11 ms·

> 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 hap

> 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

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