident envelope, sealed within the mailing envelope. You also get online tracking to know your ballot was received and processed.
- specialist 6y ago
  You're welcome. Me and my peeps did the yeoman work to both protect the secret ballot and ensure end-to-end auditability. If every jurisdiction nationwide adopted the rules, procedures, and operations used by King County Elections, we'd be in good shape. But they won't.
  - spenczar5 6y ago
    Why not? I am curious to know more - is it expensive or difficult to implement? Couldn’t other jurisdictions copy King County’s system?
    - specialist 6y ago
      Election administration is chronically underfunded. A lot of people have some very funny ideas about how to conduct elections. For examples: Should ballots be required to be received or postmarked by Election Day to be accepted? (Correct answer is postmarked.) If a voter makes a mistake, how does it get corrected? Some jurisdictions just toss any ballot with any mistake. What are the standards for signature verification? What happens if the admins identify a mismatch? Sadly, the minutia goes on and on.
- xhkkffbf 6y ago
  Please pay better attention and read the news occasionally: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seven-charged-in-vote-fraud-scheme/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seven-charged-in-v... And here's a story from a postal worker committing voting fraud. It was published in the Seattle Times even though it occurred in WV. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/west-virginia-mail-carrier-admits-attempted-election-fraud/ https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/west-virgin... This took me 10 seconds to find. Tamper resistant envelopes don't stop fraud. They just stop tampering. The real problem is people making up 1000s of fake names (or borrowing real ones) and then filling out the ballots for their favorite candidate. Then they dutifully seal them in a tamper-resistant envelope which preserves the vote for their favorite candidate. Open your eyes and your ears.
kevingadd 6y ago
Voting and going to the grocery store are pretty different in multiple ways. For one thing, we give people exactly one day for in-person voting, and they don't get the day off from work - so they probably have a total of maybe 5 non-work hours available to them during which polling places are open, they go to one, stand in line with thousands of other people, then walk into a crowded place, interact up close with polling staff, and then interact up close with polling equipment. The polling equipment is not frequently sterilized (if at all), the polling staff might not have protective gear, and the polling places are cramped and poorly ventilated. It doesn't matter how many people need to vote there - 100k? 1k? same difference - you've all got to do it today, and in these specific hours. Sounds really safe! In comparison, you can go to the grocery store whenever is best for you (as long as they're open - and many are open 24 hours any day of the week), there are lots of locations to choose from, and if you go during off-peak hours the aisles are relatively empty and you have enough space to social distance from the other people in the store. At this point, the staff typically have masks+gloves and there's often hand sanitizer and cough shields. Some grocery stores explicitly limit the # of people inside at any given time.
- dylan604 6y ago
  Is early voting an option every where? I know there's been a push in my local area informing people that it is an option to avoid the rush on election day.
  - kevingadd 6y ago
    Early voting is an option in many places, but it's typically very limited. In some states it has been curtailed as a vote suppression measure specifically because so many people use it.
- xhkkffbf 6y ago
  I think you're comparing the voting procedures of the past with the grocery aisles of today. If we sterilize the stores, we can do the same with the voting equipment. In my town, they've moved to paper ballots for audibility. This is also great for mitigating disease transmission because each person only touches their own paper ballot. There's no reason why each polling place can be brought to the same level of danger as a local grocery. It won't be hard.
graeme 6y ago
This would be more credible if US in person voting didn’t often involve electronic voting machines with closed source software, no paper trail, and proven exploits. That’s what mail in voting compares to.
- minerjoe 6y ago
  I voted in the first election in the US to ever use the Dibold [1] [2] machines, in Atlanta Georgia. It was obvious to anyone with a single honest neuron that there was no way to trust these machines. I've never voted since. There is no point in pretending like the system has credibility or accountability. [1] https://columbusfreepress.com/article/diebold-indicted-its-spectre-still-haunts-ohio-elections https://columbusfreepress.com/article/diebold-indicted-its-s... [2] https://whowhatwhy.org/2020/05/27/touchscreen-voting-makes-everything-easy-including-hacking/ https://whowhatwhy.org/2020/05/27/touchscreen-voting-makes-e... Edit: Toned it down a bit. How many downvoting cowards do we have out there? Respond or GTFO.
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    I didn't downvote you, but I suspect that some people reacted negatively to your strategy of "don't vote, then the people with power will feel so embarrassed at the lack of credibility of the system that they will work to regain people's trust". Also, if the comment above is your "toned down" wording, I'm glad I didn't read the original version, or I probably would have downvoted you.
    - minerjoe 6y ago
      Who are you quoting there? Putting a few too many words in my mouth. To many of us, the system has lost all cedibility, and voting is signalling just the opposite of that. Nothing about embarrassing anyone. No way to regain people trust at this point. We're too far gone.
      - dane-pgp 6y ago
        Sorry, that wasn't intended to be a quote, I was trying to understand what you thought refusing to vote would achieve. Are you hoping that your non-participation in voting is "signalling" the lack of credibility in the system, and that public awareness of this will contribute to some eventual improved outcome for society, or are you just trying to avoid misleading(?) people into believing the supposed false notion that voting can lead to positive changes in government policy?
specialist 6y ago
It'd be more helpful if you provided specifics. Also, conflating postal balloting and COVID-19 is inappropriate. In principle, you should advocate for the Australian Ballot, which is private voting and public counting. The election integrity gold standard is casting ballots at poll sites which are tabulated onsite the moment the polls close and the results shared immediately. Some of the larger identified risks of postal balloting, generally, are mass disenfranchisement, losing the secret ballot, ballots and votes lost to the process, making auditing much harder, and pre-tabulating votes (as ballots are received). Specific precautions and safe guards are required to mitigate these risks. Even well intentioned election administrators often don't have the resources, skills, and experience to conduct large postal balloting (aka vote-by-mail). Despite all the known risks, the benefit of enfranchising people who'd other wise not be able to vote is reason enough to support vote-by-mail. In conclusion, at this time, the correct policy position at this time is to dramatically increase funding for election administration and deploy 1,000s of election observers.
- Simulacra 6y ago
  Mail in voting could potentially expose a person’s vote. I don’t think we can trust the postal service to play fair, nor their carriers.
- xhkkffbf 6y ago
  I can't go into a long list of ways to attack the various systems. But if you go above, I link to two different stories. Mail in voting is just much easier to hack.
  - specialist 6y ago
    Those two links do not imply what you think they imply. Those are problems with registrations, not ballots. If you truly consider problems with the VRDBs a high priority, then advocate for nationwide automatic universal voter registration, like every other mature democracy has done, thereby eliminating the problem. Further, I really do think you should compile an exhaustive list of all the problems and attack vectors you've found. Start by comparing and contrasting the procedures from misc jurisdictions. Observe some elections. Attend all the canvassing board meetings for an entire election cycle. Interview election administrators. Etc. What you learn may surprise you.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> I've waited in line to vote, but the lines were never longer than the lines at my local supermarket on Saturday morning As is disproportionately the case on HN, you are probably a relatively privileged individual, living in a relatively privileged community. Even if not, you should be aware that generalizing from your personal experience is not reliable.
- xhkkffbf 6y ago
  Oh please. People across the country are going to the stores 2-3 times a week. They're waiting in lines at banks and coffee shops. If they can wait there, they can wait to vote every 2-4 years.
pwg 6y ago
> I've waited in line to vote, but the lines were never longer than the lines at my local supermarket on Saturday morning. You've been very lucky then. For Obama's first term election, the lines at my polling place were across the room, out the door, down the hallway, out the building door, and a good distance down the block (i.e., easily a few hundred or more waiting in line to get their chance to cast their vote). And it was like this starting from before the polls opened until they closed. Many would have loved to see lines "never longer than the lines at my local supermarket on Saturday morning" for that election at that polling place.
- xhkkffbf 6y ago
  No. In my case, the local supermarket's lines are terrible. You're a lucky one. In my neighborhood, people wait 30-45 minutes to get in the supermarket EVERY week. Most are moving to systems like Instacart when they can afford it.

srj 6y ago

I voted by mail in Seattle for years and never had an issue or even heard of one. The ballot goes in a tamper-evident envelope, sealed within the mailing envelope. You also get online tracking to know your ballot was received and processed.

specialist 6y ago
You're welcome. Me and my peeps did the yeoman work to both protect the secret ballot and ensure end-to-end auditability. If every jurisdiction nationwide adopted the rules, procedures, and operations used by King County Elections, we'd be in good shape. But they won't.
- spenczar5 6y ago
  Why not? I am curious to know more - is it expensive or difficult to implement? Couldn’t other jurisdictions copy King County’s system?
  - specialist 6y ago
    Election administration is chronically underfunded. A lot of people have some very funny ideas about how to conduct elections. For examples: Should ballots be required to be received or postmarked by Election Day to be accepted? (Correct answer is postmarked.) If a voter makes a mistake, how does it get corrected? Some jurisdictions just toss any ballot with any mistake. What are the standards for signature verification? What happens if the admins identify a mismatch? Sadly, the minutia goes on and on.
xhkkffbf 6y ago
Please pay better attention and read the news occasionally: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seven-charged-in-vote-fraud-scheme/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seven-charged-in-v... And here's a story from a postal worker committing voting fraud. It was published in the Seattle Times even though it occurred in WV. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/west-virginia-mail-carrier-admits-attempted-election-fraud/ https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/west-virgin... This took me 10 seconds to find. Tamper resistant envelopes don't stop fraud. They just stop tampering. The real problem is people making up 1000s of fake names (or borrowing real ones) and then filling out the ballots for their favorite candidate. Then they dutifully seal them in a tamper-resistant envelope which preserves the vote for their favorite candidate. Open your eyes and your ears.

kevingadd 6y ago

Voting and going to the grocery store are pretty different in multiple ways. For one thing, we give people exactly one day for in-person voting, and they don't get the day off from work - so they probably have a total of maybe 5 non-work hours available to them during which polling places are open, they go to one, stand in line with thousands of other people, then walk into a crowded place, interact up close with polling staff, and then interact up close with polling equipment. The polling equipment is not frequently sterilized (if at all), the polling staff might not have protective gear, and the polling places are cramped and poorly ventilated. It doesn't matter how many people need to vote there - 100k? 1k? same difference - you've all got to do it today, and in these specific hours. Sounds really safe! In comparison, you can go to the grocery store whenever is best for you (as long as they're open - and many are open 24 hours any day of the week), there are lots of locations to choose from, and if you go during off-peak hours the aisles are relatively empty and you have enough space to social distance from the other people in the store. At this point, the staff typically have masks+gloves and there's often hand sanitizer and cough shields. Some grocery stores explicitly limit the # of people inside at any given time.

dylan604 6y ago
Is early voting an option every where? I know there's been a push in my local area informing people that it is an option to avoid the rush on election day.
- kevingadd 6y ago
  Early voting is an option in many places, but it's typically very limited. In some states it has been curtailed as a vote suppression measure specifically because so many people use it.
xhkkffbf 6y ago
I think you're comparing the voting procedures of the past with the grocery aisles of today. If we sterilize the stores, we can do the same with the voting equipment. In my town, they've moved to paper ballots for audibility. This is also great for mitigating disease transmission because each person only touches their own paper ballot. There's no reason why each polling place can be brought to the same level of danger as a local grocery. It won't be hard.

graeme 6y ago

This would be more credible if US in person voting didn’t often involve electronic voting machines with closed source software, no paper trail, and proven exploits. That’s what mail in voting compares to.

minerjoe 6y ago
I voted in the first election in the US to ever use the Dibold [1] [2] machines, in Atlanta Georgia. It was obvious to anyone with a single honest neuron that there was no way to trust these machines. I've never voted since. There is no point in pretending like the system has credibility or accountability. [1] https://columbusfreepress.com/article/diebold-indicted-its-spectre-still-haunts-ohio-elections https://columbusfreepress.com/article/diebold-indicted-its-s... [2] https://whowhatwhy.org/2020/05/27/touchscreen-voting-makes-everything-easy-including-hacking/ https://whowhatwhy.org/2020/05/27/touchscreen-voting-makes-e... Edit: Toned it down a bit. How many downvoting cowards do we have out there? Respond or GTFO.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  I didn't downvote you, but I suspect that some people reacted negatively to your strategy of "don't vote, then the people with power will feel so embarrassed at the lack of credibility of the system that they will work to regain people's trust". Also, if the comment above is your "toned down" wording, I'm glad I didn't read the original version, or I probably would have downvoted you.
  - minerjoe 6y ago
    Who are you quoting there? Putting a few too many words in my mouth. To many of us, the system has lost all cedibility, and voting is signalling just the opposite of that. Nothing about embarrassing anyone. No way to regain people trust at this point. We're too far gone.
    - dane-pgp 6y ago
      Sorry, that wasn't intended to be a quote, I was trying to understand what you thought refusing to vote would achieve. Are you hoping that your non-participation in voting is "signalling" the lack of credibility in the system, and that public awareness of this will contribute to some eventual improved outcome for society, or are you just trying to avoid misleading(?) people into believing the supposed false notion that voting can lead to positive changes in government policy?

specialist 6y ago

It'd be more helpful if you provided specifics. Also, conflating postal balloting and COVID-19 is inappropriate. In principle, you should advocate for the Australian Ballot, which is private voting and public counting. The election integrity gold standard is casting ballots at poll sites which are tabulated onsite the moment the polls close and the results shared immediately. Some of the larger identified risks of postal balloting, generally, are mass disenfranchisement, losing the secret ballot, ballots and votes lost to the process, making auditing much harder, and pre-tabulating votes (as ballots are received). Specific precautions and safe guards are required to mitigate these risks. Even well intentioned election administrators often don't have the resources, skills, and experience to conduct large postal balloting (aka vote-by-mail). Despite all the known risks, the benefit of enfranchising people who'd other wise not be able to vote is reason enough to support vote-by-mail. In conclusion, at this time, the correct policy position at this time is to dramatically increase funding for election administration and deploy 1,000s of election observers.

Simulacra 6y ago
Mail in voting could potentially expose a person’s vote. I don’t think we can trust the postal service to play fair, nor their carriers.
xhkkffbf 6y ago
I can't go into a long list of ways to attack the various systems. But if you go above, I link to two different stories. Mail in voting is just much easier to hack.
- specialist 6y ago
  Those two links do not imply what you think they imply. Those are problems with registrations, not ballots. If you truly consider problems with the VRDBs a high priority, then advocate for nationwide automatic universal voter registration, like every other mature democracy has done, thereby eliminating the problem. Further, I really do think you should compile an exhaustive list of all the problems and attack vectors you've found. Start by comparing and contrasting the procedures from misc jurisdictions. Observe some elections. Attend all the canvassing board meetings for an entire election cycle. Interview election administrators. Etc. What you learn may surprise you.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> I've waited in line to vote, but the lines were never longer than the lines at my local supermarket on Saturday morning As is disproportionately the case on HN, you are probably a relatively privileged individual, living in a relatively privileged community. Even if not, you should be aware that generalizing from your personal experience is not reliable.

xhkkffbf 6y ago
Oh please. People across the country are going to the stores 2-3 times a week. They're waiting in lines at banks and coffee shops. If they can wait there, they can wait to vote every 2-4 years.

pwg 6y ago

> I've waited in line to vote, but the lines were never longer than the lines at my local supermarket on Saturday morning. You've been very lucky then. For Obama's first term election, the lines at my polling place were across the room, out the door, down the hallway, out the building door, and a good distance down the block (i.e., easily a few hundred or more waiting in line to get their chance to cast their vote). And it was like this starting from before the polls opened until they closed. Many would have loved to see lines "never longer than the lines at my local supermarket on Saturday morning" for that election at that polling place.

xhkkffbf 6y ago
No. In my case, the local supermarket's lines are terrible. You're a lucky one. In my neighborhood, people wait 30-45 minutes to get in the supermarket EVERY week. Most are moving to systems like Instacart when they can afford it.