5 ms·

On one side, a grifter taking cynical advantage of baseless, war-media-stoked fears of Venezuela in addition to numerous other baseless and racist conspiracy th

On one side, a grifter taking cynical advantage of baseless, war-media-stoked fears of Venezuela in addition to numerous other baseless and racist conspiracy theories. On the other side, a secretive foreign firm that makes millions foisting unaudited closed-source voting machines on clueless municipalities. Frankly, I hope they both lose.

auslegung 6y ago
Secretive foreign firm? Aren’t they Canadian? Not that Canada isn’t foreign but it’s basically impossible to read what you wrote without a hateful, distrusting tone that assumes non Americans are bad. And how are they secretive in any way that’s relevant to their ability to build and maintain verifiable machines?
- jaywalk 6y ago
  There are many aspects of government that non-Americans are prohibited from participating in. It has nothing to do with all non-Americans being bad and all Americans being good, but it's a decent first-level screening method. Kind of like requiring a college degree in a job listing.
- jariel 6y ago
  They were founded in Toronto but they are American. The notion that there's any degree of shadiness about them is completely unwarranted. The company and tech are perfectly legit. If there are any 'issues' at all with the election, it's more rooted in the fact that the US can't very easily identify people, doesn't know who is dead, who is alive, and who are actual residents. If you dig into the 'voter roll purging' issue in Georgia, it reveals that much of the problems derive from the grey areas there. That said, the elections are clean and fair, these ambiguities don't provide necessary for widespread fraud.
  - jaywalk 6y ago
    They have a US HQ in Denver, but it's absurd to say that they are American: "Dominion Voting Systems Corp (Canada) owns 100% of Dominion Voting Systems, Inc (US Subsidiary)." Source: https://votingsystems.cdn.sos.ca.gov/dominion-voting/part-2.pdf https://votingsystems.cdn.sos.ca.gov/dominion-voting/part-2....
    - jariel 6y ago
      They are entirely based and operated out of America. That makes them American. Apple, Cisco etc. might very well have >50% ownership from non-American sources, that doesn't make them 'not American'. The outrage hyperbole over Dominion is completely fabricated, there's no basis it. Their machines + system have the level of integrity necessary for satisfying the use case they are used for. The possible 'loopholes' relate to who is using the ballots and machines, not the ballots or machines themselves.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  I like Canadians and I like Canada. I am hateful and distrusting of closed-source voting machines. Perhaps it was wrong to appeal to the tired old "let's have ruinous economic sanctions on most foreign nations" prejudice that so many public officials pretend to have... At some level it would be nice if the people administering elections in a particular jurisdiction were subject to the laws of that jurisdiction. Voting machines are inherently a challenge to verify. Even if the voter herself compiles source code and loads the resulting object into the machine before voting, it's impossible for her to verify the hardware is actually using that object. The paper ballots produced by these machines have marks next to candidates, but they also have an opaque bar code and that's what gets scanned when votes are "recounted". On top of all this, considering the design and code of these machines to be commercial secrets ensures error and distrust.
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    > Voting machines are inherently a challenge to verify. Count a subset of the ballots by hand, if they match, then your confidence in the system increases. Continue verification until confidence in the system reaches acceptable levels. The voting machines that I've used recently are systems that automatically count paper ballots as they are submitted. There's a clear chain of custody with these, and these results have a 100% audit trail. Not only that, but these systems work in tandem to identify errors in either system. The likelihood of discovering some injected irregularity is pretty high. Especially since we have systems in place for automatic hand-recounts in tight races. So if the system were going to nefariously alter the election outcome, it would have to be done at such a magnitude as to exceed the threshold for automatic hand-recounts, but be small enough to not be discovered. Plus, candidates can request a manual recount, further increasing the reliability of the system. As with all systems where reliability is paramount: it's important to lean on redundancy in the system, rather than try to make a single component as reliable as possible.
  - mindslight 6y ago
    The only way machines should be used is part of an end to end verifiable voting system (either cryptographic or public ledger), where a machine running different code still wouldn't be able to flip votes. Alas the time to push for this is before an election, not afterwards when one doesn't like the specific outcome.
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  They're an American company (Premier) spun out of an American company (Diebold) that was bought by an American competitor (ES&S) that was then spun out of ES&S due to anti-trust concerns and bought by a Canadian company (Dominion). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_Election_Solutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_Election_Solutions
- hedora 6y ago
  People should distrust foreign interference in elections. It’s supposedly illegal in the US. Historically, “interference” has broadly included things like providing financial support to candidates, running news stories about candidates (or running news stations in the US, at all), and so on. The lifting of these restrictions led directly to Fox News (which is an Australian company), which has long been a mouthpiece for the Republican Party. All of this happens despite the fact that it would be illegal for the Republican Party to take campaign donations from Australians. We need to reinstate media ownership laws in the US.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    Media ownership laws could take many forms. I'd prefer those of the form "the same firm can't own all the TV channels in any particular market" to those of the form "France 24 is not allowed".
guscost 6y ago
The only player coming out of this looking good seems to be Texas, which said "no thanks" to their sales pitch (after a security audit) and avoided the whole mess.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  I wanted to think well of Texas, but then I found they are one of four states (out of fifty!) who don't have paper trails for all machines used in the state. https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voting-system-paper-trail-requirements.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voting...
  - guscost 6y ago
    Yikes, that is dumb.
mistermann 6y ago
I think it is worth noting that late night comedians (John Oliver, etc) had an absolute field day with the voting machine fraud meme after the 2006 election. I think it's really interesting how you can completely flip people's reaction to a scenario by flipping one variable, and the people perceive themselves to be perfectly logical. The human mind is such a mystery.
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  The main complaint in 2006 was that there was no auditable paper trail. The 2020 machines all had an auditable paper trail. Is it surprising that people switch their viewpoint after their major concern was satisfied?
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    This. I remember when they were completely automated, you just tapped the crappy 00s era touch-pad, and hoped it managed to submit the results the way you wanted. Then they added that stupid little receipt printer that told you what was submitted, so at least if there was a fuckup, you were informed of it. Now, they are scantrons. You fill out a big paper ballot, and the machine counts it. It's exactly the system I want in place.
    - hedora 6y ago
      Some areas are moving back to the crappy 00’s touchscreens. They don’t connect to the internet and I’ve heard election officials claim they’re “unhackable”. It seems unlikely they’ll replace mail in ballot scantrons any time soon, but with mail-in ballots you have increased vectors for fraud and stuff like the recent political interference with the US Postal Service. One step forward, two steps back, I guess. Disclaimers: Since I mentioned mail-in ballot fraud, and the 2020 election just happened: I have heard of no credible evidence of widespread fraud during the 2020 election or Georgia runoff. Electronic machines might be able to serve a useful purpose: I think the best option involves most people voting in person on paper ballots, despite universal access to mail-in ballots, and universal access to machines that print filled-out ballots for people with accessibility issues. Machines that print scantrons for everyone might be a net win if they reduce adjudication, and if people actually double check that the printout matches their intended vote. Alternatively, people could scan their own ballot at the polling place, and confirm it scans correctly. Either way, the paper ballot must be the authoritative record.

auslegung 6y ago

Secretive foreign firm? Aren’t they Canadian? Not that Canada isn’t foreign but it’s basically impossible to read what you wrote without a hateful, distrusting tone that assumes non Americans are bad. And how are they secretive in any way that’s relevant to their ability to build and maintain verifiable machines?

jaywalk 6y ago
There are many aspects of government that non-Americans are prohibited from participating in. It has nothing to do with all non-Americans being bad and all Americans being good, but it's a decent first-level screening method. Kind of like requiring a college degree in a job listing.
jariel 6y ago
They were founded in Toronto but they are American. The notion that there's any degree of shadiness about them is completely unwarranted. The company and tech are perfectly legit. If there are any 'issues' at all with the election, it's more rooted in the fact that the US can't very easily identify people, doesn't know who is dead, who is alive, and who are actual residents. If you dig into the 'voter roll purging' issue in Georgia, it reveals that much of the problems derive from the grey areas there. That said, the elections are clean and fair, these ambiguities don't provide necessary for widespread fraud.
- jaywalk 6y ago
  They have a US HQ in Denver, but it's absurd to say that they are American: "Dominion Voting Systems Corp (Canada) owns 100% of Dominion Voting Systems, Inc (US Subsidiary)." Source: https://votingsystems.cdn.sos.ca.gov/dominion-voting/part-2.pdf https://votingsystems.cdn.sos.ca.gov/dominion-voting/part-2....
  - jariel 6y ago
    They are entirely based and operated out of America. That makes them American. Apple, Cisco etc. might very well have >50% ownership from non-American sources, that doesn't make them 'not American'. The outrage hyperbole over Dominion is completely fabricated, there's no basis it. Their machines + system have the level of integrity necessary for satisfying the use case they are used for. The possible 'loopholes' relate to who is using the ballots and machines, not the ballots or machines themselves.
jessaustin 6y ago
I like Canadians and I like Canada. I am hateful and distrusting of closed-source voting machines. Perhaps it was wrong to appeal to the tired old "let's have ruinous economic sanctions on most foreign nations" prejudice that so many public officials pretend to have... At some level it would be nice if the people administering elections in a particular jurisdiction were subject to the laws of that jurisdiction. Voting machines are inherently a challenge to verify. Even if the voter herself compiles source code and loads the resulting object into the machine before voting, it's impossible for her to verify the hardware is actually using that object. The paper ballots produced by these machines have marks next to candidates, but they also have an opaque bar code and that's what gets scanned when votes are "recounted". On top of all this, considering the design and code of these machines to be commercial secrets ensures error and distrust.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  > Voting machines are inherently a challenge to verify. Count a subset of the ballots by hand, if they match, then your confidence in the system increases. Continue verification until confidence in the system reaches acceptable levels. The voting machines that I've used recently are systems that automatically count paper ballots as they are submitted. There's a clear chain of custody with these, and these results have a 100% audit trail. Not only that, but these systems work in tandem to identify errors in either system. The likelihood of discovering some injected irregularity is pretty high. Especially since we have systems in place for automatic hand-recounts in tight races. So if the system were going to nefariously alter the election outcome, it would have to be done at such a magnitude as to exceed the threshold for automatic hand-recounts, but be small enough to not be discovered. Plus, candidates can request a manual recount, further increasing the reliability of the system. As with all systems where reliability is paramount: it's important to lean on redundancy in the system, rather than try to make a single component as reliable as possible.
- mindslight 6y ago
  The only way machines should be used is part of an end to end verifiable voting system (either cryptographic or public ledger), where a machine running different code still wouldn't be able to flip votes. Alas the time to push for this is before an election, not afterwards when one doesn't like the specific outcome.
bryanlarsen 6y ago
They're an American company (Premier) spun out of an American company (Diebold) that was bought by an American competitor (ES&S) that was then spun out of ES&S due to anti-trust concerns and bought by a Canadian company (Dominion). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_Election_Solutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_Election_Solutions
hedora 6y ago
People should distrust foreign interference in elections. It’s supposedly illegal in the US. Historically, “interference” has broadly included things like providing financial support to candidates, running news stories about candidates (or running news stations in the US, at all), and so on. The lifting of these restrictions led directly to Fox News (which is an Australian company), which has long been a mouthpiece for the Republican Party. All of this happens despite the fact that it would be illegal for the Republican Party to take campaign donations from Australians. We need to reinstate media ownership laws in the US.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  Media ownership laws could take many forms. I'd prefer those of the form "the same firm can't own all the TV channels in any particular market" to those of the form "France 24 is not allowed".

guscost 6y ago

The only player coming out of this looking good seems to be Texas, which said "no thanks" to their sales pitch (after a security audit) and avoided the whole mess.

jessaustin 6y ago
I wanted to think well of Texas, but then I found they are one of four states (out of fifty!) who don't have paper trails for all machines used in the state. https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voting-system-paper-trail-requirements.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voting...
- guscost 6y ago
  Yikes, that is dumb.

mistermann 6y ago

I think it is worth noting that late night comedians (John Oliver, etc) had an absolute field day with the voting machine fraud meme after the 2006 election. I think it's really interesting how you can completely flip people's reaction to a scenario by flipping one variable, and the people perceive themselves to be perfectly logical. The human mind is such a mystery.

bryanlarsen 6y ago
The main complaint in 2006 was that there was no auditable paper trail. The 2020 machines all had an auditable paper trail. Is it surprising that people switch their viewpoint after their major concern was satisfied?
- mywittyname 6y ago
  This. I remember when they were completely automated, you just tapped the crappy 00s era touch-pad, and hoped it managed to submit the results the way you wanted. Then they added that stupid little receipt printer that told you what was submitted, so at least if there was a fuckup, you were informed of it. Now, they are scantrons. You fill out a big paper ballot, and the machine counts it. It's exactly the system I want in place.
  - hedora 6y ago
    Some areas are moving back to the crappy 00’s touchscreens. They don’t connect to the internet and I’ve heard election officials claim they’re “unhackable”. It seems unlikely they’ll replace mail in ballot scantrons any time soon, but with mail-in ballots you have increased vectors for fraud and stuff like the recent political interference with the US Postal Service. One step forward, two steps back, I guess. Disclaimers: Since I mentioned mail-in ballot fraud, and the 2020 election just happened: I have heard of no credible evidence of widespread fraud during the 2020 election or Georgia runoff. Electronic machines might be able to serve a useful purpose: I think the best option involves most people voting in person on paper ballots, despite universal access to mail-in ballots, and universal access to machines that print filled-out ballots for people with accessibility issues. Machines that print scantrons for everyone might be a net win if they reduce adjudication, and if people actually double check that the printout matches their intended vote. Alternatively, people could scan their own ballot at the polling place, and confirm it scans correctly. Either way, the paper ballot must be the authoritative record.