21 ms·

Dominion Voting Systems and Fox reach last-minute settlement

41 points by throw0101a 4y ago

georgyo 4y ago
It would have been nice if this went to trail, though I can understand why they decided to settle. It would have been a mud fight. Still, it would have been nice to get some light on both parties. It would also be nice to know what the final settlement ended up being.
- jmclnx 4y ago
  I was hoping FOX would be forced to retract their lies on their news channel in a long and noticeable segment on prime time. But with the settlement I doubt that will happen.
  - netsharc 4y ago
    In theory a settlement deal could also include such an apology/retraction, it's whatever both parties agree to.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    It's possible the settlement will require public retractions and apologies. The hefty payout - $787.5M - seems to demonstrate Dominion had the upper hand in this negotiation, as does the judge's sanctioning Fox and appointing a special master to look into misconduct.
  - generj 4y ago
    Dominion in recent days has said they wanted an equivalent effort retracting the lies as was spent spreading them. We’ll see if that was just posturing with what the settlement terms end up being.
standeven 4y ago
I am really, really curious to know the terms of the resolution.
- mkmk 4y ago
  $787.5 million, for starters.
TechBro8615 4y ago
The worst damage done by GOP rhetoric on the 2020 election is that it set us back decades in terms of our ability to have rational and productive discourse about election security. It's become an albatross that otherwise rational and technically minded people are unwilling to publicly discuss, lest they be labeled extremist by association. The fact of the matter is our elections are not secure, in the sense that their results cannot be cryptographically verified. You either cannot verify your vote was counted, and/or cannot verify it contributed to the total votes received by the candidate for whom you voted. In aggregate, we can rarely verify that "all legitimate ballots were counted," and can never verify that only legitimate ballots were counted. This is a problem, it's been a problem, and it will continue to be a problem. Our election infrastructure is only secure insofar as people trust it's secure, and people can only trust what they can verify. Otherwise, the winning party is asking the losing party to commit an act of faith in "trusting" a system that cannot be verified for correctness. In 2017, Democrats recognized it as a problem, just like Republicans did in 2021. Yet we have so much whiplash from back and forth politicization of the issue that it's impossible to have a sane discussion about it.
- LeoPanthera 4y ago
  The UK has the most secure voting system I know. Voting machines are not used, votes are always paper-and-pencil. Your ballot form contains a unique serial number to prevent multiple votes. Votes are counted at the district level, with only totals being submitted up the chain, in order to protect privacy. It's simple and it works.
  - mnd999 4y ago
    That doesn’t stop media firms after faster results and American voting machine manufacturers lobbying to change things every time we have an election.
  - explorer83 4y ago
    How is the serial number used to confirm that the person using it is who the ballet was issued to?
generj 4y ago
It will be interesting to see what the terms of the settlement are. I’m always amazed that firms go right to the brink of trial before settling. Sometimes the judge issues certain rulings that may lead a party to realize their odds are lower than hoped. But otherwise it seems like both parties wasted the court’s time when a settlement could have been reached at any prior point. Settling often deprives the country of useful case law, or prevents bad actors from having to admit guilt. Totally understandable for the parties involved to take the sure thing rather than risking it all on a trial but it does negatively impact our society.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  What new case law is needed? Fox lied about Dominion and caused provable harm to their business.
- mmcconnell1618 4y ago
  787.5 Million
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Analemma_ 4y ago
  I agree that happens a lot but this may not have been an instance of it: Fox might've genuinely liked their odds before the judge slammed them for lying about Murdoch's role and ordering a special investigation. They might've re-evaluated based on the new disclosures they had to do and an angry judge who now would've assumed bad faith from them, and decided to bail.
sufiyan 4y ago
Wow the guys in the newsroom didn’t believe what they were saying and still said it. If there was a word for journalistic non-integrity, I’m searching for it now.
lockhouse 4y ago
“In total, 28 states used Dominion voting machines to tabulate their votes during the 2020 United States presidential election, including most of the swing states.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Voting_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Voting_Systems However you feel about the claims made during the 2020 election, that should terrify every American that closed source computerized voting machines from a single company counted enough votes to potentially decide the presidential election. I’m not saying that any of Trump and his supporters claims have any substance, but the optics of that stat do not look good. Voting machine software should be public record and produce a fully auditable paper trail.
- tptacek 4y ago
  I don't know anything about Dominion's, but Cook County's touchscreen electronic voting machines all produce a human-readable, auditable paper record.
  - lockhouse 4y ago
    Do they produce something that a voter would read and see prior to actually casting the vote or is it just an internal log? If it’s the former then the voter can actually verify that the machine cast their vote as intended. If it’s the latter, there is literally nothing stopping the machine from changing votes as they are cast. To clarify I’m not saying that is actually happening, just that there is nothing stopping your vote from being switched by the machine either through malice or a software bug if the machine doesn’t generate a physical slip of paper that you actually put in a ballot box.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      They produce a human-readable, auditable paper record. The machine cannot change votes as they're cast.
      - lockhouse 4y ago
        So they print the actual ballot with the voter’s selections on it that the voter puts into a sealed box?
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
The fun is not yet over: > another U.S. voting technology company, Smartmatic, is pursuing its own defamation lawsuit against Fox seeking $2.7 billion US in damages in a New York state court. > Fox Corp. shareholders are demanding company records that may show whether directors and executives properly oversaw the Fox News coverage of Trump's election-rigging claims, sources told Reuters, in what could be a prelude to lawsuits seeking to make directors liable for costs.
tptacek 4y ago
Just a periodic reminder that if you're interested in how voting works where you live, every election administration probably badly needs volunteer election judges (EJs). You'll get trained up on all the machines and processes they're using to collect votes, and get paid for the experience. At least where I live, there's a lot of subtlety to the process that make obvious-seeming "attacks" pretty untenable in reality; maybe you'll learn something different about yours.

41 points by throw0101a 4y ago

It would have been nice if this went to trail, though I can understand why they decided to settle. It would have been a mud fight. Still, it would have been nice to get some light on both parties. It would also be nice to know what the final settlement ended up being.

jmclnx 4y ago
I was hoping FOX would be forced to retract their lies on their news channel in a long and noticeable segment on prime time. But with the settlement I doubt that will happen.
- netsharc 4y ago
  In theory a settlement deal could also include such an apology/retraction, it's whatever both parties agree to.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  It's possible the settlement will require public retractions and apologies. The hefty payout - $787.5M - seems to demonstrate Dominion had the upper hand in this negotiation, as does the judge's sanctioning Fox and appointing a special master to look into misconduct.
- generj 4y ago
  Dominion in recent days has said they wanted an equivalent effort retracting the lies as was spent spreading them. We’ll see if that was just posturing with what the settlement terms end up being.

standeven 4y ago

I am really, really curious to know the terms of the resolution.

mkmk 4y ago
$787.5 million, for starters.

TechBro8615 4y ago

The worst damage done by GOP rhetoric on the 2020 election is that it set us back decades in terms of our ability to have rational and productive discourse about election security. It's become an albatross that otherwise rational and technically minded people are unwilling to publicly discuss, lest they be labeled extremist by association. The fact of the matter is our elections are not secure, in the sense that their results cannot be cryptographically verified. You either cannot verify your vote was counted, and/or cannot verify it contributed to the total votes received by the candidate for whom you voted. In aggregate, we can rarely verify that "all legitimate ballots were counted," and can never verify that only legitimate ballots were counted. This is a problem, it's been a problem, and it will continue to be a problem. Our election infrastructure is only secure insofar as people trust it's secure, and people can only trust what they can verify. Otherwise, the winning party is asking the losing party to commit an act of faith in "trusting" a system that cannot be verified for correctness. In 2017, Democrats recognized it as a problem, just like Republicans did in 2021. Yet we have so much whiplash from back and forth politicization of the issue that it's impossible to have a sane discussion about it.

LeoPanthera 4y ago
The UK has the most secure voting system I know. Voting machines are not used, votes are always paper-and-pencil. Your ballot form contains a unique serial number to prevent multiple votes. Votes are counted at the district level, with only totals being submitted up the chain, in order to protect privacy. It's simple and it works.
- mnd999 4y ago
  That doesn’t stop media firms after faster results and American voting machine manufacturers lobbying to change things every time we have an election.
- explorer83 4y ago
  How is the serial number used to confirm that the person using it is who the ballet was issued to?

generj 4y ago

It will be interesting to see what the terms of the settlement are. I’m always amazed that firms go right to the brink of trial before settling. Sometimes the judge issues certain rulings that may lead a party to realize their odds are lower than hoped. But otherwise it seems like both parties wasted the court’s time when a settlement could have been reached at any prior point. Settling often deprives the country of useful case law, or prevents bad actors from having to admit guilt. Totally understandable for the parties involved to take the sure thing rather than risking it all on a trial but it does negatively impact our society.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
What new case law is needed? Fox lied about Dominion and caused provable harm to their business.
mmcconnell1618 4y ago
787.5 Million
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Analemma_ 4y ago
I agree that happens a lot but this may not have been an instance of it: Fox might've genuinely liked their odds before the judge slammed them for lying about Murdoch's role and ordering a special investigation. They might've re-evaluated based on the new disclosures they had to do and an angry judge who now would've assumed bad faith from them, and decided to bail.

sufiyan 4y ago

Wow the guys in the newsroom didn’t believe what they were saying and still said it. If there was a word for journalistic non-integrity, I’m searching for it now.

lockhouse 4y ago

“In total, 28 states used Dominion voting machines to tabulate their votes during the 2020 United States presidential election, including most of the swing states.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Voting_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Voting_Systems However you feel about the claims made during the 2020 election, that should terrify every American that closed source computerized voting machines from a single company counted enough votes to potentially decide the presidential election. I’m not saying that any of Trump and his supporters claims have any substance, but the optics of that stat do not look good. Voting machine software should be public record and produce a fully auditable paper trail.

tptacek 4y ago
I don't know anything about Dominion's, but Cook County's touchscreen electronic voting machines all produce a human-readable, auditable paper record.
- lockhouse 4y ago
  Do they produce something that a voter would read and see prior to actually casting the vote or is it just an internal log? If it’s the former then the voter can actually verify that the machine cast their vote as intended. If it’s the latter, there is literally nothing stopping the machine from changing votes as they are cast. To clarify I’m not saying that is actually happening, just that there is nothing stopping your vote from being switched by the machine either through malice or a software bug if the machine doesn’t generate a physical slip of paper that you actually put in a ballot box.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    They produce a human-readable, auditable paper record. The machine cannot change votes as they're cast.
    - lockhouse 4y ago
      So they print the actual ballot with the voter’s selections on it that the voter puts into a sealed box?

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

The fun is not yet over: > another U.S. voting technology company, Smartmatic, is pursuing its own defamation lawsuit against Fox seeking $2.7 billion US in damages in a New York state court. > Fox Corp. shareholders are demanding company records that may show whether directors and executives properly oversaw the Fox News coverage of Trump's election-rigging claims, sources told Reuters, in what could be a prelude to lawsuits seeking to make directors liable for costs.

tptacek 4y ago

Just a periodic reminder that if you're interested in how voting works where you live, every election administration probably badly needs volunteer election judges (EJs). You'll get trained up on all the machines and processes they're using to collect votes, and get paid for the experience. At least where I live, there's a lot of subtlety to the process that make obvious-seeming "attacks" pretty untenable in reality; maybe you'll learn something different about yours.