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Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

517 points by cf100clunk 6y ago

kmeisthax 6y ago
I sincerely hope that whatever happens with these lawsuits doesn't chill the speech of actual voting machine security research.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  I’d be much more worried about the absolutely insane nonsense that Giuliani and his ilk have been spewing. That is far more damaging to voting machine research than this lawsuit.
  - AzzieElbab 6y ago
    Wasn’t that the kraken thing that Giuliani wasn’t really involved with?
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      The claims Giuliani made against Dominion and it's voting equipment is verbose in articles related to this topic, as well as the case filing.
    - loonster 6y ago
      He wasn't. That was a Sidney Powell thing. I think this 4chan Post describes the Kraken very well: http://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/301180971/#301180971 http://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/301180971/#301180971 >This is my contribution to the Trump team's legal case against election fraud. The Kraken was a crowdsourced legal case that they were building with the help of hundreds of volunteer experts, but most of it never got to see the light of day. We were explicitly told not to release any information to the public because that could undermine their case, since it would expose our work to the ongoing media slander campaign and allow the defense to more easily prepare counterarguments. Clearly that's no longer a concern, so I'm publicly releasing my contribution to the case. >Interactive Colab notebook with code and full replication of findings: https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1PwiipIQif63EMCxGFYA9jAjL-8Y5cCE1?usp=sharing https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1PwiipIQif63EMCxGFYA... >The key takeaway of this analysis is that the Biden vs. Trump advantage of a vote tally reporting batch is highly (i.e. extremely) correlated with meta information about the counting process itself. This implies that if you counted the votes a different way you would have gotten a different final total, which is absolutely preposterous and a clear indicator of fraud. Additionally, we don't see this happen
      - tptacek 6y ago
        In case anyone else was about to waste a couple minutes of their life that they will never get back, a quick warning that you will never get the minutes of your life back that you lose paging through this very silly Python notebook, which was very clearly created to snow people who don't know what a Python notebook looks like.
  - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
    As long as potentially hackable voting machines are used in elections, the anxiety about hacking will be there and will eventually be exploited by politicians. If we want to fix the issue, we really just need to move back to hand counting paper ballots.
    - CydeWeys 6y ago
      Dominion voting machines leave an auditable paper trail and thus do support hand-counting of paper ballots, which was done as part of the recounts in disputed states. No discrepancies beyond the margin of error of hand counting were found in those recounts vs the electronically reported results. You can see how they work in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9BDiO3JGTs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9BDiO3JGTs
      - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
        I'm not saying they were hacked. I'm saying the layman needs to be confident beyond a reasonable doubt. A normal non-security professional needs to understand and have confidence in the system they use to vote. Most people don't even know how to troubleshoot computer issues beyond rebooting, let alone understanding complex IT security or auditing measures put in place for these machines.
        Me1000 6y ago
        If you watch the video you can see that a layman would easily understand how it all works. It literally prints a ballot where you can verify your choices, and you drop it off. This is pretty much the gold standard: a paper trail that can be audited every step of the process.
      - tunesmith 6y ago
        Still not sufficient though, you only need to hack enough to get outside the automatic recount margin. You also need hand-recount of random samples in all elections.
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  It has been fascinating to watch recent events unfold, wherein various horrible things including direct threats to democracy have happened due to people increasingly being able to just completely make up stuff, and spread it around readily and effectively on unfiltered internet mediums, and a great number of people's immediate concern is that free speech may get quelled too much which will do great harm. This here is another example, nobody did any voting security research, some Trump associates just made up the idea, and were able to easily spread that messages to millions of people, playing a large part in inciting an attempted coup. The maker of that device is now suing for damages, as they should, and your concern is free speech again. It seems almost performative.
  - lovecg 6y ago
    That’s a story as old as time. Getting millions of people to believe a lie is not exactly an innovation.
- DonHopkins 6y ago
  Anyone actually involved in voting machine security research, and not just a fraudulent troll like Rudy Giuliani, welcomes this lawsuit. His unhinged spouting of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories has only harmed and discredited legitimate voting security research.
  - the_local_host 6y ago
    It'll be a win/win situation if baseless allegations of fraud are punished, and every detail of how voting machines work, including source code, are made public.
    - tartoran 6y ago
      I agree but wouldn't making the source code becoming public make the machines more prone to hacking?
      - rtkwe 6y ago
        Not if they're well designed, if the security of the system depends on it's function being completely secret it's not secure.
        tartoran 6y ago
        Yes, security by obfuscation is not good but imagine a bad actor discovers a bug and by the time the bug gets discovered and patched they could do a lot of harm in an election. Somehow I agree with the idea of making the code public only with the idea in mind that it gets scrutinized my more eyeballs but since we're talking about elections maybe this changes the perspective a bit?
        rtkwe 6y ago
        If you have the access to the machines to hack a number of them you likely already have the access to dump and analyze the source code, the physical access required is basically the same in both cases and getting the code initially is easier because you only need one machine (/maybe/ two to see if there's any interesting differences) where the final hack would require more. Also just because the code isn't released doesn't mean it's secure that same bad actor can theoretically hack the same code out of the writing company to start with. It's a debate we've had with secure messengers the benefit of having that many eyes on a piece of software outweighs the minor risk of a secret zero day.
- user3939382 6y ago
  I’m reminded of an xkcd alt text, “ There are lots of very smart people doing fascinating work on cryptographic voting protocols. We should be funding and encouraging them, and doing all our elections with paper ballots until everyone currently working in that field has retired.” https://xkcd.com/2030/ https://xkcd.com/2030/
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    Good thing Dominion voting machines do leave an auditable paper trail, which was hand-audited in all of these disputed states and which verified the electronically-reported results.
    - throwaway23242 6y ago
      what about reports out of michigan that audit trails / logs were missing for election night? https://www.depernolaw.com/uploads/2/7/0/2/27029178/antrim_michigan_forensics_report_%5B121320%5D_v2_%5Bredacted%5D.pdf https://www.depernolaw.com/uploads/2/7/0/2/27029178/antrim_m...
      - CydeWeys 6y ago
        Do you have a link to anything that has been established as true in court? Because that link is pants-on-fire lying: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/dec/04/russell-james-ramsland-jr/affidavit-michigan-lawsuit-seeking-overturn-electi/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/dec/04/russell-ja...
        throwaway23242 6y ago
        oh, cabal fact checkers seem to say this link is garbage (do they though?). i will flog myself and pledge allegiance to the cabal to repent.
        gamblor956 6y ago
        Even a cursory review of the Ramsland report you linked to indicates it was largely fiction. From the politifact review: Ramsland lists "Fenton" without specifying Fenton City or Fenton Township. But the turnout Ramsland lists for Fenton does not match the turnout in either jurisdiction. The actual turnout statistics reveal the inaccuracy of Ramsland’s numbers. His figure for North Muskegon is off by a factor of 10: The actual number is 78.11%, not 781.91%. For Zeeland Charter Township, he inflated the turnout nearly sixfold. For Grout Township and the City of Muskegon, his number is more than triple the correct number.
- nkassis 6y ago
  Researchers usually have well research and evidence to back their claims which wouldn't put them at risk like Giuliani. Giuliani has also repeated these claims that have so far been unsubstantiated repeatedly even after being asked to retract them. There is some willful level malice implied in this lawsuit that is I think is not applicable to security researchers so I'm personally not worried but I do get the general sentiment whenever libel laws are brought up.
  - DonHopkins 6y ago
    And researchers aren't usually operating under the delusionally optimistic assumption that they'll get $20,000 per day and a presidential pardon for their work.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      Let's see. $1 billion damages vs. earning $20,000 per day. Guiliani comes out ahead after 50,000 days. I kind of doubt he got that long...
- elicash 6y ago
  Why would it? Voting machine research isn't at issue in this case. What you're concerned about would require a change in law, if not the Constitution.
- duxup 6y ago
  >These pieces rely on discredited sources who have peddled debunked theories about Dominion's supposed ties to Venezuela, fraud on Dominion's machines that resulted in massive vote switching or weighted votes, and other claims falsely stating that there is credible evidence that Dominion acted fraudulently That's Dominion's statement. They're describing a pretty exceptional situation / distant from what I would think of as security research. Obviously that's not a legally binding statement or anything but I think that at least illustrates what this situation is about. This isn't a case of someone being mistaken or putting forth a good faith concern about security. These accusations are based in nothing at all, disproven, and Giuliani and others just kept at it. Researchers usually have actual evidence for concerns and so forth. And their motivations usually really is security. This situation with Giuliani and actual security research seem completely disconnected.
- joshuakelly 6y ago
  I think you have to be outside of America to have this perspective now, it's too drowned out inside to make sense to anyone who can only read it through the American lens. I would be less concerned with any particular legal case though, and more concerned with the chilling effects of American political culture itself. By its very nature, any supposedly disinterested researcher will now be viewed with intense suspicion.
- tshaddox 6y ago
  Do defamation lawsuits tend to chill speech that isn’t defamation? I would assume not.
- 3395810 6y ago
  You think voting machines are suspect but just this one time there was nothing wrong with them?
williesleg 6y ago
Toronto? Weird.
yesdocs 6y ago
I hope whatever happens with these lawsuits it chills the baseless accusations of voter fraud used to undermine voter confidence in our democracy
- tomp 6y ago
  Won’t baseless accusations of no voter fraud undermine the confidence even more? After all, is there any evidence for voter fraud in Russia?
  - bredren 6y ago
    This is not what is happening. Time and time again the repeated phrase is there is no evidence of _widespread_ voter fraud.
    - julienchastang 6y ago
      Or "sufficient voter fraud that would change the outcome of an election".
      - rtkwe 6y ago
        Yeah, there's a tiny smattering of cases (the most memorable ones to me being Republican voters trying to counter supposed fraud with some fraud of their own) that get caught but nowhere near enough to impact elections. Much more prevalent though is intentional voter disenfranchisement keeping people from voting and gerrymandering.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - dragontamer 6y ago
    Presumably, the issue is baseless accusations in general. It doesn't matter what side a baseless claim happens: its bad either way. Dominion Voting Systems must prove that Rudy Giuliani was making up information to succeed in this court case. Unfortunately, defamation is surprisingly hard to win in the USA (which is why the US's Tabloid media can get so far with so many claims). Dominion Voting Systems is not a public figure however, its a company. That... probably makes it easier to win this case. Still, if Dominion's lawyers think that this case is worth pursuing (despite the difficulty of defamation / libel / slander), that doesn't bode well for Rudy.
AzzieElbab 6y ago
Subject makes it sound like TD bank is suing him
- drogorbrn 6y ago
  Not relevant to this topic, TD bank is one of the worst banking institution I have dealt with. Reading about them gives me nightmares.
  - woofcat 6y ago
    Odd, I find they're the best. Hold $5k in your chequing account and _everything_ is free! Even got myself a safe deposit box. BMO has something similar but it's $6,000. The rest (last time I checked) didn't really offer something like that.
    - r00fus 6y ago
      Honestly, who uses a safe deposit box these days? And what would one use it for?
      - woofcat 6y ago
        Any important paperwork, or valuables you want held secure? I have some bars of precious metals, and contracts etc.
        r00fus 6y ago
        Guess I'm surprised at having a decent personal net worth but nothing irreplaceable other than personal mementos.
        woofcat 6y ago
        Wills, marriage certificates, birth certificates, etc etc. All replaceable sure, however you almost never need to use them and if your home burns down you're going to hate that extra pain in the ass after the fact. I'm sure I could avoid using one, for instance getting a fire safe. However since the bank offers it for free, why not use it? Also, you have the option of offsite storage for any media backups. There is always the "Cloud" however sometimes it's nice to know your wedding photos are in a secure location.
rpiguyshy 6y ago
before donald trump was ever in office, i always believed that these voting machines are complete bullshit. our entire voting system is bullshit. and it would be easy to fix. these machines have been shown to be massively flawed and vulnerable to hacking/tinkering. again, this was my opinion before donald trump was elected.
- tartoran 6y ago
  What are these based on? Are these just opinions?
  - worldsayshi 6y ago
    Voter machines being unreliable has seemed to be the prevailing opinion in hacker news and similar circles until now. Are they suddenly all okay because Giuliani has spread bs about them?
    - pwinnski 6y ago
      Voting machines without a paper trail have been deemed unreliable, and still should be deemed unreliable. These machines are used to generate an authoritative paper ballot, which is exactly what critics have demanded. A prevailing opinion about apples doesn't apply to oranges.
      - worldsayshi 6y ago
        I don't see the point of a voting machine with a paper trail. You get preliminary statistics a bit faster and you get people used to the idea of voting machines.
        dboreham 6y ago
        The paper emulates a blockchain.
        sct202 6y ago
yalogin 6y ago
Unfortunately this is not a good thing for Dominion in the long term. The cult made up lies and successfully convinced a large population its real and the whole party brass is in on the scam. However this is a terrible situation for Dominion. They are forced to sue to prove they are not in the wrong, however that will spun as choosing sides and they could be kicked out when the contract ends. For the cult, this company and the service they provide is just another cog that should be controlled and they will try to get some enabler in there.
- throwaway23242 6y ago
  was their headquarters in toronto really next door to a soros outfit's officespace?
- worldsayshi 6y ago
  I mean why do you use voting machines anyway? Manual voting is perfectly adequate and much more transparent and understandable. If this leads to voting machines being pulled then at least something good came out of it?
- tptacek 6y ago
  There is no good thing for Dominion in the long term. They have, in fact, suffered irreparable damage. The lawsuits here are not performative.
  - patwolfe 6y ago
    Yeah, isn't the reason they are suing that the lawsuits have caused long-term damage... not sure what the above poster was getting at with their comment.
- jfengel 6y ago
  $1.3 billion would provide them some comfort.
seanalltogether 6y ago
I remember a lot of accusation about Diebold voting back in the 2000s, and concerns about lack of auditability. My understanding is that newer systems now let you vote at a machine, but it spits out a receipt that the voter can verify and the county can hold on to for the sake of audits and recounts. Is this standard now, or on a state by state basis?
- csours 6y ago
  Worse, depending on state it may be statewide, or county by county.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  My understanding is that newer systems now let you vote at a machine, but it spits out a receipt that the county can hold on to for the sake of audits and recounts. Not new. I've had paper voting receipts for at least 15 years. Probably longer. Is this standard now, or on a state by state basis? There are no voting machine standards. It varies by state, and in some states by county. Some people see that as a flaw. I see the diversity of voting systems as a security plus. There was even an article in the newspaper shortly after the election stating that certain foreign governments looked into hacking America's voting systems, but it wasn't worth the effort because they were all constructed and implemented differently.
  - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
    How can I be sure that my paper ballot receipt that I’m holding matches the ballot that was actually submitted?
- adrr 6y ago
  Dominion voting machines in Georgia is literally a computer hooked up to a printer that prints out a ballot for you that you turn in. Ballots are then scanned to get the results.
- HNfriend234 6y ago
  Yup. I think there is room for a lot more transparency and "double-checks" so to speaks built into voting going forward. Allow each voter to audit their own vote. We have the technology to allow for this to happen so there really is no excuse. This is really how you build confidence is the voting system. Anyone who is truly skeptical can cast their own vote and double-check it though the system. I know quite a few people that fully believe that voting is effectively a sham now.
jes 6y ago
Did Dominion create, for example, FMEA analyses during their software development efforts? Such analyses are de rigueur in the development of software in regulated industries (medical devices, aviation, etc.) Should the development of election systems software be regulated?
justinzollars 6y ago
I worked on campaigns for 10 years, I was an elected Hillary Rodham Clinton DNC Delegate and I witnessed real problems that should be of concern of every American. Votes should be cast in person, with identification and counted by hand. If Democracy is sacred we can wait a few days for results we can all trust. The system is clearly breaking down today where 75% of Republicans do not trust the election results and 75% of Democrats didn't trust the 2016 election.
- the_drunkard 6y ago
  Can you elaborate on this? I'm very interested, especially given your perspective. The 2004 election also had its fair share of electronic voting criticism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_United_States_election_voting_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_United_States_election_vo...
  - justinzollars 6y ago
    Sure, What I saw was this. The voter file was completely inaccurate. It was very common to go to a residence where voters: a. had moved b. had died c. had multiple 12+ voters currently registered at one apartment address, none of whom live there. From my perspective there are real issues with sending unsolicited mail in ballots to homes because the government does such a bad job managing the voter file. Often it is deliberately mismanaged because "purging" a file is a loaded political term. Who wants to be that guy who deletes voters? Moreover, my role as a campaign staffer was to collect votes. Often, people would ask "what do I vote for?", and I would just point and tell them what to vote for. This is also common. It also feels unethical. Based on this experience, I strongly support voting in person, with an ID. Don't trust me. If you would like to see this for yourself, volunteer with a campaign (any party) and canvass an apartment building in a swing state.
    - the_drunkard 6y ago
      > Based on this experience, I strongly support voting in person, with an ID. Shhh, a view like this will get you banned from Twitter... ;)
the_drunkard 6y ago
I think this is a good thing, hopefully it will bring to light any flaws that may exist in Dominion voting systems while testing whether any of these grandiose claims hold up to scrutiny. And folks, let's not act like this is the first time voting systems have been scrutinized.
ily_dominion 6y ago
I'm actually really proud of Dominion here. We went from 2016 being totally hacked, and we all know it, and then in 2020 we had the most secure election in history. What a turn around!
pupdogg 6y ago
The article states that at one point in time, at a voluntary hearing in Michigan, Dominion CEO said "It is technologically impossible to see votes being counted in real-time or to flip them". I think that everybody here is fairly technically inclined so what are your guys thoughts on this? My personal opinion is that using the term "technologically impossible" in this instance was not a good idea. If @antirez is reading this, would love if you could provide any useful insights. FYI, I ask becuase of your background in research and development of "TCP Idle Scan" back in '98.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- yielding 6y ago
  The claim that the CEO is disputing is that the Dominion machines are operated from a central location which can monitor and control the outcome of any action taken with one of their machines. The "technology" is specifically referring to the Dominion system, not "technology" in general. If the Dominion system does not include remote access, if it doesn't include remote monitoring and if it doesn't include remote vote management then "technologically impossible" is a fair statement. They are not arguing that it is impossible for such a system to ever be built, they're arguing that their system is not built that way. Voting machines are audited and have a chain of custody, it would be very difficult to argue that "someone could hack all the machines and install this capability" fits within the realm of possibility.
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  > It is technologically impossible to see votes being counted in real-time or to flip them Dominion machines aren't on the internet. Dominion doesn't have centralized access to all of their machines. Could they eg send out an army of technicians to every voting location and use some insane side-channel attack to physically read and flip bits from across the street? Sure. But by that logic it's also "not impossible" for you or I to launch the US nuclear arsenal. I think saying that "it is technologically possible to see votes being counted in real-time or to flip them" is "technically correct" but obviously not actually correct in any reasonable sense.
tptacek 6y ago
Ken White has been talking about the potential for this suit for a couple weeks now. He spends a lot of time talking about what isn't defamation --- people use defamation suits and threats thereof to chill free speech, and he's a 1st Amendment guy --- but the Dominion cases are apparently examples of very serious defamation cases. The core of defamation is (1) a false statement of purported fact that (2) causes damage (there are some exceptions to (2) that aren't relevant here). Most defamation cases you hear about fall apart on (1) - they target non-falsifiable statements of opinion, which can't be defamation because they don't purport to relate an objective fact. What makes Dominion's cases terrifying is that they are chock full of purported facts, all of which are batshit, and have so devastated Dominion's reputation, in a reputation-intensive business, that it had to hire private security to protect its employees from death threats. What makes the case challenging for Dominion is that they will almost certainly be treated as a public figure for the purposes of the case. The standard for defamation of a public figure is higher than that of a normal person; we add a condition (3): actual malice or negligence, meaning Dominion must show that Giuliani either intended to destroy Dominion's reputation by spreading facts he knew to be false, or that he was at least negligent, acting with reckless disregard for the truth. The problem is that it's not totally clear whether Giuliani believed any of his crazy-talk. It may actually be the case that Giuliani is just off his rocker. If he himself was sold by the (false) facts he received from others, he is a more difficult defamation target. Here's attorney Akiva Cohen analyzing the case a bit: https://twitter.com/AkivaMCohen/status/1353700596407283721 https://twitter.com/AkivaMCohen/status/1353700596407283721
- javajosh 6y ago
  "[Dominion will probable be] treated as a public figure." Why? I'd never heard of them before November 2020, and I imagine that is true for most people. I'd also be curious to learn more about what counts as "reckless disregard for the truth", if you're willing to share.
  - hajile 6y ago
    Most people (even people who follow politics) weren’t familiar with Obama before 2007 election cycle. The Covenant Kid was thrust into the media and when he sued for defamation, at least some judges accepted the claim that he was a public figure — even though he was suing over the very thing that thrust him into the national spotlight.
caminocorner 6y ago
Interesting. Defamation aside, FUD, and 'fraud' claims aside, I hope this gets enough attention that they will actually fix the very real issues voting machines have had for the past decade: https://securityboulevard.com/2019/09/voting-machines-still-stupidly-insecure-say-defcon-hackers/ https://securityboulevard.com/2019/09/voting-machines-still-...
stevenalowe 6y ago
“It is technologically impossible to see votes being counted in real-time or to flip them” I wonder how they debugged the code then
dboreham 6y ago
Casting our minds back to Texas Cattlemen vs Oprah..
cwkoss 6y ago
I've heard reports of cronyism and incompetence around Georgia's electronic voting going back several years (don't remember if Dominion was the company used back then). Slightly worried this precedent could not just be used against crackpots, but also legitimate voting security researchers and watchdogs.
- JakeTheAndroid 6y ago
  Would security researchers or watchdogs go around and say things publicly without evidence to defend their claims? Because thats what opened up Rudy for this lawsuit. He made unsubstantiated claims that possibly damaged the reputation of the company. How would this be used against researchers or watchdogs in your opinion?
  - cwkoss 6y ago
    Voting Machine Company: "Our machines are 100% secure. The security consultant we paid to tell us that agrees." Researcher: "Your machines have USB ports exposed, can flash firmware, connected to the internet, don't produce an auditable paper trail, and I hacked into a machine personally. 100% secure is demonstrably false." Voting Machine Company: "Well, a third party verified that it is 100% secure so we're going to sue you (and probably not win) but it will cost you tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend, unless you cease and desist."
    - charonn0 6y ago
      Guiliani didn't say any of those things.
    - JakeTheAndroid 6y ago
      Okay, but that wouldn't open up the researcher for a lawsuit, it would just provide the company with a PR leg to stand on. Nothing about this case is similar to what you outlined, and would not meet the legal requirements for a successful libel or slander case. If any company comes out and says the product 100% secure, the tech community basically scoffs at them. It's not a good PR strategy for a company anyways. Now, relying on the reputation of another firm through audits is a totally normal way of doing business. This does not compete with researchers, and has by and large included researchers (stuff like Bug Bounty/Responsible Disclosure programs) as a good control. So any researcher looking for this stuff would likely have a protected way to disclose their findings. Further, this is supported by another compliance body in the SEC via SOX. There has to be a protected whistleblower program for publicly traded companies. So, the ability to disclose security gaps is not neutered in any way by this court case, no matter how it plays out.
liquidify 6y ago
I'm curious why open source voting software and hardware isn't universally required.
- starik36 6y ago
  We don't know what's in Dominion's source. The code should be open sourced. The binary that's being used should have a checksum that can be easily checked by an election monitor.
dukeofdoom 6y ago
Rudy has a YouTube channel, you can hear him make his allegations and judge if it amounts to defamation. Most of them seem to be carefully phrased. https://www.youtube.com/c/RudyWGiuliani/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/RudyWGiuliani/videos Of all the claims that stuck out to me is the suitcase video, since it time corresponds with a one sided spike of votes.
- trhway 6y ago
  With DVS being SolarWinds client who needs the suitcases :)
- unanswered 6y ago
  I wish someone would honestly respond to the suitcase video, but I haven't seen any attempted defense of it yet. I would really prefer not to believe Giuliani, and yet that video is pretty damn hard to get around. None of it matters, of course, because realpolitik, and the biggest sin of the viking cosplayers was believing that any of this evidence matters.
  - wlesieutre 6y ago
    >I haven't seen any attempted defense of it yet Ok but did you look? https://www.wsbtv.com/news/politics/georgia-election-officials-show-frame-by-frame-what-really-happened-fulton-surveillance-video/T5M3PYIBYFHFFOD3CIB2ULDVDE/ https://www.wsbtv.com/news/politics/georgia-election-officia...
    - purchaceallsus 6y ago
      Isn't this contradicted by reporters at the time saying that they were sent home for the night? Do we have video and audio of the event in question? edit: rather than downvoting me, please engage with the question so others can learn.
      - wlesieutre 6y ago
        The ballots were on camera in the room the entire time, if reporters had been sent home they still wouldn't have appeared out of a mystery suitcase. They were sealed on camera, then unsealed on camera, and counted on camera. They have been counted and recounted and recounted. I don't know if reporters were "sent home" as you are claiming, or if they "left" as described by this video when election employees were initially closing up for the night, but either way the monitors and media saw those ballots go into the boxes and Giuliani was still lying about where they came from.
N1H1L 6y ago
By the way, Dominion sued Powell for a similar amount two weeks back too. And FWIW, there are absolutely ZERO Fox News articles on either lawsuits, while every other news org covered it. I wonder why
- favorited 6y ago
  Dominion sent document-retention notices to Fox News and other right-wing media outlets, so they might end up on the receiving end of a suit of their own.
arminiusreturns 6y ago
This is hn and we should recognize the inherent weakness in electronic voting machines for the blatant issue it is. That said, the primary retort I keep seeing is something along the lines of "well, but these produce an auditable paper ballot". So my question is this: How much of those auditable trails have actually been audited, in what places, and in what numbers (I don't think spot checks will suffice to reassure people, the numbers need to be a statistically significant percentage in the most contested places), and, more importantly where are the results of these audits being published?
- useerup 6y ago
  The entire state of Georgia. where Guiliani alledged that votes were "switched" by Dominion machines, were in fact hand counted and affirmed the machine-counted tally. Even after the hand-count clearly confirmed that the machines had not switched any votes, Guiliani spread the same lie. This is actually documented in the suit. Mind you, it is not that the vote-tally machines leave a paper audit trail. The vote-tally machines work by scanning the actual paper ballots.
  - arminiusreturns 6y ago
    > This is actually documented in the suit. Ah ty, this is what I was wondering, I figured the outrage was mostly posturing but still want to approach the issue outside of that drama. I mostly want to see where the audit results are published.
    - jberryman 6y ago
      Why not just read a newspaper?
sdenton4 6y ago
Seeing lots of throw-away accounts popping in to drop misinformation... At least five, by my quick count? Seems like it would be helpful to disable commenting for new-user/low-karma accounts for certain threads.
- guilhas 6y ago
  Opposing political views are badly taken on HN, so many people might create extra accounts to comment political posts? There is enough affidavits, and statistical anomalies to warrant an investigation. And until there is one, anyone is free to claim voter fraud. But nonetheless all comments claiming fraud to be tangentially possible are getting destroyed. Even though the media has been bragging how easy is to hack a voting machine after Trump 2016 win. After 20 million for "Russia collusion" which was badly founded, and resulted in not much, is there nothing to investigate this election? Or would it be too embarrassing? Until there is an investigation, there is no "misinformation", people should be free to express doubt, and support allegations of voter fraud.
  - jancsika 6y ago
    It looks to me like you've created a dichotomy between pre- and post-(hypothetical)-investigation discourse. From that dichotomy you then claim by fiat that no statements or allegations pre-investigation can be reasonably labeled as misinformation. That certainly doesn't follow, and neither does the flipped implication that it wouldn't be reasonable for someone to make a good faith claim of voter fraud after such an investigation. I'm not sure what to call this type of fallacy-- perhaps "phantom goal posts?"
    - guilhas 6y ago
      1. My point was the opposite, people should be free to make allegations of vote fraud, as they are to allege that it was fair. But blanket calling one side of the argument misinformation, is a waste of time for everyone, unless there is a good claim to back it up. An allegation of rape can be misinformation but it probably has to be investigated first? You shouldn't just call it misinformation without backing it up. 2. After an investigation you can still make claims, but you would be more liable to lawsuits. Or, in an online discussion, it would be more probable that you would be wasting everyone's time. e.g. people that keep insisting Trump works for Russia. For that we have conspiracy forums. Your comment was completely unnecessary. I'm not sure what to call it, perhaps "the phantom footbal referee"
x3n0ph3n3 6y ago
Is it just me, or does a name like "Dominion" in the context of voting just beg for conspiracy theories? The name seems _so_ anti-democratic.
xerxespoy 6y ago
Be great for threads like these if HN had both: 1) A block function so we could cut the massively-upvoted, one-sided comments and get to the impartial or contrary information buried underneath them. 2) A "unfade" button to see the massively-downvoted comments. I've generally found when threads take on this imbalanced and highly-polarised state, the stuff on the top isn't the cream.
- wvenable 6y ago
  I see no reason to provide additional support for threads with limited value to the HN community. If you want to discuss politics or general news there are plenty of sites for that.
  - jamiesonbecker 6y ago
    Not to put too fine a point on it, but this entire posting is literally a discussion of politics/general news. The tone of "I see no reason.. limited value" seems a bit condescending to what appears to be a sizable portion of HN that values intelligent debate, and there can be no debate with only one viewpoint.
    - wvenable 6y ago
      I'd have flagged it already but "voting machines" is vaguely tech related and it's still here. It appears you only care what a sizable portion of HN wants up to a point as they are the one's upvoting and downvoting the comments.
      - jamiesonbecker 6y ago
        > I'd have flagged it already but "voting machines" is vaguely tech related and it's still here. Agreed. > It appears you only care what a sizable portion of HN wants up to a point as they are the one's upvoting and downvoting the comments. Fair point, but in a flame war, HN runs a risk of having a one-sided discussion. Of course, some people believe that the losers in any particular forum should be silenced, because the majority view must be correct.
dstola 6y ago
Instead of filing massive law suits, why doesn't Dominion attempt to prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that the machines were _not_ biased with technical evidence. I feel that open sourcing their code would definitely do the trick. It is kinda baffling that something as important as an election is ran on closed-source proprietary codebase.
- detaro 6y ago
  And you think open-sourcing it would calm down the claims, and they wouldn't claim exactly the same + "well of course they didn't use the software they gave us the code for"?
- swiley 6y ago
  IMO: any database used for voting that doesn't always have monotonically increasing counts is questionable (regardless of what happened in 2020.)
  - javagram 6y ago
    Any voting machine that doesn’t have printed paper ballots is questionable and should not be used. Dominion machines do, unfortunately there are a few non-swing states that have fully electronic voting still.
- halfmatthalfcat 6y ago
  The precedent this would set would be disastrous. Any bad actor could try to force a company to release IP to prove they aren't acting maliciously. We have the legal discovery process for a reason.
  - dstola 6y ago
    My point is that unvetted IP/code shouldn't be used in democratically critical processes such as elections in the fist place, doing so increases the surface area of bad actors to act maliciously.
- sv123 6y ago
smm11 6y ago
Dump the damn Electoral College and count votes like a non-crazy person. Imagine how much we could cut out.
chrisco255 6y ago
I think it's nuts for a modern democracy to allow for anything but open source software being used to count paper ballots with chain-of-custody records, voter ID validation, biometric markings, and redacted ballots being published on the web for all to view and count independently. Software systems can easily be hacked, and it isn't easy to inspect and tell. A vote is a one time, one sided transaction. It's not as easy to detect fraud in an election as it is with say, a double entry banking record.
- mmazing 6y ago
  It's terrible to see some of the disinformation that is out there regarding open source software. Time and time again open source is shown to be the way to go, and you still hear lies about how it's not safe. I can already hear the politicians going on about how "being open source" lets "anyone put their own back door in! BE AFRAID!"
  - luxuryballs 6y ago
    Open source is good but there would need to also be some way to confirm that the last deployed binary was actually that source code, which with physical access to the machine you could always change. I don’t think computers should be used for this at all.
    - chrisco255 6y ago
      I think it would be acceptable to use digital scanners (themselves running open source code on open source hardware) to count physical ballots, with the caveat that the redacted ballots (personal info removed) are published the day after the election for anyone to count.
  - hota_mazi 6y ago
    They are not lies. Open source is not safer than closed source, unless you can verify with 100% certainty that the code you saw is the code that's running. And that's impossible. People who think open source is the solution to the voting challenge haven't given this problem much thought.
karmasimida 6y ago
Part of the problem here is, even if the voting system is unreliable...why would it favor one candidate over another? It should cancel each other out right?
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  Why would it do that? If its a bug, it could affect any candidate, all candidates, or a subset of candidates. And if its deliberate then its likely to be in favor of one candidate.
Thorentis 6y ago
Allowing a private company to used closed-source proprietary systems for democratic elections, and then allowing that company to sue people which call into question the validity of those systems, is peak Americanism. But of course, once Giuliani is inevitably sentenced with defamation, there will be articles everywhere saying how once again, democracy has triumphed. War is peace.
deathhand 6y ago
Fun fact: "off his rocker" appears three other times in this thread. It almost sounds like a talking point ..
- jamiesonbecker 6y ago
  Don't forget "crazy" and "nuts". Bonus points if you can fit all of them in a single comment.
bigmattystyles 6y ago
What gets lost sometimes is that Giuliani was a federal prosecutor. He's been exposed as a kook - many have known for a long time but if he's willing to do this for a now former president, imagine what he was willing to do when not many were paying attention and he was a prosecutor. If you got sent away for life and were prosecuted by Giuliani, you should almost get an automatic appeal.
emmelaich 6y ago
It used to be the case that accusations of voting machine related fraud came habitually and often from the left[0]. I wish we had open-source, publicly reviewed voting machines.. Diebold used to be the bête-noire of computer security people. Not particularly relevant but Dominion inherited Diebold with one of their acquisitions. 0. https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/11/13/8393084/index.htm https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006...
- smt88 6y ago
  The accusations in the article you linked are fact-based and mostly related to security. They're not comparable to the lunacy people are inventing about Dominion.
  - emmelaich 6y ago
    Yeah, I wasn't taking a position wrt to Dominion. I am saying it would be good to have much more confidence in the voting system than we have. From any political persuasion.
    - smt88 6y ago
      We have nonpartisan security researchers, as well as election experts from both sides, who say the election was secure. No state is totally leaving it up to machines. There are paper ballots as well as "sanity checks" throughout the process. The voting machines may have vulnerabilities, but there is bipartisan consensus that it wouldn't be possible to change election results without raising an alarm. For one thing, you couldn't predict which counties/states to tamper with ahead of time.
crmrc114 6y ago
I honestly was only following this a little but when Giuliani told me to buy his cigars with RUDY20 or some such nonsense during a video that was supposed to be about election fraud I just nope'd right out. Like, yeah if this is that important to you I would hope you would know not to cheapen the entire message as a paid advert for some no-name cigar company.
someonehere 6y ago
https://www.cnet.com/news/lawmakers-turn-to-hackers-at-def-con-to-get-election-security/ https://www.cnet.com/news/lawmakers-turn-to-hackers-at-def-c... It’s possible. If you DDG “voting machines defcon“ you’ll get articles of various manufacturers who have had voting machines broken into by DEFCON attendees. You can buy old voting machines on eBay. There’s plenty of evidence out there that ethical hackers proved machines can be tampered with. If ethical hackers can prove it’s possible, is it possible that votes could have been manipulated?
- sbelskie 6y ago
  But Giuliani has made specific and repeated claims that it did happen and that the company knowingly and intentionally aided in the commission of election fraud. This isn’t a lawsuit because someone said that election machines might be hackable or might have been compromised.
- thefreeman 6y ago
  which is why Krebs insisted on paper ballot backups. which were subsequently counted and found to match the original tabulations. all the voting machines do is print out a marked ballot, which the voter then checks for accuracy and scans into a tabulator.
bronzeage 6y ago
Other democratic countries are looking at the US elections with confusion. Voting machines are by design undemocratic even if they act exactly as advertised. They allow centralization of vote counting, they are opaque mechanism and single point of failure which by themselves can cast doubt on the whole process. The entire premise of democratic elections is that the government proves to the little citizen its supported by other citizens. A process which involves the government telling the little citizen the little citizen didn't provide evidence of widespread fraud isn't democratic, how can the little citizen hope to prove to the almighty government anything? I'm sickened by the thought the same sham notion of elections can reach my country with the support of Facebook and Twitter.
mythrwy 6y ago
You don't need fancy intriguing machines and hackers to engage in old school ballot stuffing. That has been going on since forever (_not_ a statement on the validity of the past election). Foreign agent hacker compromised machine stories are more interesting and shocking maybe. Still, after the Georgia recount you'd think they would have dropped the machine claims but they kept at it. Where did those stories originate in the first place though? And why? Maybe some of this will come to light during the lawsuits. Powell and Giuliani's behavior and claims seemed pretty far out to me. Maybe they were misled, maybe they were just foolish and looking for a sensational story. Hope we find out.

517 points by cf100clunk 6y ago

I sincerely hope that whatever happens with these lawsuits doesn't chill the speech of actual voting machine security research.

ashtonkem 6y ago
I’d be much more worried about the absolutely insane nonsense that Giuliani and his ilk have been spewing. That is far more damaging to voting machine research than this lawsuit.
- AzzieElbab 6y ago
  Wasn’t that the kraken thing that Giuliani wasn’t really involved with?
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    The claims Giuliani made against Dominion and it's voting equipment is verbose in articles related to this topic, as well as the case filing.
  - loonster 6y ago
    He wasn't. That was a Sidney Powell thing. I think this 4chan Post describes the Kraken very well: http://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/301180971/#301180971 http://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/301180971/#301180971 >This is my contribution to the Trump team's legal case against election fraud. The Kraken was a crowdsourced legal case that they were building with the help of hundreds of volunteer experts, but most of it never got to see the light of day. We were explicitly told not to release any information to the public because that could undermine their case, since it would expose our work to the ongoing media slander campaign and allow the defense to more easily prepare counterarguments. Clearly that's no longer a concern, so I'm publicly releasing my contribution to the case. >Interactive Colab notebook with code and full replication of findings: https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1PwiipIQif63EMCxGFYA9jAjL-8Y5cCE1?usp=sharing https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1PwiipIQif63EMCxGFYA... >The key takeaway of this analysis is that the Biden vs. Trump advantage of a vote tally reporting batch is highly (i.e. extremely) correlated with meta information about the counting process itself. This implies that if you counted the votes a different way you would have gotten a different final total, which is absolutely preposterous and a clear indicator of fraud. Additionally, we don't see this happen
    - tptacek 6y ago
      In case anyone else was about to waste a couple minutes of their life that they will never get back, a quick warning that you will never get the minutes of your life back that you lose paging through this very silly Python notebook, which was very clearly created to snow people who don't know what a Python notebook looks like.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
  As long as potentially hackable voting machines are used in elections, the anxiety about hacking will be there and will eventually be exploited by politicians. If we want to fix the issue, we really just need to move back to hand counting paper ballots.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    Dominion voting machines leave an auditable paper trail and thus do support hand-counting of paper ballots, which was done as part of the recounts in disputed states. No discrepancies beyond the margin of error of hand counting were found in those recounts vs the electronically reported results. You can see how they work in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9BDiO3JGTs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9BDiO3JGTs
    - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
      I'm not saying they were hacked. I'm saying the layman needs to be confident beyond a reasonable doubt. A normal non-security professional needs to understand and have confidence in the system they use to vote. Most people don't even know how to troubleshoot computer issues beyond rebooting, let alone understanding complex IT security or auditing measures put in place for these machines.
      - Me1000 6y ago
        If you watch the video you can see that a layman would easily understand how it all works. It literally prints a ballot where you can verify your choices, and you drop it off. This is pretty much the gold standard: a paper trail that can be audited every step of the process.
    - tunesmith 6y ago
      Still not sufficient though, you only need to hack enough to get outside the automatic recount margin. You also need hand-recount of random samples in all elections.
gameswithgo 6y ago
It has been fascinating to watch recent events unfold, wherein various horrible things including direct threats to democracy have happened due to people increasingly being able to just completely make up stuff, and spread it around readily and effectively on unfiltered internet mediums, and a great number of people's immediate concern is that free speech may get quelled too much which will do great harm. This here is another example, nobody did any voting security research, some Trump associates just made up the idea, and were able to easily spread that messages to millions of people, playing a large part in inciting an attempted coup. The maker of that device is now suing for damages, as they should, and your concern is free speech again. It seems almost performative.
- lovecg 6y ago
  That’s a story as old as time. Getting millions of people to believe a lie is not exactly an innovation.
DonHopkins 6y ago
Anyone actually involved in voting machine security research, and not just a fraudulent troll like Rudy Giuliani, welcomes this lawsuit. His unhinged spouting of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories has only harmed and discredited legitimate voting security research.
- the_local_host 6y ago
  It'll be a win/win situation if baseless allegations of fraud are punished, and every detail of how voting machines work, including source code, are made public.
  - tartoran 6y ago
    I agree but wouldn't making the source code becoming public make the machines more prone to hacking?
    - rtkwe 6y ago
      Not if they're well designed, if the security of the system depends on it's function being completely secret it's not secure.
      - tartoran 6y ago
        Yes, security by obfuscation is not good but imagine a bad actor discovers a bug and by the time the bug gets discovered and patched they could do a lot of harm in an election. Somehow I agree with the idea of making the code public only with the idea in mind that it gets scrutinized my more eyeballs but since we're talking about elections maybe this changes the perspective a bit?
        rtkwe 6y ago
        If you have the access to the machines to hack a number of them you likely already have the access to dump and analyze the source code, the physical access required is basically the same in both cases and getting the code initially is easier because you only need one machine (/maybe/ two to see if there's any interesting differences) where the final hack would require more. Also just because the code isn't released doesn't mean it's secure that same bad actor can theoretically hack the same code out of the writing company to start with. It's a debate we've had with secure messengers the benefit of having that many eyes on a piece of software outweighs the minor risk of a secret zero day.
user3939382 6y ago
I’m reminded of an xkcd alt text, “ There are lots of very smart people doing fascinating work on cryptographic voting protocols. We should be funding and encouraging them, and doing all our elections with paper ballots until everyone currently working in that field has retired.” https://xkcd.com/2030/ https://xkcd.com/2030/
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  Good thing Dominion voting machines do leave an auditable paper trail, which was hand-audited in all of these disputed states and which verified the electronically-reported results.
  - throwaway23242 6y ago
    what about reports out of michigan that audit trails / logs were missing for election night? https://www.depernolaw.com/uploads/2/7/0/2/27029178/antrim_michigan_forensics_report_%5B121320%5D_v2_%5Bredacted%5D.pdf https://www.depernolaw.com/uploads/2/7/0/2/27029178/antrim_m...
    - CydeWeys 6y ago
      Do you have a link to anything that has been established as true in court? Because that link is pants-on-fire lying: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/dec/04/russell-james-ramsland-jr/affidavit-michigan-lawsuit-seeking-overturn-electi/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/dec/04/russell-ja...
      - throwaway23242 6y ago
        oh, cabal fact checkers seem to say this link is garbage (do they though?). i will flog myself and pledge allegiance to the cabal to repent.
        gamblor956 6y ago
        Even a cursory review of the Ramsland report you linked to indicates it was largely fiction. From the politifact review: Ramsland lists "Fenton" without specifying Fenton City or Fenton Township. But the turnout Ramsland lists for Fenton does not match the turnout in either jurisdiction. The actual turnout statistics reveal the inaccuracy of Ramsland’s numbers. His figure for North Muskegon is off by a factor of 10: The actual number is 78.11%, not 781.91%. For Zeeland Charter Township, he inflated the turnout nearly sixfold. For Grout Township and the City of Muskegon, his number is more than triple the correct number.
nkassis 6y ago
Researchers usually have well research and evidence to back their claims which wouldn't put them at risk like Giuliani. Giuliani has also repeated these claims that have so far been unsubstantiated repeatedly even after being asked to retract them. There is some willful level malice implied in this lawsuit that is I think is not applicable to security researchers so I'm personally not worried but I do get the general sentiment whenever libel laws are brought up.
- DonHopkins 6y ago
  And researchers aren't usually operating under the delusionally optimistic assumption that they'll get $20,000 per day and a presidential pardon for their work.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    Let's see. $1 billion damages vs. earning $20,000 per day. Guiliani comes out ahead after 50,000 days. I kind of doubt he got that long...
elicash 6y ago
Why would it? Voting machine research isn't at issue in this case. What you're concerned about would require a change in law, if not the Constitution.
duxup 6y ago
>These pieces rely on discredited sources who have peddled debunked theories about Dominion's supposed ties to Venezuela, fraud on Dominion's machines that resulted in massive vote switching or weighted votes, and other claims falsely stating that there is credible evidence that Dominion acted fraudulently That's Dominion's statement. They're describing a pretty exceptional situation / distant from what I would think of as security research. Obviously that's not a legally binding statement or anything but I think that at least illustrates what this situation is about. This isn't a case of someone being mistaken or putting forth a good faith concern about security. These accusations are based in nothing at all, disproven, and Giuliani and others just kept at it. Researchers usually have actual evidence for concerns and so forth. And their motivations usually really is security. This situation with Giuliani and actual security research seem completely disconnected.
joshuakelly 6y ago
I think you have to be outside of America to have this perspective now, it's too drowned out inside to make sense to anyone who can only read it through the American lens. I would be less concerned with any particular legal case though, and more concerned with the chilling effects of American political culture itself. By its very nature, any supposedly disinterested researcher will now be viewed with intense suspicion.
tshaddox 6y ago
Do defamation lawsuits tend to chill speech that isn’t defamation? I would assume not.
3395810 6y ago
You think voting machines are suspect but just this one time there was nothing wrong with them?

williesleg 6y ago

Toronto? Weird.

yesdocs 6y ago

I hope whatever happens with these lawsuits it chills the baseless accusations of voter fraud used to undermine voter confidence in our democracy

tomp 6y ago
Won’t baseless accusations of no voter fraud undermine the confidence even more? After all, is there any evidence for voter fraud in Russia?
- bredren 6y ago
  This is not what is happening. Time and time again the repeated phrase is there is no evidence of _widespread_ voter fraud.
  - julienchastang 6y ago
    Or "sufficient voter fraud that would change the outcome of an election".
    - rtkwe 6y ago
      Yeah, there's a tiny smattering of cases (the most memorable ones to me being Republican voters trying to counter supposed fraud with some fraud of their own) that get caught but nowhere near enough to impact elections. Much more prevalent though is intentional voter disenfranchisement keeping people from voting and gerrymandering.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dragontamer 6y ago
  Presumably, the issue is baseless accusations in general. It doesn't matter what side a baseless claim happens: its bad either way. Dominion Voting Systems must prove that Rudy Giuliani was making up information to succeed in this court case. Unfortunately, defamation is surprisingly hard to win in the USA (which is why the US's Tabloid media can get so far with so many claims). Dominion Voting Systems is not a public figure however, its a company. That... probably makes it easier to win this case. Still, if Dominion's lawyers think that this case is worth pursuing (despite the difficulty of defamation / libel / slander), that doesn't bode well for Rudy.

AzzieElbab 6y ago

Subject makes it sound like TD bank is suing him

drogorbrn 6y ago
Not relevant to this topic, TD bank is one of the worst banking institution I have dealt with. Reading about them gives me nightmares.
- woofcat 6y ago
  Odd, I find they're the best. Hold $5k in your chequing account and _everything_ is free! Even got myself a safe deposit box. BMO has something similar but it's $6,000. The rest (last time I checked) didn't really offer something like that.
  - r00fus 6y ago
    Honestly, who uses a safe deposit box these days? And what would one use it for?
    - woofcat 6y ago
      Any important paperwork, or valuables you want held secure? I have some bars of precious metals, and contracts etc.
      - r00fus 6y ago
        Guess I'm surprised at having a decent personal net worth but nothing irreplaceable other than personal mementos.
        woofcat 6y ago
        Wills, marriage certificates, birth certificates, etc etc. All replaceable sure, however you almost never need to use them and if your home burns down you're going to hate that extra pain in the ass after the fact. I'm sure I could avoid using one, for instance getting a fire safe. However since the bank offers it for free, why not use it? Also, you have the option of offsite storage for any media backups. There is always the "Cloud" however sometimes it's nice to know your wedding photos are in a secure location.

rpiguyshy 6y ago

before donald trump was ever in office, i always believed that these voting machines are complete bullshit. our entire voting system is bullshit. and it would be easy to fix. these machines have been shown to be massively flawed and vulnerable to hacking/tinkering. again, this was my opinion before donald trump was elected.

tartoran 6y ago
What are these based on? Are these just opinions?
- worldsayshi 6y ago
  Voter machines being unreliable has seemed to be the prevailing opinion in hacker news and similar circles until now. Are they suddenly all okay because Giuliani has spread bs about them?
  - pwinnski 6y ago
    Voting machines without a paper trail have been deemed unreliable, and still should be deemed unreliable. These machines are used to generate an authoritative paper ballot, which is exactly what critics have demanded. A prevailing opinion about apples doesn't apply to oranges.
    - worldsayshi 6y ago
      I don't see the point of a voting machine with a paper trail. You get preliminary statistics a bit faster and you get people used to the idea of voting machines.
      - dboreham 6y ago
        The paper emulates a blockchain.
      - sct202 6y ago

yalogin 6y ago

Unfortunately this is not a good thing for Dominion in the long term. The cult made up lies and successfully convinced a large population its real and the whole party brass is in on the scam. However this is a terrible situation for Dominion. They are forced to sue to prove they are not in the wrong, however that will spun as choosing sides and they could be kicked out when the contract ends. For the cult, this company and the service they provide is just another cog that should be controlled and they will try to get some enabler in there.

throwaway23242 6y ago
was their headquarters in toronto really next door to a soros outfit's officespace?
worldsayshi 6y ago
I mean why do you use voting machines anyway? Manual voting is perfectly adequate and much more transparent and understandable. If this leads to voting machines being pulled then at least something good came out of it?
tptacek 6y ago
There is no good thing for Dominion in the long term. They have, in fact, suffered irreparable damage. The lawsuits here are not performative.
- patwolfe 6y ago
  Yeah, isn't the reason they are suing that the lawsuits have caused long-term damage... not sure what the above poster was getting at with their comment.
jfengel 6y ago
$1.3 billion would provide them some comfort.

seanalltogether 6y ago

I remember a lot of accusation about Diebold voting back in the 2000s, and concerns about lack of auditability. My understanding is that newer systems now let you vote at a machine, but it spits out a receipt that the voter can verify and the county can hold on to for the sake of audits and recounts. Is this standard now, or on a state by state basis?

csours 6y ago
Worse, depending on state it may be statewide, or county by county.
reaperducer 6y ago
My understanding is that newer systems now let you vote at a machine, but it spits out a receipt that the county can hold on to for the sake of audits and recounts. Not new. I've had paper voting receipts for at least 15 years. Probably longer. Is this standard now, or on a state by state basis? There are no voting machine standards. It varies by state, and in some states by county. Some people see that as a flaw. I see the diversity of voting systems as a security plus. There was even an article in the newspaper shortly after the election stating that certain foreign governments looked into hacking America's voting systems, but it wasn't worth the effort because they were all constructed and implemented differently.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
  How can I be sure that my paper ballot receipt that I’m holding matches the ballot that was actually submitted?
adrr 6y ago
Dominion voting machines in Georgia is literally a computer hooked up to a printer that prints out a ballot for you that you turn in. Ballots are then scanned to get the results.
HNfriend234 6y ago
Yup. I think there is room for a lot more transparency and "double-checks" so to speaks built into voting going forward. Allow each voter to audit their own vote. We have the technology to allow for this to happen so there really is no excuse. This is really how you build confidence is the voting system. Anyone who is truly skeptical can cast their own vote and double-check it though the system. I know quite a few people that fully believe that voting is effectively a sham now.

jes 6y ago

Did Dominion create, for example, FMEA analyses during their software development efforts? Such analyses are de rigueur in the development of software in regulated industries (medical devices, aviation, etc.) Should the development of election systems software be regulated?

justinzollars 6y ago

I worked on campaigns for 10 years, I was an elected Hillary Rodham Clinton DNC Delegate and I witnessed real problems that should be of concern of every American. Votes should be cast in person, with identification and counted by hand. If Democracy is sacred we can wait a few days for results we can all trust. The system is clearly breaking down today where 75% of Republicans do not trust the election results and 75% of Democrats didn't trust the 2016 election.

the_drunkard 6y ago
Can you elaborate on this? I'm very interested, especially given your perspective. The 2004 election also had its fair share of electronic voting criticism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_United_States_election_voting_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_United_States_election_vo...
- justinzollars 6y ago
  Sure, What I saw was this. The voter file was completely inaccurate. It was very common to go to a residence where voters: a. had moved b. had died c. had multiple 12+ voters currently registered at one apartment address, none of whom live there. From my perspective there are real issues with sending unsolicited mail in ballots to homes because the government does such a bad job managing the voter file. Often it is deliberately mismanaged because "purging" a file is a loaded political term. Who wants to be that guy who deletes voters? Moreover, my role as a campaign staffer was to collect votes. Often, people would ask "what do I vote for?", and I would just point and tell them what to vote for. This is also common. It also feels unethical. Based on this experience, I strongly support voting in person, with an ID. Don't trust me. If you would like to see this for yourself, volunteer with a campaign (any party) and canvass an apartment building in a swing state.
  - the_drunkard 6y ago
    > Based on this experience, I strongly support voting in person, with an ID. Shhh, a view like this will get you banned from Twitter... ;)

the_drunkard 6y ago

I think this is a good thing, hopefully it will bring to light any flaws that may exist in Dominion voting systems while testing whether any of these grandiose claims hold up to scrutiny. And folks, let's not act like this is the first time voting systems have been scrutinized.

ily_dominion 6y ago

I'm actually really proud of Dominion here. We went from 2016 being totally hacked, and we all know it, and then in 2020 we had the most secure election in history. What a turn around!

pupdogg 6y ago

The article states that at one point in time, at a voluntary hearing in Michigan, Dominion CEO said "It is technologically impossible to see votes being counted in real-time or to flip them". I think that everybody here is fairly technically inclined so what are your guys thoughts on this? My personal opinion is that using the term "technologically impossible" in this instance was not a good idea. If @antirez is reading this, would love if you could provide any useful insights. FYI, I ask becuase of your background in research and development of "TCP Idle Scan" back in '98.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
yielding 6y ago
The claim that the CEO is disputing is that the Dominion machines are operated from a central location which can monitor and control the outcome of any action taken with one of their machines. The "technology" is specifically referring to the Dominion system, not "technology" in general. If the Dominion system does not include remote access, if it doesn't include remote monitoring and if it doesn't include remote vote management then "technologically impossible" is a fair statement. They are not arguing that it is impossible for such a system to ever be built, they're arguing that their system is not built that way. Voting machines are audited and have a chain of custody, it would be very difficult to argue that "someone could hack all the machines and install this capability" fits within the realm of possibility.
throwawaygh 6y ago
> It is technologically impossible to see votes being counted in real-time or to flip them Dominion machines aren't on the internet. Dominion doesn't have centralized access to all of their machines. Could they eg send out an army of technicians to every voting location and use some insane side-channel attack to physically read and flip bits from across the street? Sure. But by that logic it's also "not impossible" for you or I to launch the US nuclear arsenal. I think saying that "it is technologically possible to see votes being counted in real-time or to flip them" is "technically correct" but obviously not actually correct in any reasonable sense.

tptacek 6y ago

Ken White has been talking about the potential for this suit for a couple weeks now. He spends a lot of time talking about what isn't defamation --- people use defamation suits and threats thereof to chill free speech, and he's a 1st Amendment guy --- but the Dominion cases are apparently examples of very serious defamation cases. The core of defamation is (1) a false statement of purported fact that (2) causes damage (there are some exceptions to (2) that aren't relevant here). Most defamation cases you hear about fall apart on (1) - they target non-falsifiable statements of opinion, which can't be defamation because they don't purport to relate an objective fact. What makes Dominion's cases terrifying is that they are chock full of purported facts, all of which are batshit, and have so devastated Dominion's reputation, in a reputation-intensive business, that it had to hire private security to protect its employees from death threats. What makes the case challenging for Dominion is that they will almost certainly be treated as a public figure for the purposes of the case. The standard for defamation of a public figure is higher than that of a normal person; we add a condition (3): actual malice or negligence, meaning Dominion must show that Giuliani either intended to destroy Dominion's reputation by spreading facts he knew to be false, or that he was at least negligent, acting with reckless disregard for the truth. The problem is that it's not totally clear whether Giuliani believed any of his crazy-talk. It may actually be the case that Giuliani is just off his rocker. If he himself was sold by the (false) facts he received from others, he is a more difficult defamation target. Here's attorney Akiva Cohen analyzing the case a bit: https://twitter.com/AkivaMCohen/status/1353700596407283721 https://twitter.com/AkivaMCohen/status/1353700596407283721

javajosh 6y ago
"[Dominion will probable be] treated as a public figure." Why? I'd never heard of them before November 2020, and I imagine that is true for most people. I'd also be curious to learn more about what counts as "reckless disregard for the truth", if you're willing to share.
- hajile 6y ago
  Most people (even people who follow politics) weren’t familiar with Obama before 2007 election cycle. The Covenant Kid was thrust into the media and when he sued for defamation, at least some judges accepted the claim that he was a public figure — even though he was suing over the very thing that thrust him into the national spotlight.

caminocorner 6y ago

Interesting. Defamation aside, FUD, and 'fraud' claims aside, I hope this gets enough attention that they will actually fix the very real issues voting machines have had for the past decade: https://securityboulevard.com/2019/09/voting-machines-still-stupidly-insecure-say-defcon-hackers/ https://securityboulevard.com/2019/09/voting-machines-still-...

stevenalowe 6y ago

“It is technologically impossible to see votes being counted in real-time or to flip them” I wonder how they debugged the code then

dboreham 6y ago

Casting our minds back to Texas Cattlemen vs Oprah..

cwkoss 6y ago

I've heard reports of cronyism and incompetence around Georgia's electronic voting going back several years (don't remember if Dominion was the company used back then). Slightly worried this precedent could not just be used against crackpots, but also legitimate voting security researchers and watchdogs.

JakeTheAndroid 6y ago
Would security researchers or watchdogs go around and say things publicly without evidence to defend their claims? Because thats what opened up Rudy for this lawsuit. He made unsubstantiated claims that possibly damaged the reputation of the company. How would this be used against researchers or watchdogs in your opinion?
- cwkoss 6y ago
  Voting Machine Company: "Our machines are 100% secure. The security consultant we paid to tell us that agrees." Researcher: "Your machines have USB ports exposed, can flash firmware, connected to the internet, don't produce an auditable paper trail, and I hacked into a machine personally. 100% secure is demonstrably false." Voting Machine Company: "Well, a third party verified that it is 100% secure so we're going to sue you (and probably not win) but it will cost you tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend, unless you cease and desist."
  - charonn0 6y ago
    Guiliani didn't say any of those things.
  - JakeTheAndroid 6y ago
    Okay, but that wouldn't open up the researcher for a lawsuit, it would just provide the company with a PR leg to stand on. Nothing about this case is similar to what you outlined, and would not meet the legal requirements for a successful libel or slander case. If any company comes out and says the product 100% secure, the tech community basically scoffs at them. It's not a good PR strategy for a company anyways. Now, relying on the reputation of another firm through audits is a totally normal way of doing business. This does not compete with researchers, and has by and large included researchers (stuff like Bug Bounty/Responsible Disclosure programs) as a good control. So any researcher looking for this stuff would likely have a protected way to disclose their findings. Further, this is supported by another compliance body in the SEC via SOX. There has to be a protected whistleblower program for publicly traded companies. So, the ability to disclose security gaps is not neutered in any way by this court case, no matter how it plays out.

liquidify 6y ago

I'm curious why open source voting software and hardware isn't universally required.

starik36 6y ago
We don't know what's in Dominion's source. The code should be open sourced. The binary that's being used should have a checksum that can be easily checked by an election monitor.

dukeofdoom 6y ago

Rudy has a YouTube channel, you can hear him make his allegations and judge if it amounts to defamation. Most of them seem to be carefully phrased. https://www.youtube.com/c/RudyWGiuliani/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/RudyWGiuliani/videos Of all the claims that stuck out to me is the suitcase video, since it time corresponds with a one sided spike of votes.

trhway 6y ago
With DVS being SolarWinds client who needs the suitcases :)
unanswered 6y ago
I wish someone would honestly respond to the suitcase video, but I haven't seen any attempted defense of it yet. I would really prefer not to believe Giuliani, and yet that video is pretty damn hard to get around. None of it matters, of course, because realpolitik, and the biggest sin of the viking cosplayers was believing that any of this evidence matters.
- wlesieutre 6y ago
  >I haven't seen any attempted defense of it yet Ok but did you look? https://www.wsbtv.com/news/politics/georgia-election-officials-show-frame-by-frame-what-really-happened-fulton-surveillance-video/T5M3PYIBYFHFFOD3CIB2ULDVDE/ https://www.wsbtv.com/news/politics/georgia-election-officia...
  - purchaceallsus 6y ago
    Isn't this contradicted by reporters at the time saying that they were sent home for the night? Do we have video and audio of the event in question? edit: rather than downvoting me, please engage with the question so others can learn.
    - wlesieutre 6y ago
      The ballots were on camera in the room the entire time, if reporters had been sent home they still wouldn't have appeared out of a mystery suitcase. They were sealed on camera, then unsealed on camera, and counted on camera. They have been counted and recounted and recounted. I don't know if reporters were "sent home" as you are claiming, or if they "left" as described by this video when election employees were initially closing up for the night, but either way the monitors and media saw those ballots go into the boxes and Giuliani was still lying about where they came from.

N1H1L 6y ago

By the way, Dominion sued Powell for a similar amount two weeks back too. And FWIW, there are absolutely ZERO Fox News articles on either lawsuits, while every other news org covered it. I wonder why

favorited 6y ago
Dominion sent document-retention notices to Fox News and other right-wing media outlets, so they might end up on the receiving end of a suit of their own.

arminiusreturns 6y ago

This is hn and we should recognize the inherent weakness in electronic voting machines for the blatant issue it is. That said, the primary retort I keep seeing is something along the lines of "well, but these produce an auditable paper ballot". So my question is this: How much of those auditable trails have actually been audited, in what places, and in what numbers (I don't think spot checks will suffice to reassure people, the numbers need to be a statistically significant percentage in the most contested places), and, more importantly where are the results of these audits being published?

useerup 6y ago
The entire state of Georgia. where Guiliani alledged that votes were "switched" by Dominion machines, were in fact hand counted and affirmed the machine-counted tally. Even after the hand-count clearly confirmed that the machines had not switched any votes, Guiliani spread the same lie. This is actually documented in the suit. Mind you, it is not that the vote-tally machines leave a paper audit trail. The vote-tally machines work by scanning the actual paper ballots.
- arminiusreturns 6y ago
  > This is actually documented in the suit. Ah ty, this is what I was wondering, I figured the outrage was mostly posturing but still want to approach the issue outside of that drama. I mostly want to see where the audit results are published.
  - jberryman 6y ago
    Why not just read a newspaper?

sdenton4 6y ago

Seeing lots of throw-away accounts popping in to drop misinformation... At least five, by my quick count? Seems like it would be helpful to disable commenting for new-user/low-karma accounts for certain threads.

guilhas 6y ago
Opposing political views are badly taken on HN, so many people might create extra accounts to comment political posts? There is enough affidavits, and statistical anomalies to warrant an investigation. And until there is one, anyone is free to claim voter fraud. But nonetheless all comments claiming fraud to be tangentially possible are getting destroyed. Even though the media has been bragging how easy is to hack a voting machine after Trump 2016 win. After 20 million for "Russia collusion" which was badly founded, and resulted in not much, is there nothing to investigate this election? Or would it be too embarrassing? Until there is an investigation, there is no "misinformation", people should be free to express doubt, and support allegations of voter fraud.
- jancsika 6y ago
  It looks to me like you've created a dichotomy between pre- and post-(hypothetical)-investigation discourse. From that dichotomy you then claim by fiat that no statements or allegations pre-investigation can be reasonably labeled as misinformation. That certainly doesn't follow, and neither does the flipped implication that it wouldn't be reasonable for someone to make a good faith claim of voter fraud after such an investigation. I'm not sure what to call this type of fallacy-- perhaps "phantom goal posts?"
  - guilhas 6y ago
    1. My point was the opposite, people should be free to make allegations of vote fraud, as they are to allege that it was fair. But blanket calling one side of the argument misinformation, is a waste of time for everyone, unless there is a good claim to back it up. An allegation of rape can be misinformation but it probably has to be investigated first? You shouldn't just call it misinformation without backing it up. 2. After an investigation you can still make claims, but you would be more liable to lawsuits. Or, in an online discussion, it would be more probable that you would be wasting everyone's time. e.g. people that keep insisting Trump works for Russia. For that we have conspiracy forums. Your comment was completely unnecessary. I'm not sure what to call it, perhaps "the phantom footbal referee"

x3n0ph3n3 6y ago

Is it just me, or does a name like "Dominion" in the context of voting just beg for conspiracy theories? The name seems _so_ anti-democratic.

xerxespoy 6y ago

Be great for threads like these if HN had both: 1) A block function so we could cut the massively-upvoted, one-sided comments and get to the impartial or contrary information buried underneath them. 2) A "unfade" button to see the massively-downvoted comments. I've generally found when threads take on this imbalanced and highly-polarised state, the stuff on the top isn't the cream.

wvenable 6y ago
I see no reason to provide additional support for threads with limited value to the HN community. If you want to discuss politics or general news there are plenty of sites for that.
- jamiesonbecker 6y ago
  Not to put too fine a point on it, but this entire posting is literally a discussion of politics/general news. The tone of "I see no reason.. limited value" seems a bit condescending to what appears to be a sizable portion of HN that values intelligent debate, and there can be no debate with only one viewpoint.
  - wvenable 6y ago
    I'd have flagged it already but "voting machines" is vaguely tech related and it's still here. It appears you only care what a sizable portion of HN wants up to a point as they are the one's upvoting and downvoting the comments.
    - jamiesonbecker 6y ago
      > I'd have flagged it already but "voting machines" is vaguely tech related and it's still here. Agreed. > It appears you only care what a sizable portion of HN wants up to a point as they are the one's upvoting and downvoting the comments. Fair point, but in a flame war, HN runs a risk of having a one-sided discussion. Of course, some people believe that the losers in any particular forum should be silenced, because the majority view must be correct.

dstola 6y ago

Instead of filing massive law suits, why doesn't Dominion attempt to prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that the machines were _not_ biased with technical evidence. I feel that open sourcing their code would definitely do the trick. It is kinda baffling that something as important as an election is ran on closed-source proprietary codebase.

detaro 6y ago
And you think open-sourcing it would calm down the claims, and they wouldn't claim exactly the same + "well of course they didn't use the software they gave us the code for"?
swiley 6y ago
IMO: any database used for voting that doesn't always have monotonically increasing counts is questionable (regardless of what happened in 2020.)
- javagram 6y ago
  Any voting machine that doesn’t have printed paper ballots is questionable and should not be used. Dominion machines do, unfortunately there are a few non-swing states that have fully electronic voting still.
halfmatthalfcat 6y ago
The precedent this would set would be disastrous. Any bad actor could try to force a company to release IP to prove they aren't acting maliciously. We have the legal discovery process for a reason.
- dstola 6y ago
  My point is that unvetted IP/code shouldn't be used in democratically critical processes such as elections in the fist place, doing so increases the surface area of bad actors to act maliciously.
sv123 6y ago

smm11 6y ago

Dump the damn Electoral College and count votes like a non-crazy person. Imagine how much we could cut out.

chrisco255 6y ago

I think it's nuts for a modern democracy to allow for anything but open source software being used to count paper ballots with chain-of-custody records, voter ID validation, biometric markings, and redacted ballots being published on the web for all to view and count independently. Software systems can easily be hacked, and it isn't easy to inspect and tell. A vote is a one time, one sided transaction. It's not as easy to detect fraud in an election as it is with say, a double entry banking record.

mmazing 6y ago
It's terrible to see some of the disinformation that is out there regarding open source software. Time and time again open source is shown to be the way to go, and you still hear lies about how it's not safe. I can already hear the politicians going on about how "being open source" lets "anyone put their own back door in! BE AFRAID!"
- luxuryballs 6y ago
  Open source is good but there would need to also be some way to confirm that the last deployed binary was actually that source code, which with physical access to the machine you could always change. I don’t think computers should be used for this at all.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    I think it would be acceptable to use digital scanners (themselves running open source code on open source hardware) to count physical ballots, with the caveat that the redacted ballots (personal info removed) are published the day after the election for anyone to count.
- hota_mazi 6y ago
  They are not lies. Open source is not safer than closed source, unless you can verify with 100% certainty that the code you saw is the code that's running. And that's impossible. People who think open source is the solution to the voting challenge haven't given this problem much thought.

karmasimida 6y ago

Part of the problem here is, even if the voting system is unreliable...why would it favor one candidate over another? It should cancel each other out right?

chordalkeyboard 6y ago
Why would it do that? If its a bug, it could affect any candidate, all candidates, or a subset of candidates. And if its deliberate then its likely to be in favor of one candidate.

Thorentis 6y ago

Allowing a private company to used closed-source proprietary systems for democratic elections, and then allowing that company to sue people which call into question the validity of those systems, is peak Americanism. But of course, once Giuliani is inevitably sentenced with defamation, there will be articles everywhere saying how once again, democracy has triumphed. War is peace.

deathhand 6y ago

Fun fact: "off his rocker" appears three other times in this thread. It almost sounds like a talking point ..

jamiesonbecker 6y ago
Don't forget "crazy" and "nuts". Bonus points if you can fit all of them in a single comment.

bigmattystyles 6y ago

What gets lost sometimes is that Giuliani was a federal prosecutor. He's been exposed as a kook - many have known for a long time but if he's willing to do this for a now former president, imagine what he was willing to do when not many were paying attention and he was a prosecutor. If you got sent away for life and were prosecuted by Giuliani, you should almost get an automatic appeal.

emmelaich 6y ago

It used to be the case that accusations of voting machine related fraud came habitually and often from the left[0]. I wish we had open-source, publicly reviewed voting machines.. Diebold used to be the bête-noire of computer security people. Not particularly relevant but Dominion inherited Diebold with one of their acquisitions. 0. https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/11/13/8393084/index.htm https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006...

smt88 6y ago
The accusations in the article you linked are fact-based and mostly related to security. They're not comparable to the lunacy people are inventing about Dominion.
- emmelaich 6y ago
  Yeah, I wasn't taking a position wrt to Dominion. I am saying it would be good to have much more confidence in the voting system than we have. From any political persuasion.
  - smt88 6y ago
    We have nonpartisan security researchers, as well as election experts from both sides, who say the election was secure. No state is totally leaving it up to machines. There are paper ballots as well as "sanity checks" throughout the process. The voting machines may have vulnerabilities, but there is bipartisan consensus that it wouldn't be possible to change election results without raising an alarm. For one thing, you couldn't predict which counties/states to tamper with ahead of time.

crmrc114 6y ago

I honestly was only following this a little but when Giuliani told me to buy his cigars with RUDY20 or some such nonsense during a video that was supposed to be about election fraud I just nope'd right out. Like, yeah if this is that important to you I would hope you would know not to cheapen the entire message as a paid advert for some no-name cigar company.

someonehere 6y ago

https://www.cnet.com/news/lawmakers-turn-to-hackers-at-def-con-to-get-election-security/ https://www.cnet.com/news/lawmakers-turn-to-hackers-at-def-c... It’s possible. If you DDG “voting machines defcon“ you’ll get articles of various manufacturers who have had voting machines broken into by DEFCON attendees. You can buy old voting machines on eBay. There’s plenty of evidence out there that ethical hackers proved machines can be tampered with. If ethical hackers can prove it’s possible, is it possible that votes could have been manipulated?

sbelskie 6y ago
But Giuliani has made specific and repeated claims that it did happen and that the company knowingly and intentionally aided in the commission of election fraud. This isn’t a lawsuit because someone said that election machines might be hackable or might have been compromised.
thefreeman 6y ago
which is why Krebs insisted on paper ballot backups. which were subsequently counted and found to match the original tabulations. all the voting machines do is print out a marked ballot, which the voter then checks for accuracy and scans into a tabulator.

bronzeage 6y ago

Other democratic countries are looking at the US elections with confusion. Voting machines are by design undemocratic even if they act exactly as advertised. They allow centralization of vote counting, they are opaque mechanism and single point of failure which by themselves can cast doubt on the whole process. The entire premise of democratic elections is that the government proves to the little citizen its supported by other citizens. A process which involves the government telling the little citizen the little citizen didn't provide evidence of widespread fraud isn't democratic, how can the little citizen hope to prove to the almighty government anything? I'm sickened by the thought the same sham notion of elections can reach my country with the support of Facebook and Twitter.

mythrwy 6y ago

You don't need fancy intriguing machines and hackers to engage in old school ballot stuffing. That has been going on since forever (_not_ a statement on the validity of the past election). Foreign agent hacker compromised machine stories are more interesting and shocking maybe. Still, after the Georgia recount you'd think they would have dropped the machine claims but they kept at it. Where did those stories originate in the first place though? And why? Maybe some of this will come to light during the lawsuits. Powell and Giuliani's behavior and claims seemed pretty far out to me. Maybe they were misled, maybe they were just foolish and looking for a sensational story. Hope we find out.