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>Paper ballots tabulated by scanning are the only ones immune to these shenanigans. Every single faulty election in history thus known has been a paper ballot

>Paper ballots tabulated by scanning are the only ones immune to these shenanigans. Every single faulty election in history thus known has been a paper ballot election. I have been an election judge for 15 years. I take my civic duty extremely seriously but if a fantasy action-movie plot compelled me to tamper with an election, paper ballots would be my preferred method. Yes, even without detection. Every single children's birthday party magician who has ever lived possesses the dexterity needed to switch out ballot boxes and the seals used to secure ballot boxes are just as easily tampered with as the seals on electronic machines and every single person who owns a No. 2 pencil has the skill needed to pre-mark ballots. This may come as a shock and surprise to you, but in nearly every single precinct in every single county of every single state, the way the ballot boxes get from the polling place to the tabulating facility is: a dude or dudette in a car, alone. You can say: voting machines need their code audited, the firmware needs to be open-source, the security measures need to be better But saying that moving around pieces of paper in a plastic bucket is more secure than properly-implemented electronic voting machines is so absurd it boggles my mind.

quantified 4y ago
That aspect that you just mentioned, the unmonitored poll worker: if that's true, it needs to be trumpeted far and wide. Note the partisan rejiggering of the election systems underway. However, since the tales of fraud involving mechanical voting machines in big cities are well-known, I do have to question whether you are using hyperbole or ignorance for the only-paper-has-had-big-fraud statement. The seals on electronic voting systems didn't need to be tampered with.
- rocket_surgeron 4y ago
  >That aspect that you just mentioned, the unmonitored poll worker: if that's true, it needs to be trumpeted far and wide. If you want to help fix it, be my guest. Elections almost everywhere in the entire nation are “run” by volunteer or meagerly-paid regular citizens, not government officials. The boards of election only exist to warehouse equipment, supervise the count, and write SOPs for the judges, who only work a few days per election cycle. My county has over 200 polling places with approximately 2000 election judges— and a board of elections with about 80 government officials as staff. Judges aren’t government employees they are just regular people sworn into role for a set term. The “lone person taking the ballots back for tabulation” happens because there are only a handful of chief judges, and only chief judges are allowed to move ballots. They made me a chief judge despite not being a member of a political party (chief judges are supposed to be, for a variety of reasons) because there were literally and actually no other human beings in the entire county willing to do it. Now my 40s, I’ve been the youngest pollworker by 20-or-so years at every precinct I’ve worked and every polling place, everywhere, is short staffed. Last election, the primary, I was the only person out of eight (we were supposed to have 11, no breaks for us!!!) who was fit enough to set up the folding tables. Lever machines are just as easy to stuff as a plastic bin full of paper. I suppose we could just invent extra people out of thin air, but I don’t know how to do that so the ballots go back to the board of elections in the trunk of my car.
  - quantified 4y ago
    I fear that one political party has ginned up the "the other side cheats so we need to also" now, and the members of the other party are too wimpy to rise to the occasion, full of people who wilt when others call them bad names, so the motivated staffing will be one-sidedly partisan.
Tozen 4y ago
There is a strong argument for voter-verifiable paper records of voting machines, which give the ability to spot check results. There are better ways to move forward for a better system, and better protections of democracy, for those that are really about that and want to maintain it. Problem is, it appears not everyone really wants a fair democratic process or fair elections, and knowingly faulty systems can be a means to an end.

quantified 4y ago

That aspect that you just mentioned, the unmonitored poll worker: if that's true, it needs to be trumpeted far and wide. Note the partisan rejiggering of the election systems underway. However, since the tales of fraud involving mechanical voting machines in big cities are well-known, I do have to question whether you are using hyperbole or ignorance for the only-paper-has-had-big-fraud statement. The seals on electronic voting systems didn't need to be tampered with.

rocket_surgeron 4y ago
>That aspect that you just mentioned, the unmonitored poll worker: if that's true, it needs to be trumpeted far and wide. If you want to help fix it, be my guest. Elections almost everywhere in the entire nation are “run” by volunteer or meagerly-paid regular citizens, not government officials. The boards of election only exist to warehouse equipment, supervise the count, and write SOPs for the judges, who only work a few days per election cycle. My county has over 200 polling places with approximately 2000 election judges— and a board of elections with about 80 government officials as staff. Judges aren’t government employees they are just regular people sworn into role for a set term. The “lone person taking the ballots back for tabulation” happens because there are only a handful of chief judges, and only chief judges are allowed to move ballots. They made me a chief judge despite not being a member of a political party (chief judges are supposed to be, for a variety of reasons) because there were literally and actually no other human beings in the entire county willing to do it. Now my 40s, I’ve been the youngest pollworker by 20-or-so years at every precinct I’ve worked and every polling place, everywhere, is short staffed. Last election, the primary, I was the only person out of eight (we were supposed to have 11, no breaks for us!!!) who was fit enough to set up the folding tables. Lever machines are just as easy to stuff as a plastic bin full of paper. I suppose we could just invent extra people out of thin air, but I don’t know how to do that so the ballots go back to the board of elections in the trunk of my car.
- quantified 4y ago
  I fear that one political party has ginned up the "the other side cheats so we need to also" now, and the members of the other party are too wimpy to rise to the occasion, full of people who wilt when others call them bad names, so the motivated staffing will be one-sidedly partisan.

Tozen 4y ago

There is a strong argument for voter-verifiable paper records of voting machines, which give the ability to spot check results. There are better ways to move forward for a better system, and better protections of democracy, for those that are really about that and want to maintain it. Problem is, it appears not everyone really wants a fair democratic process or fair elections, and knowingly faulty systems can be a means to an end.