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But that's the thing about Dominion -- their machines do generate a paper trail, and this paper trail was audited. One of the big pushes to secure this election

But that's the thing about Dominion -- their machines do generate a paper trail, and this paper trail was audited. One of the big pushes to secure this election compared to previous ones was to use as many voting machines with auditable paper trails as possible.

pdonis 6y ago
> their machines do generate a paper trail Not the same kind of paper trail that exists when a voter fills out a paper ballot. If I fill out a paper ballot, that ballot is independent evidence of the votes I intended to cast, because I filled it out directly, with no machine in the middle. So that paper ballot is a useful auditing mechanism for checking on machine-generated vote counts. If I electronically cast votes on a machine, and the machine prints out a paper record of my ballot, unless I, the voter, leave some record that I inspected that piece of paper and agree that it reflects the votes I intended to cast, it's useless as an auditing mechanism. As far as I can tell, no such voter inspection record is made with electronic voting machines.
- athenot 6y ago
  Since I voted in Georgia on these machines, the process is the following: - get ID validated & ability to vote - get an initialized smart card - insert in polling machine, fill out stuff - submit, get printout from printer - scan printout into a machine - return smart card At the polling places I was at (we had a runoff), the staff + signage was emphasizing to check results on printout. The printing and the scanning felt terribly wasteful but as it turned out, it became a precious way to audit. The bonus is that the printout is normalized, not some person's handwriting that could be subject to misinterpretation.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    So you take the printout from one machine and insert it into another to be scanned? I agree that would satisfy auditability, since you can look at the printout and make sure it's correct. Were these Dominion voting machines?
    - enzanki_ars 6y ago
      In Ohio, we used the same Dominion voting systems with the same process: Poll worker validates proper ID, get ballot code for your precinct, walk to voting system, poll worker enters the precinct, voter validates info on screen, voter votes on the touch screen, system prints out choices, walk to scanner system, vote gets scanned, scanner stores those ballots in it's tray in case need for audit.
      - djrogers 6y ago
        I feel so disconnected from this process here in California - I haven't been asked for ID to vote ever. AFAIK, we're not allowed to verify ID here...
        CydeWeys 6y ago
        It's a good thing not doing it. ID verification disenfranchises way more people than fraudulent votes prevented.
        Akronymus 6y ago
        I thought that ID was already basically required to be able to live a acceptable life in the US.
        Bjartr 6y ago
        That isn't mutually exclusive with the idea a non-trivial number of people lack them.
        pdonis 6y ago
        > ID verification disenfranchises How so? How many eligible voters don't already have government issued IDs?
        jcranmer 6y ago
  - pilotneko 6y ago
    A very similar process in Tennessee. I'm not sure if the machine was made by Dominion, but I had a chance to review the printout before scanning. The printout appeared to pass through the scanner and into a locked container beneath, presumably for actual paper audits.
  - throwaway31831 6y ago
    This isn't how mail-in ballots work, though. For mail-in ballots, a hand-filled ballot is scanned, and if there's a discrepancy it gets corrected then re-printed by an official in a process called adjudication. This is supposed to be done in front of an observer from both parties so security checks like signature matching can be performed, which was not done as evidenced in the Fulton county video footage. Mail-in voting creates the opportunity for mass manufacturing ballots as well as hijacking ballot adjudication processes, especially if you block bipartisan observation to circumvent security checks put in place specifically to mitigate these types of fraud. And "hand recounts" would not uncover these issues. [1] You don't need "widespread" fraud to overturn an election. Biden only won 16% of counties. Only a few key counties need to be targeted to flip a national election. [1] https://billmoyers.com/story/georgias-hand-count-of-2020-ballots-was-no-risk-limiting-audit/ https://billmoyers.com/story/georgias-hand-count-of-2020-bal...
    - javagram 6y ago
      Why are you talking about mail-in ballots in a thread about Dominion Voting Systems? Mail-in ballots work the same way they have since 1864. You fill out a paper ballot and mail it back. > Biden only won 16% of counties. Only a few key counties need to be targeted to flip a national election. 16% of counties - when more than half the US population lives in just 4.6% of the counties. Remember that many counties are nearly empty and have few voters. Due to the rural/urban political divide, sparsely populated rural counties typically vote for the GOP in recent elections while densely populated suburbs and cities lean more towards the Democrats. Biden’s numbers in general were similar to Hillary’s in 2016, but he gained ground in the suburbs due to white educated voters fleeing from Trump after the last 4 years. There is no indication that a “few key counties” were targeted - the shift was seen in all 50 states. Compare Texas suburban county votes in 2016 to 2020.
      - throwaway31831 6y ago
        > Why are you talking about mail-in ballots in a thread about Dominion Voting Systems? Mail-in ballots get counted by machines.
- ChrisLomont 6y ago
  Conversely, hand filled out ballots are a mess, often illegible, the hanging chad fiasco, etc. With electronic voting, the voter can (should?) see on a screen exactly what they did, and the machine can make multiple exact copies in electronic and paper formats of that exact result. There is far less ambiguity in the physical record once this has been done.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    I agree that if the electronic voting machine is just helping you print out an easily legible copy of your ballot, which you then verify for correctness and take to another machine to have it scanned for counting, that's a good thing, for the reasons you give. Not only does it help with auditability since the physical record is more standardized, it also probably reduces the error rate of automated counting. What I'm not sure about is whether that is actually the way it is done for all electronic voting machines.
    - lern_too_spel 6y ago
      It is the way it is done for all Dominion voting machines, which replaced Diebold AccuVote machines (which did not leave a paper trail) in Georgia in 2019.
  - rwmj 6y ago
    The UK has paper-only ballots and none of this stuff is a problem. (There are no "hanging chads" because ballots are marked by the voter with a pen or pencil on a piece of paper). The polls close at 10pm, the votes are counted overnight by volunteers, and the winner takes office the next morning. It always baffles me that the US system is so complicated.
    - pdonis 6y ago
      > There are no "hanging chads" because ballots are marked by the voter with a pen or pencil on a piece of paper This is how it is done in many US jurisdictions as well (including all the ones I have voted in).
    - 6y ago
- birdman3131 6y ago
  Its kinda hard not to see how you voted at least around here. It is printed off in fairly large print on the paper ballot which is then taken to a separate machine to actually tally the votes. (No clue as to the brand used though. At a ~65% trump vote my vote was worthless anyways though so why pay attention to the machines.)
  - purchaceallsus 6y ago
    The issue had to do with mail in votes. Those are not viewed by the vote caster when the machine processes them.
- perydell 6y ago
  The electronic voting machines I use in Southern California actually print my selections on a piece of paper that I can look at under a little piece of plastic. I approve that it shows my votes accurately and then the paper slides away. Presumably kept with the machine so an audit could be done.
- tshaddox 6y ago
  That doesn't seem much different than saying that a traditional hand-filled ballot doesn't leave a useful paper trail because there's no evidence that the voter placed the pen markings where they intended to place them. Which, in fact, is an argument that's been made before with hand-filled ballots.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > a traditional hand-filled ballot doesn't leave a useful paper trail because there's no evidence that the voter placed the pen markings where they intended to place them But that's on me, the voter; it's up to me to check that my ballot reflects my intent before I submit it to be counted. If I make a mistake, I can always ask for a new ballot. So the paper ballot reflects what I, the voter, submitted to be counted, and that's the best that could possibly be done as far as an audit trail is concerned.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  In NY, you do fill out a paper ballot, it's scanned, done. I assume they keep the ballots in case they need to count them... I was curious who makes the voting machines that are used here. It's apparently a company called ES&S: "Election Systems and Software (ES&S) 11208 John Galt Blvd, Omaha NE" https://www.essvote.com/ https://www.essvote.com/
  - TigeriusKirk 6y ago
    > John Galt Blvd Someone has a sense of humor, at least.
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      It must be an accident/coincidence? It would worry me if it's not.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  >unless I, the voter, leave some record that I inspected that piece of paper and agree that it reflects the votes I intended to cast, it's useless as an auditing mechanism If the voter can easily see that the ballot reflects their choices, then it's not useless as an auditing mechanism. That's hyperbole. Remember, if there is massive/systematic fraud going on, then every instance doesn't have to be caught to uncover it.
luxuryballs 6y ago
The adjudication process is where things get dicey though, if the machine seems a ballot unreadable it defers to the machine operator to tell it which candidate was selected, and this accuracy is a configurable threshold.

pdonis 6y ago

> their machines do generate a paper trail Not the same kind of paper trail that exists when a voter fills out a paper ballot. If I fill out a paper ballot, that ballot is independent evidence of the votes I intended to cast, because I filled it out directly, with no machine in the middle. So that paper ballot is a useful auditing mechanism for checking on machine-generated vote counts. If I electronically cast votes on a machine, and the machine prints out a paper record of my ballot, unless I, the voter, leave some record that I inspected that piece of paper and agree that it reflects the votes I intended to cast, it's useless as an auditing mechanism. As far as I can tell, no such voter inspection record is made with electronic voting machines.

athenot 6y ago
Since I voted in Georgia on these machines, the process is the following: - get ID validated & ability to vote - get an initialized smart card - insert in polling machine, fill out stuff - submit, get printout from printer - scan printout into a machine - return smart card At the polling places I was at (we had a runoff), the staff + signage was emphasizing to check results on printout. The printing and the scanning felt terribly wasteful but as it turned out, it became a precious way to audit. The bonus is that the printout is normalized, not some person's handwriting that could be subject to misinterpretation.
- pdonis 6y ago
  So you take the printout from one machine and insert it into another to be scanned? I agree that would satisfy auditability, since you can look at the printout and make sure it's correct. Were these Dominion voting machines?
  - enzanki_ars 6y ago
    In Ohio, we used the same Dominion voting systems with the same process: Poll worker validates proper ID, get ballot code for your precinct, walk to voting system, poll worker enters the precinct, voter validates info on screen, voter votes on the touch screen, system prints out choices, walk to scanner system, vote gets scanned, scanner stores those ballots in it's tray in case need for audit.
    - djrogers 6y ago
      I feel so disconnected from this process here in California - I haven't been asked for ID to vote ever. AFAIK, we're not allowed to verify ID here...
      - CydeWeys 6y ago
        It's a good thing not doing it. ID verification disenfranchises way more people than fraudulent votes prevented.
        Akronymus 6y ago
        I thought that ID was already basically required to be able to live a acceptable life in the US.
        Bjartr 6y ago
        That isn't mutually exclusive with the idea a non-trivial number of people lack them.
        pdonis 6y ago
        > ID verification disenfranchises How so? How many eligible voters don't already have government issued IDs?
        jcranmer 6y ago
- pilotneko 6y ago
  A very similar process in Tennessee. I'm not sure if the machine was made by Dominion, but I had a chance to review the printout before scanning. The printout appeared to pass through the scanner and into a locked container beneath, presumably for actual paper audits.
- throwaway31831 6y ago
  This isn't how mail-in ballots work, though. For mail-in ballots, a hand-filled ballot is scanned, and if there's a discrepancy it gets corrected then re-printed by an official in a process called adjudication. This is supposed to be done in front of an observer from both parties so security checks like signature matching can be performed, which was not done as evidenced in the Fulton county video footage. Mail-in voting creates the opportunity for mass manufacturing ballots as well as hijacking ballot adjudication processes, especially if you block bipartisan observation to circumvent security checks put in place specifically to mitigate these types of fraud. And "hand recounts" would not uncover these issues. [1] You don't need "widespread" fraud to overturn an election. Biden only won 16% of counties. Only a few key counties need to be targeted to flip a national election. [1] https://billmoyers.com/story/georgias-hand-count-of-2020-ballots-was-no-risk-limiting-audit/ https://billmoyers.com/story/georgias-hand-count-of-2020-bal...
  - javagram 6y ago
    Why are you talking about mail-in ballots in a thread about Dominion Voting Systems? Mail-in ballots work the same way they have since 1864. You fill out a paper ballot and mail it back. > Biden only won 16% of counties. Only a few key counties need to be targeted to flip a national election. 16% of counties - when more than half the US population lives in just 4.6% of the counties. Remember that many counties are nearly empty and have few voters. Due to the rural/urban political divide, sparsely populated rural counties typically vote for the GOP in recent elections while densely populated suburbs and cities lean more towards the Democrats. Biden’s numbers in general were similar to Hillary’s in 2016, but he gained ground in the suburbs due to white educated voters fleeing from Trump after the last 4 years. There is no indication that a “few key counties” were targeted - the shift was seen in all 50 states. Compare Texas suburban county votes in 2016 to 2020.
    - throwaway31831 6y ago
      > Why are you talking about mail-in ballots in a thread about Dominion Voting Systems? Mail-in ballots get counted by machines.
ChrisLomont 6y ago
Conversely, hand filled out ballots are a mess, often illegible, the hanging chad fiasco, etc. With electronic voting, the voter can (should?) see on a screen exactly what they did, and the machine can make multiple exact copies in electronic and paper formats of that exact result. There is far less ambiguity in the physical record once this has been done.
- pdonis 6y ago
  I agree that if the electronic voting machine is just helping you print out an easily legible copy of your ballot, which you then verify for correctness and take to another machine to have it scanned for counting, that's a good thing, for the reasons you give. Not only does it help with auditability since the physical record is more standardized, it also probably reduces the error rate of automated counting. What I'm not sure about is whether that is actually the way it is done for all electronic voting machines.
  - lern_too_spel 6y ago
    It is the way it is done for all Dominion voting machines, which replaced Diebold AccuVote machines (which did not leave a paper trail) in Georgia in 2019.
- rwmj 6y ago
  The UK has paper-only ballots and none of this stuff is a problem. (There are no "hanging chads" because ballots are marked by the voter with a pen or pencil on a piece of paper). The polls close at 10pm, the votes are counted overnight by volunteers, and the winner takes office the next morning. It always baffles me that the US system is so complicated.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > There are no "hanging chads" because ballots are marked by the voter with a pen or pencil on a piece of paper This is how it is done in many US jurisdictions as well (including all the ones I have voted in).
  - 6y ago
birdman3131 6y ago
Its kinda hard not to see how you voted at least around here. It is printed off in fairly large print on the paper ballot which is then taken to a separate machine to actually tally the votes. (No clue as to the brand used though. At a ~65% trump vote my vote was worthless anyways though so why pay attention to the machines.)
- purchaceallsus 6y ago
  The issue had to do with mail in votes. Those are not viewed by the vote caster when the machine processes them.
perydell 6y ago
The electronic voting machines I use in Southern California actually print my selections on a piece of paper that I can look at under a little piece of plastic. I approve that it shows my votes accurately and then the paper slides away. Presumably kept with the machine so an audit could be done.
tshaddox 6y ago
That doesn't seem much different than saying that a traditional hand-filled ballot doesn't leave a useful paper trail because there's no evidence that the voter placed the pen markings where they intended to place them. Which, in fact, is an argument that's been made before with hand-filled ballots.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > a traditional hand-filled ballot doesn't leave a useful paper trail because there's no evidence that the voter placed the pen markings where they intended to place them But that's on me, the voter; it's up to me to check that my ballot reflects my intent before I submit it to be counted. If I make a mistake, I can always ask for a new ballot. So the paper ballot reflects what I, the voter, submitted to be counted, and that's the best that could possibly be done as far as an audit trail is concerned.
perl4ever 6y ago
In NY, you do fill out a paper ballot, it's scanned, done. I assume they keep the ballots in case they need to count them... I was curious who makes the voting machines that are used here. It's apparently a company called ES&S: "Election Systems and Software (ES&S) 11208 John Galt Blvd, Omaha NE" https://www.essvote.com/ https://www.essvote.com/
- TigeriusKirk 6y ago
  > John Galt Blvd Someone has a sense of humor, at least.
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    It must be an accident/coincidence? It would worry me if it's not.
perl4ever 6y ago
>unless I, the voter, leave some record that I inspected that piece of paper and agree that it reflects the votes I intended to cast, it's useless as an auditing mechanism If the voter can easily see that the ballot reflects their choices, then it's not useless as an auditing mechanism. That's hyperbole. Remember, if there is massive/systematic fraud going on, then every instance doesn't have to be caught to uncover it.

luxuryballs 6y ago

The adjudication process is where things get dicey though, if the machine seems a ballot unreadable it defers to the machine operator to tell it which candidate was selected, and this accuracy is a configurable threshold.