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And this right here is why so many people have been dead against voting machines. Even if you think you understand them, most voters can't. Most voters have no

by harry8 6y ago

And this right here is why so many people have been dead against voting machines. Even if you think you understand them, most voters can't. Most voters have no idea what to look for to see signs of fraud. Ballot papers are understood by everyone. Just about every voter knows when they're seeing something happen with ballot papers that is suspect. Just about every voter knows when there really isn't anything remotely credible about ballot papers marked and properly counted and scruitinised. It's not perfect but it is so much better than litterally anything else it's not comparable. Justice must not only be done it must be seen to be done. Any and all voting machines /must/ only ever be used to mark ballot papers that are filed in the usual way and can be counted in the usual way if there is any doubt whatsoever. To hell with these election tech companies for doing anything else. Undermining the proper functioning of democracy for profit is something for which I will never, ever forgive them. The whole point is I should be convinced, everyone should be convinced that the election was run and counted fairly when I loathe and hate the result. When I can't understand how it could be true I should be utterly convinced that it is. So here we are with baseless claims of election fraud and yet there's some fertile ground to sew them where there should be NONE. Cheering these assholes for suing fox is just because I hate Murdoch is beneath me and should be beneath us all. So here's the question. Will America reform its electoral process to increase citizens confidence that the voting and counting is free of political and/or corporate interests? Including gerrymanders and such or will the disease march on ever worsening to more and louder cries from all losers of "We were robbed!" See Neera Tanden's "Russia tampered with the election to make Hilary lose" if you need examples for the whole "both sides" thing.

rspeele 6y ago
> Any and all voting machines /must/ only ever be used to mark ballot papers that are filed in the usual way and can be counted in the usual way if there is any doubt whatsoever. I'm pretty sure that's exactly what the machines used in this election do. Some counties use touchscreen ballot marking devices that print a ballot for scanning, others have the voter fill out their ballot with a pen and then feed that into the scanner. Of those two variants, I believe election security experts prefer the latter type. But as far as I know all voting machines used in the US do use a paper ballot as the permanent record. Didn't help, here, since when they recounted those paper ballots the argument shifted to "well you have to re-check the signatures on the envelopes, those could've been fake ballots", or "well there was a lot of traditional fraud with mail-in ballot harvesting and dead people voting". But the same people were still saying the machines cheated, too -- especially whenever they were talking to a receptive audience. I'm all for more openness in elections and publicly auditable data (and open-source voting machine code), but let's not pretend that it would've changed much here. People believed the election was stolen because they wanted to believe it was stolen.
- harry8 6y ago
  Have voting machines shifted completely to 100% of them being machines used to mark traditional ballots that are stored and can be recounted in the traditional way? "Pretty sure" isn't the appropriate standard for an election. If not it's not close to being good enough and muddies the waters. All of them /must/ be. Without exception. Every single encroachment of the integrity of and understandability election affects all of them. The confusion matters. "Oh but it's actually ok in this case." is a totally different point that is irrelvant here. Fertile ground for conspiracy where there need be none is fertile ground. Donald and Neera for two of many examples have exploited that fertile ground for personal political gain. Condemn both for their craven and vile dishonesty. Fix the issues.
  - rspeele 6y ago
    You're correct that "pretty sure" isn't the appropriate standard for an election. However, "pretty sure" isn't the standard any state uses to approve voting machines, just the standard I use to post comments on HN. And indeed, I was WRONG. https://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/#mode/navigate/map/ppEquip/mapType/normal/year/2020 https://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/#mode/navigate/map/ppEqu... The dark red category is "DREs without VVPAT for all voters". That's direct-recording electronic voting machines, without voter-verified paper audit trail. The voter enters their vote on a touchscreen and doesn't get to see the paper ballot that records it (and the recording may never be on paper at all). That sucks and I agree that type of machine should not be used. I have to admit I was surprised that those machines are still allowed in any state. My research into the voting machines, thus far, had been focused entirely on the swing states in this election -- because those are where the Trump campaign and allies have alleged fraud. Those are Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. None of those use DREs without VVPAT, and Nevada is the only one that uses DREs at all instead of BMDs or hand-marked ballots with a scanner. But I get your point. After all, a voter in Louisiana who voted for Trump on a DRE could make the (reasonable enough) assumption that the machines are the same everywhere else, and be more susceptible to the claim that Dominion machines stole the election undetectably in Georgia.
dmode 6y ago
No amount of election security will satisfy a authoritarian populist. If you move to entire paper ballot, then the allegations will move to ballot stuffing, illegal voting, and other stuff. It’s best not to pay attention to these people
jfengel 6y ago
The whole reason we have electronic voting is voters didn't do so great in the 2000 election, either, purely with paper ballots. They didn't punch holes correctly, or bubble in dots properly. A badly-designed paper ballot may have confused just enough voters in just the right place to swing the entire election. So ballot papers really aren't understood by everyone. That 2000 election is still dubious. It didn't turn into the dumpster fire that this one did, because the personalities involved didn't stoke it that way. In 2020 there was no way for it to end well. There would have been equal arguments over paper ballots. They shot out hundreds of equally ludicrous conspiracy theories, not one of which was accepted by a court. There were thousands of other contests being decided, and all of them somehow managed to be run without controversy. There was no way for justice to be seen to be done, and any arguments for or against electronic voting are moot.

by harry8 6y ago

rspeele 6y ago

> Any and all voting machines /must/ only ever be used to mark ballot papers that are filed in the usual way and can be counted in the usual way if there is any doubt whatsoever. I'm pretty sure that's exactly what the machines used in this election do. Some counties use touchscreen ballot marking devices that print a ballot for scanning, others have the voter fill out their ballot with a pen and then feed that into the scanner. Of those two variants, I believe election security experts prefer the latter type. But as far as I know all voting machines used in the US do use a paper ballot as the permanent record. Didn't help, here, since when they recounted those paper ballots the argument shifted to "well you have to re-check the signatures on the envelopes, those could've been fake ballots", or "well there was a lot of traditional fraud with mail-in ballot harvesting and dead people voting". But the same people were still saying the machines cheated, too -- especially whenever they were talking to a receptive audience. I'm all for more openness in elections and publicly auditable data (and open-source voting machine code), but let's not pretend that it would've changed much here. People believed the election was stolen because they wanted to believe it was stolen.

harry8 6y ago
Have voting machines shifted completely to 100% of them being machines used to mark traditional ballots that are stored and can be recounted in the traditional way? "Pretty sure" isn't the appropriate standard for an election. If not it's not close to being good enough and muddies the waters. All of them /must/ be. Without exception. Every single encroachment of the integrity of and understandability election affects all of them. The confusion matters. "Oh but it's actually ok in this case." is a totally different point that is irrelvant here. Fertile ground for conspiracy where there need be none is fertile ground. Donald and Neera for two of many examples have exploited that fertile ground for personal political gain. Condemn both for their craven and vile dishonesty. Fix the issues.
- rspeele 6y ago
  You're correct that "pretty sure" isn't the appropriate standard for an election. However, "pretty sure" isn't the standard any state uses to approve voting machines, just the standard I use to post comments on HN. And indeed, I was WRONG. https://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/#mode/navigate/map/ppEquip/mapType/normal/year/2020 https://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/#mode/navigate/map/ppEqu... The dark red category is "DREs without VVPAT for all voters". That's direct-recording electronic voting machines, without voter-verified paper audit trail. The voter enters their vote on a touchscreen and doesn't get to see the paper ballot that records it (and the recording may never be on paper at all). That sucks and I agree that type of machine should not be used. I have to admit I was surprised that those machines are still allowed in any state. My research into the voting machines, thus far, had been focused entirely on the swing states in this election -- because those are where the Trump campaign and allies have alleged fraud. Those are Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. None of those use DREs without VVPAT, and Nevada is the only one that uses DREs at all instead of BMDs or hand-marked ballots with a scanner. But I get your point. After all, a voter in Louisiana who voted for Trump on a DRE could make the (reasonable enough) assumption that the machines are the same everywhere else, and be more susceptible to the claim that Dominion machines stole the election undetectably in Georgia.

dmode 6y ago

No amount of election security will satisfy a authoritarian populist. If you move to entire paper ballot, then the allegations will move to ballot stuffing, illegal voting, and other stuff. It’s best not to pay attention to these people

jfengel 6y ago

The whole reason we have electronic voting is voters didn't do so great in the 2000 election, either, purely with paper ballots. They didn't punch holes correctly, or bubble in dots properly. A badly-designed paper ballot may have confused just enough voters in just the right place to swing the entire election. So ballot papers really aren't understood by everyone. That 2000 election is still dubious. It didn't turn into the dumpster fire that this one did, because the personalities involved didn't stoke it that way. In 2020 there was no way for it to end well. There would have been equal arguments over paper ballots. They shot out hundreds of equally ludicrous conspiracy theories, not one of which was accepted by a court. There were thousands of other contests being decided, and all of them somehow managed to be run without controversy. There was no way for justice to be seen to be done, and any arguments for or against electronic voting are moot.