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> The entire US election system is comically insecure and the thing that's surprising is how rare evidence of large scale fraud is. The question that bothers m

> The entire US election system is comically insecure and the thing that's surprising is how rare evidence of large scale fraud is. The question that bothers me most is this: how would we know? What safeguards do we have, and how do we detect when they're overcome? Especially as a regular citizen. The one instance I'm familiar with when some safeguards were actually red teamed was a huge success--for the red team. https://www.wsj.com/articles/voter-fraud-a-myth-thats-not-what-new-york-investigators-found-1485994200 https://www.wsj.com/articles/voter-fraud-a-myth-thats-not-wh...

colpabar 4y ago
> what safeguards to we have We have the government and mainstream media and big tech all telling us that it's totally impossible for anything like this to happen and penalizing us for talking about it.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  It's not that it's impossible, but that it's just not cost-effective, and even if it does happen, it's not happening at a scale that would affect even a statewide election let alone a national election. Why go through all the effort (and risk) to modify Joe Smith's vote from Team A to Team B when Team B can just buy advertisements, write newspaper op-eds, spam social media, saturate the news cycle, take over talk shows, and otherwise propaganda thousands of Joe Smiths across the whole region into voluntarily voting for Team B?
  - elecush 4y ago
    We need evidence of security or evidence of insecurity. No evidence is not conclusive either way, that's the problem.
- 8ytecoder 4y ago
  Bullshit. You’ll know when your election is routinely rigged and there’s rampant fraud. Been there and it’s difficult to hide even if you don’t have an independent media. Doesn’t mean I agree with the election system in the US. You need both real and perceived trust in the election system. You also need very high participation. Both are essential. You can’t just keep throwing hurdles and then let only those who’re willing to pass the test to vote. You need more booths - way more - if you want to get rid of mail-in ballots so people can walk to their center and not stand in line for long hours. You have to go issue voter id cards door to door, if you want to enforce id restrictions. You can’t just do one and not the other. That’s just exclusionary. Similarly, if you want faster results you need electronic voting but you also need paper trails for validation. The way results stay unknown and media organisations “call” the elections is absurd. You need official results to come out in under a few hours after all elections are closed. It’s just not right to announce Florida while California is still voting - that’s undue influencing IMHO. The US can fix it all. I do admire how it all seem to mostly work in spite of all these issues.
  - nickff 4y ago
    You're straw-manning the comment you're replying to. They're talking about a lack of "safeguards", and you're replying by denying "rampant fraud".
    - cldellow 4y ago
      tralene's comment is talking about safeguards. Their comment was substantive, linked to a WSJ article about deficiencies in elections. The comment 8ytecoder is replying to is the comment by colpabar. Their comment alleges ... some shadowy conspiracy by government, mainstream media and big tech.
      - 8ytecoder 4y ago
        Right. I agree that the US has a lot of blatant deficiencies that they can resolve. Countries all over the world learnt how to do democracy from the US. Many have surpassed them in conducting free and fair elections. US is far behind there. But, like I said, it’s still mostly democratic and that amazes me.
        mrguyorama 4y ago
        The main safeguard of the American election system is thousands of seniors who donate their time and patriotism and enthusiasm for the process into making sure things go well. They typically take things very seriously and are rather robust, as the system is designed to bring in party representatives as well as these wise watchdogs. Most important actions have eyes and consent from every involved stakeholder. In some states, is a genuinely impressive example of distributed processing and consensus.
        AustinDev 4y ago
        The same folks that need 1/4 inch thick glasses to read 18 point font on a piece if A4 paper?
      - colpabar 4y ago
ceejayoz 4y ago
The full investigation that op-ed is referencing is at https://www.nyc.gov/assets/doi/reports/pdf/2013/2013-12-30-BOE_Unit_Report.pdf https://www.nyc.gov/assets/doi/reports/pdf/2013/2013-12-30-B..., starting at page 12. The undercover agents doing this investigation have a significant advantage; they're immune to consequences if they get caught. Malicious actors have to weigh significant criminal charges against the benefit of a single extra vote per visit to a polling place. Doing it at any scale means enormous numbers of involved persons, any one of which could be a law enforcement informant or whistleblower. Do individual cases of this nature occur? Yes; we catch them regularly. Do tens of thousands of cases of this nature occur all at once? Almost certainly not.
whydoyoucare 4y ago
What prevents the US from having a Voter ID card like India does? A unique ID that is required to vote. That way, you only qualify to vote if you have a Voter ID, and once you turn the age of voting, you must get a Voter ID, like you got your SSN. For those who vote by mail, include a copy of your Voter ID with the ballot. That will significantly reduce, if not eliminate, most of the fraud and put this argument to rest.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  > What prevents the US from having a Voter ID card like India does? Religious conspiracy theories ("Mark of the Beast"), the uniquely American concept of "freedom", etc.
  - deeg 4y ago
    It can also be used to disenfranchise minority voters.
    - amflare 4y ago
      Despite being repeated ad nauseum, this has been patently false for the better part of a century and has no relationship with reality.
      - ethanbond 4y ago
        What? Millions of Americans don’t have any government ID, and that group is disproportionately racial minorities and poor folks. Make IDs universally available (I.e. free federal IDs handed out proactively by driving offices out to rural areas and workplaces) and I don’t think you’d see much resistance to this. The problem is that the “you need to have ID to vote” folks would never support such an idea. Complete mystery as to why!
        AustinDev 4y ago
        How many millions? What % of the voting age population?

colpabar 4y ago

> what safeguards to we have We have the government and mainstream media and big tech all telling us that it's totally impossible for anything like this to happen and penalizing us for talking about it.

ryandrake 4y ago
It's not that it's impossible, but that it's just not cost-effective, and even if it does happen, it's not happening at a scale that would affect even a statewide election let alone a national election. Why go through all the effort (and risk) to modify Joe Smith's vote from Team A to Team B when Team B can just buy advertisements, write newspaper op-eds, spam social media, saturate the news cycle, take over talk shows, and otherwise propaganda thousands of Joe Smiths across the whole region into voluntarily voting for Team B?
- elecush 4y ago
  We need evidence of security or evidence of insecurity. No evidence is not conclusive either way, that's the problem.
8ytecoder 4y ago
Bullshit. You’ll know when your election is routinely rigged and there’s rampant fraud. Been there and it’s difficult to hide even if you don’t have an independent media. Doesn’t mean I agree with the election system in the US. You need both real and perceived trust in the election system. You also need very high participation. Both are essential. You can’t just keep throwing hurdles and then let only those who’re willing to pass the test to vote. You need more booths - way more - if you want to get rid of mail-in ballots so people can walk to their center and not stand in line for long hours. You have to go issue voter id cards door to door, if you want to enforce id restrictions. You can’t just do one and not the other. That’s just exclusionary. Similarly, if you want faster results you need electronic voting but you also need paper trails for validation. The way results stay unknown and media organisations “call” the elections is absurd. You need official results to come out in under a few hours after all elections are closed. It’s just not right to announce Florida while California is still voting - that’s undue influencing IMHO. The US can fix it all. I do admire how it all seem to mostly work in spite of all these issues.
- nickff 4y ago
  You're straw-manning the comment you're replying to. They're talking about a lack of "safeguards", and you're replying by denying "rampant fraud".
  - cldellow 4y ago
    tralene's comment is talking about safeguards. Their comment was substantive, linked to a WSJ article about deficiencies in elections. The comment 8ytecoder is replying to is the comment by colpabar. Their comment alleges ... some shadowy conspiracy by government, mainstream media and big tech.
    - 8ytecoder 4y ago
      Right. I agree that the US has a lot of blatant deficiencies that they can resolve. Countries all over the world learnt how to do democracy from the US. Many have surpassed them in conducting free and fair elections. US is far behind there. But, like I said, it’s still mostly democratic and that amazes me.
      - mrguyorama 4y ago
        The main safeguard of the American election system is thousands of seniors who donate their time and patriotism and enthusiasm for the process into making sure things go well. They typically take things very seriously and are rather robust, as the system is designed to bring in party representatives as well as these wise watchdogs. Most important actions have eyes and consent from every involved stakeholder. In some states, is a genuinely impressive example of distributed processing and consensus.
        AustinDev 4y ago
        The same folks that need 1/4 inch thick glasses to read 18 point font on a piece if A4 paper?
    - colpabar 4y ago

ceejayoz 4y ago

The full investigation that op-ed is referencing is at https://www.nyc.gov/assets/doi/reports/pdf/2013/2013-12-30-BOE_Unit_Report.pdf https://www.nyc.gov/assets/doi/reports/pdf/2013/2013-12-30-B..., starting at page 12. The undercover agents doing this investigation have a significant advantage; they're immune to consequences if they get caught. Malicious actors have to weigh significant criminal charges against the benefit of a single extra vote per visit to a polling place. Doing it at any scale means enormous numbers of involved persons, any one of which could be a law enforcement informant or whistleblower. Do individual cases of this nature occur? Yes; we catch them regularly. Do tens of thousands of cases of this nature occur all at once? Almost certainly not.

whydoyoucare 4y ago

What prevents the US from having a Voter ID card like India does? A unique ID that is required to vote. That way, you only qualify to vote if you have a Voter ID, and once you turn the age of voting, you must get a Voter ID, like you got your SSN. For those who vote by mail, include a copy of your Voter ID with the ballot. That will significantly reduce, if not eliminate, most of the fraud and put this argument to rest.

ceejayoz 4y ago
> What prevents the US from having a Voter ID card like India does? Religious conspiracy theories ("Mark of the Beast"), the uniquely American concept of "freedom", etc.
- deeg 4y ago
  It can also be used to disenfranchise minority voters.
  - amflare 4y ago
    Despite being repeated ad nauseum, this has been patently false for the better part of a century and has no relationship with reality.
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      What? Millions of Americans don’t have any government ID, and that group is disproportionately racial minorities and poor folks. Make IDs universally available (I.e. free federal IDs handed out proactively by driving offices out to rural areas and workplaces) and I don’t think you’d see much resistance to this. The problem is that the “you need to have ID to vote” folks would never support such an idea. Complete mystery as to why!
      - AustinDev 4y ago
        How many millions? What % of the voting age population?