6 ms·

Beats me; given the historically low rate & the allegations of fraud, it seems to be you should do the review so that everyone can be confident in the results (

by dilap 6y ago

Beats me; given the historically low rate & the allegations of fraud, it seems to be you should do the review so that everyone can be confident in the results (in the event there was not significant fraud) or so that the fraud can be exposed (in the event there was). One data point is in Arizona where the judge allowed 100 randomly-sampled envelopes to be reviewed for a signature, the democratic expert witness said 16 of them were inconclusive. However, the Judge ruled that that was not evidence of fraud. I'm not really sure how exactly you can conclude that, and the fact that we are apprently counting votes in AZ with signatures that don't match certainly doesn't make me particularly confident in the results. https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/12/04/arizona-judge-rejects-republican-effort-overturn-state-election-results/3821578001/ https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020...

nl 6y ago
The whole point is that signature verification isn't a reliable indicator of fraud or anything. It never has been, and should never have been relied on. The ballots and the envelopes and the protection of them is the key.
- dilap 6y ago
  In that case, what protects against fraud? Anything? I personally know of two ballots, not mine, that I could have filled and out returned, if I'd been so inclined. (People in apartment buildings I have access to who have moved out of state, but still got sent ballots, which were just setting in the foyer; I'm sure there are gazillions of other ways to get ballots.) If you're not even going to require the signatures to match, it seems like committing vote fraud would be ridiculously easy. (Of course, if you really want to have a secure election, make people vote in person and have a continuous chain of custody of those votes; use the ink-on-your-finger trick to prevent double-voting.)
  - jaccarmac 6y ago
    The fact that it's quite obvious if someone votes multiple times. To sway an election, you would need to submit a significant number of fraudulent ballots. This is likely to result in an extremely high number of detected duplicates. It is also extremely hard to pull off without involving a large number of people, any of whom could blow the entire conspiracy wide open.
    - dilap 6y ago
      OK. Why not allow an audit of the envelope signatures?
      - nl 6y ago
        Because signatures can't be verified. In AZ the Judge asked them to sample 100, and 6/100 were "inconclusive"
        dilap 6y ago
        It seems crazy to me to count ballots with signatures that don't (reasonably) match. If I had believed one or the other of the candidates were a threat on the level Hitler, I would certainly have taken the opportunities given to me to fill out and return ballots that were not mine. You don't need any conspiracy for this; you just have to have one side that is extremely motivated to defeat the other side combined w/ a lack of signature standards.
        VikingCoder 6y ago
        I think you're underestimating how exceedingly difficult it would be to correctly identify the people that you could steal their vote, and not get caught. Picture it, if you try to vote for someone, and they also vote - in person, or requesting another ballot - that's trivially detectable. That didn't happen.
        dilap 6y ago
        Is it really that hard though? Just in nursing homes alone there are way more than enough votes to cover the small margin of victory. And also, how confident can we be that the double-voting would actually be detected? E.g., https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-14/u-s-election-mail-in-voting-isn-t-to-blame-for-double-voting-in-georgia https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-14/u-s-elect... I am not very sympathetic to the argument that we shouldn't care about signature matches.
  - nl 6y ago
    > In that case, what protects against fraud? Yes, controlled ballot papers and envelopes. > I'm sure there are gazillions of other ways to get ballots. You need gazillions of ballots going to someone who is the dedicated to committing fraud. There is no evidence that occurred, and it's easy to detect. Ballots are numbered, so if a bunch of sequential ones all are the same you can see it. The process for this was all decided before the election. There's zero evidence that fraud occurred, and all people are pointing to is parts of the process they don't like.
    - dilap 6y ago
      > Ballots are numbered, so if a bunch of sequential ones all are the same you can see it. Who could see it, specifically? > The process for this was all decided before the election. The Texas lawsuit is about exactly this; they allege that the process (including things like signature verification) was not in fact followed. (Or at least that's my understanding. I claim no expertise!)
  - VikingCoder 6y ago
    > who have moved out of state The governments of both states know they moved. The voter registrations were adjusted accordingly. If you had tried to send in their ballots, your attempt to vote unregistered voters would have been detected. You describe it as "ridiculously easy," but you seem to be unaware of the protections that are in place.
    - dilap 6y ago
      Is that true? I've never heard of any such system; I don't think states in general communicate with each other and do automatic unregistrations like this. Googling, I found this: > Since the U.S. has a very mobile population and voters rarely inform election officials when they move, voters can often be on the voter rolls in two (or more) different states at one time. Unless states have an efficient way of communicating with one another, it’s possible that they may not be able to identify an individual who is on the rolls in two different states. https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/double-voting.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/double... > You describe it as "ridiculously easy," but you seem to be unaware of the protections that are in place. It is true I have never actually tried it, so I should say it seems like it would be ridicuously easy. I've still not seen any convincing arguments that protections beyond signature matches would prevent this.
      - jaccarmac 6y ago
        Well, as that link discusses, states are in charge of managing why and how voters are removed from their rolls. In 2016, upwards of 4.5m names were removed due to cross-jurisdiction change of address (p. 48). https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/eac_assets/1/6/2016_EAVS_Comprehensive_Report.pdf https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/eac_assets/1/6/2016_...

by dilap 6y ago

nl 6y ago

The whole point is that signature verification isn't a reliable indicator of fraud or anything. It never has been, and should never have been relied on. The ballots and the envelopes and the protection of them is the key.

dilap 6y ago
In that case, what protects against fraud? Anything? I personally know of two ballots, not mine, that I could have filled and out returned, if I'd been so inclined. (People in apartment buildings I have access to who have moved out of state, but still got sent ballots, which were just setting in the foyer; I'm sure there are gazillions of other ways to get ballots.) If you're not even going to require the signatures to match, it seems like committing vote fraud would be ridiculously easy. (Of course, if you really want to have a secure election, make people vote in person and have a continuous chain of custody of those votes; use the ink-on-your-finger trick to prevent double-voting.)
- jaccarmac 6y ago
  The fact that it's quite obvious if someone votes multiple times. To sway an election, you would need to submit a significant number of fraudulent ballots. This is likely to result in an extremely high number of detected duplicates. It is also extremely hard to pull off without involving a large number of people, any of whom could blow the entire conspiracy wide open.
  - dilap 6y ago
    OK. Why not allow an audit of the envelope signatures?
    - nl 6y ago
      Because signatures can't be verified. In AZ the Judge asked them to sample 100, and 6/100 were "inconclusive"
      - dilap 6y ago
        It seems crazy to me to count ballots with signatures that don't (reasonably) match. If I had believed one or the other of the candidates were a threat on the level Hitler, I would certainly have taken the opportunities given to me to fill out and return ballots that were not mine. You don't need any conspiracy for this; you just have to have one side that is extremely motivated to defeat the other side combined w/ a lack of signature standards.
        VikingCoder 6y ago
        I think you're underestimating how exceedingly difficult it would be to correctly identify the people that you could steal their vote, and not get caught. Picture it, if you try to vote for someone, and they also vote - in person, or requesting another ballot - that's trivially detectable. That didn't happen.
        dilap 6y ago
        Is it really that hard though? Just in nursing homes alone there are way more than enough votes to cover the small margin of victory. And also, how confident can we be that the double-voting would actually be detected? E.g., https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-14/u-s-election-mail-in-voting-isn-t-to-blame-for-double-voting-in-georgia https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-14/u-s-elect... I am not very sympathetic to the argument that we shouldn't care about signature matches.
- nl 6y ago
  > In that case, what protects against fraud? Yes, controlled ballot papers and envelopes. > I'm sure there are gazillions of other ways to get ballots. You need gazillions of ballots going to someone who is the dedicated to committing fraud. There is no evidence that occurred, and it's easy to detect. Ballots are numbered, so if a bunch of sequential ones all are the same you can see it. The process for this was all decided before the election. There's zero evidence that fraud occurred, and all people are pointing to is parts of the process they don't like.
  - dilap 6y ago
    > Ballots are numbered, so if a bunch of sequential ones all are the same you can see it. Who could see it, specifically? > The process for this was all decided before the election. The Texas lawsuit is about exactly this; they allege that the process (including things like signature verification) was not in fact followed. (Or at least that's my understanding. I claim no expertise!)
- VikingCoder 6y ago
  > who have moved out of state The governments of both states know they moved. The voter registrations were adjusted accordingly. If you had tried to send in their ballots, your attempt to vote unregistered voters would have been detected. You describe it as "ridiculously easy," but you seem to be unaware of the protections that are in place.
  - dilap 6y ago
    Is that true? I've never heard of any such system; I don't think states in general communicate with each other and do automatic unregistrations like this. Googling, I found this: > Since the U.S. has a very mobile population and voters rarely inform election officials when they move, voters can often be on the voter rolls in two (or more) different states at one time. Unless states have an efficient way of communicating with one another, it’s possible that they may not be able to identify an individual who is on the rolls in two different states. https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/double-voting.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/double... > You describe it as "ridiculously easy," but you seem to be unaware of the protections that are in place. It is true I have never actually tried it, so I should say it seems like it would be ridicuously easy. I've still not seen any convincing arguments that protections beyond signature matches would prevent this.
    - jaccarmac 6y ago
      Well, as that link discusses, states are in charge of managing why and how voters are removed from their rolls. In 2016, upwards of 4.5m names were removed due to cross-jurisdiction change of address (p. 48). https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/eac_assets/1/6/2016_EAVS_Comprehensive_Report.pdf https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/eac_assets/1/6/2016_...