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Where are the untrustworthy systems you're worried about? There are no 100% digital voting systems in the US to my knowledge. Where I live, we have a printout

by smt88 4y ago

Where are the untrustworthy systems you're worried about? There are no 100% digital voting systems in the US to my knowledge. Where I live, we have a printout that we can review and then hand over to be stored securely as a paper trail. There are also multiple checks and balances where they confirm that final votes make sense, and if the counts are off, they count the paper ballots. To compromise an election, you'd have to take over thousands of machines in multiple states, bypass multiple independent human reviews, and be able to predict where the important counties were going to be. It's impossible.

theluketaylor 4y ago
The early push to electronic voting in the US after the hanging chad debacle of 2000 did include electronic only voting machines in a number of states. Congress allocated all sorts of funds for states, but almost zero oversight or rules about secure machines and processes. Those early mistakes have been corrected and I believe you are correct, all voting machines in the US now produce a paper trail. > multiple checks and balances where they confirm that final votes make sense A term we heard a lot in the lead up and aftermath of the 2020 election was 'risk limiting audits'. It would be irresponsible not to have a strong audit program in place to verify the count, which is what I believe you're referring to. The fact the US runs 50 independent elections is an interesting double edged sword as a Canadian observer. I'm used to incredibly simple ballots administered by either Elections Canada or Elections Ontario. The US has massively complex ballots administered by their state for county, state and federal office. In some circumstances the US system makes nation-wide election fraud nearly impossible (election fraud does happen and is different from so-called 'voter fraud' that doesn't). The small scale of some offices and elections does make election fraud more achievable on some scales. A new weakness has been revealed. Various local election officials (particularly Secretaries of State) wield enormous power to affect the process and outcome of the election. Elections Canada runs exactly the same election under exactly the same rules in every polling place across the country. Experiences state to state, county to country, and even at different polling places within a county can vary wildly in the US. This is exacerbated in Presidential elections by the fact only a handful of states are actually up for grabs in the election. A Secretary of State in any of Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Minnesota, or Michigan potentially has the power to throw the next election into chaos. 2024 is not going to be fun and I'm not even American.
- smt88 4y ago
  > The fact the US runs 50 independent elections is an interesting double edged sword as a Canadian observer. I personally wouldn't say 50 -- more like 3,000 independent elections. Each county is arguably its own election. They get funding and voting machines from the state, but personnel and operations of the county are run locally and often reflect the population of that area. > A Secretary of State in any of Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Minnesota, or Michigan potentially has the power to throw the next election into chaos. This is true, although I think they'd have some difficulty doing it out in the open. We'll have to see.
- specialist 4y ago
  Risk limiting audits aka statistical sampling. There is no way to be absolutely certain the final count is 100% correct. Which is sorta okay most of the time, when the margin of victory is greater than the error rate. Our FPTP voting system is the most brittle. 50% + 1 vote. Election integrity would be greatly improved by switching to voting systems more resilient to errors. Specifically Approval Voting (or RCV) for single seat contests and Proportional Representation for assemblies.
  - theluketaylor 4y ago
    I would certainly agree first past the post is a deeply broken system. I’m strongly in favour of reform there, but am increasingly concerned that any replacement needs to be as simple a counting process as possible to ensure everyone fully grasps it. Nothing is worse for trust in the electoral process than distrust in the counting mechanism. If there is anything to be learned from 2020 it’s that elections are actually about showing who lost and not just who won. If people don’t agree on who lost chaos ensues.
specialist 4y ago
Any election system using DREs is fully digital. That's the whole point. I'm not aware of any jurisdiction that uses VVPAT for the final count. And most don't even use the VVPAT for auditing or manual recounts. Which is probably just as well, because the VVPAT is just thermal paper (like at the store) and is easily damaged, assuming it was working at all. Jurisdictions are always changing things. You'd have to get your jurisdiction's manual to learn how they do counts, recounts, audits. And then actually observe to ensure they follow their own rules. Details matter. Procedures and process matter. Technology is not a cure-all.

by smt88 4y ago

theluketaylor 4y ago

The early push to electronic voting in the US after the hanging chad debacle of 2000 did include electronic only voting machines in a number of states. Congress allocated all sorts of funds for states, but almost zero oversight or rules about secure machines and processes. Those early mistakes have been corrected and I believe you are correct, all voting machines in the US now produce a paper trail. > multiple checks and balances where they confirm that final votes make sense A term we heard a lot in the lead up and aftermath of the 2020 election was 'risk limiting audits'. It would be irresponsible not to have a strong audit program in place to verify the count, which is what I believe you're referring to. The fact the US runs 50 independent elections is an interesting double edged sword as a Canadian observer. I'm used to incredibly simple ballots administered by either Elections Canada or Elections Ontario. The US has massively complex ballots administered by their state for county, state and federal office. In some circumstances the US system makes nation-wide election fraud nearly impossible (election fraud does happen and is different from so-called 'voter fraud' that doesn't). The small scale of some offices and elections does make election fraud more achievable on some scales. A new weakness has been revealed. Various local election officials (particularly Secretaries of State) wield enormous power to affect the process and outcome of the election. Elections Canada runs exactly the same election under exactly the same rules in every polling place across the country. Experiences state to state, county to country, and even at different polling places within a county can vary wildly in the US. This is exacerbated in Presidential elections by the fact only a handful of states are actually up for grabs in the election. A Secretary of State in any of Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Minnesota, or Michigan potentially has the power to throw the next election into chaos. 2024 is not going to be fun and I'm not even American.

smt88 4y ago
> The fact the US runs 50 independent elections is an interesting double edged sword as a Canadian observer. I personally wouldn't say 50 -- more like 3,000 independent elections. Each county is arguably its own election. They get funding and voting machines from the state, but personnel and operations of the county are run locally and often reflect the population of that area. > A Secretary of State in any of Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Minnesota, or Michigan potentially has the power to throw the next election into chaos. This is true, although I think they'd have some difficulty doing it out in the open. We'll have to see.
specialist 4y ago
Risk limiting audits aka statistical sampling. There is no way to be absolutely certain the final count is 100% correct. Which is sorta okay most of the time, when the margin of victory is greater than the error rate. Our FPTP voting system is the most brittle. 50% + 1 vote. Election integrity would be greatly improved by switching to voting systems more resilient to errors. Specifically Approval Voting (or RCV) for single seat contests and Proportional Representation for assemblies.
- theluketaylor 4y ago
  I would certainly agree first past the post is a deeply broken system. I’m strongly in favour of reform there, but am increasingly concerned that any replacement needs to be as simple a counting process as possible to ensure everyone fully grasps it. Nothing is worse for trust in the electoral process than distrust in the counting mechanism. If there is anything to be learned from 2020 it’s that elections are actually about showing who lost and not just who won. If people don’t agree on who lost chaos ensues.

specialist 4y ago

Any election system using DREs is fully digital. That's the whole point. I'm not aware of any jurisdiction that uses VVPAT for the final count. And most don't even use the VVPAT for auditing or manual recounts. Which is probably just as well, because the VVPAT is just thermal paper (like at the store) and is easily damaged, assuming it was working at all. Jurisdictions are always changing things. You'd have to get your jurisdiction's manual to learn how they do counts, recounts, audits. And then actually observe to ensure they follow their own rules. Details matter. Procedures and process matter. Technology is not a cure-all.