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But that matters very little. What matters is people at large not wanting these machines anymore, until then, we will keep having them.

nebula8804 3y ago
The good news is that these efforts to audit and improve the voting systems started many years ago. As a result of all the efforts by researchers, many states have scrapped their old systems and changed to newer paper + electronic based systems. For example, NJ used to have machines that were proven to have attack vectors. They were discarded in favor of a system that records electronically but also prints out your selection on paper and then drops it in a sealed box after you verify what is printed on the paper is what you intended to vote. If the election is close then a review of the paper ballots is performed. Is it perfect? No, but it is better than having no paper record at all as it at least gives the option of a manual recount is someone were to challenge the results (or if the count is close enough, a recount triggers without a challenge). The challenge now is to ensure all 50 states are on board with using machines with no known exploits. Unfortunately some states are lagging behind greatly (can you guess which ones?)
- flavius29663 3y ago
  > For example, NJ used to have machines that were proven to have attack vectors. Why use machines at all? In my opinion any action that does not remove the machines altogether is not good enough. Machines are hack-able, humans are much harder to "hack", especially if you have both parties' representatives in the room at all times.
  - nebula8804 3y ago
    The electorate demands same day instant results. You'll have to change the mindset of the electorate for that one. Having both electronic + a statistical analysis of paper ballots or counting ballots slowly after the election as a final verification is the best approach.
    - flavius29663 3y ago
      You can have very fast results by getting more poll workers. It's not that big of a deal, as people willing to work the polls scale with the number of voters. Nobody really wants "instant" results, if you get 90% of the count the night of the vote, that will be good enough. I come from Romania, and we only count by hand, and by 10PM you usually know the results with pretty high confidence. Romania only has 10 mil votes, but as I said, it scales very well.
      - nebula8804 3y ago
        >You can have very fast results by getting more poll workers. It's not that big of a deal, as people willing to work the polls scale with the number of voters. Thats a lot of overhead and costs that is not going to fly with voters. > I come from Romania Well that explains it. You do not fully understand the "election night frenzy" that occurs every four years in the US.
        flavius29663 3y ago
        > Well that explains it. You do not fully understand the "election night frenzy" that occurs every four years in the US. I actually understand it, it's very similar for us. Why would you immediately assume it's different? In the UK it's different, it's incredibly quiet and somber. And I just told you that we finish counting earlier than many if not most US states anyway. Recounts happen but are limited to individual poll stations, because of all the party representatives they have very few chances of changing anything. It's really not that much overhead, the US has 900k people operating the polling stations on the voting day (https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/document_library/files/EAVSDeepDive_pollworkers_pollingplaces_nov17.pdf https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/document_library/fil...). That means 10 workers need to handle 1600 votes. It's really not that much, you can manually count those in a couple of hours once the polls are closed. Also, you can tap into volunteers from both parties. I really don't understand the US: you have half the country saying that the 2000 elections were decided by malfunctioning counting machines in Florida. Now in 2020 you have the other half distrusting machines for fear of tampering, and you still rely on machines? why? This is the norm in Europe, poll stations count their own votes and they get tallied up centrally. e.g. Germany https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/politics/election-in-germany-counting-and-checking-the-votes-cast https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/politics/election-in-ger... or UK https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-britain-counts-its-votes-41265 https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-britain-counts-its...
- LawTalkingGuy 3y ago
  > Is it perfect? No, The problem is that it introduces all these failure cases. Pen+Paper's only drawback is that it's said to be slow, in practice it can be finished same-day by booking enough elections volunteers. > but it is better than having no paper record at all That's a weird standard. "Sure, it costs a lot and introduces all these weird and nigh-undetectable failure cases but the other machines were even worse! ..." > the option of a manual recount Which will be fought, of course. They always are. So in the end only some areas will ever have a human audit. The public deserves that every vote be hand counted by a bipartisan team.
  - nebula8804 3y ago
    The public wants instant results more than any of that. After speaking to the other guy making this same argument I have to preface my comment with a question: Are you American? Because the other person was from Romania and clearly did not understand the election night frenzy that occurs every four years where people are waiting in extreme anticipation for the results.
    - LawTalkingGuy 3y ago
      Canadian. And we generally have results in under an hour after the polls close. I've actually gone to viewing parties at pubs for the last two US elections. Your media dominates ours.

nebula8804 3y ago

The good news is that these efforts to audit and improve the voting systems started many years ago. As a result of all the efforts by researchers, many states have scrapped their old systems and changed to newer paper + electronic based systems. For example, NJ used to have machines that were proven to have attack vectors. They were discarded in favor of a system that records electronically but also prints out your selection on paper and then drops it in a sealed box after you verify what is printed on the paper is what you intended to vote. If the election is close then a review of the paper ballots is performed. Is it perfect? No, but it is better than having no paper record at all as it at least gives the option of a manual recount is someone were to challenge the results (or if the count is close enough, a recount triggers without a challenge). The challenge now is to ensure all 50 states are on board with using machines with no known exploits. Unfortunately some states are lagging behind greatly (can you guess which ones?)

flavius29663 3y ago
> For example, NJ used to have machines that were proven to have attack vectors. Why use machines at all? In my opinion any action that does not remove the machines altogether is not good enough. Machines are hack-able, humans are much harder to "hack", especially if you have both parties' representatives in the room at all times.
- nebula8804 3y ago
  The electorate demands same day instant results. You'll have to change the mindset of the electorate for that one. Having both electronic + a statistical analysis of paper ballots or counting ballots slowly after the election as a final verification is the best approach.
  - flavius29663 3y ago
    You can have very fast results by getting more poll workers. It's not that big of a deal, as people willing to work the polls scale with the number of voters. Nobody really wants "instant" results, if you get 90% of the count the night of the vote, that will be good enough. I come from Romania, and we only count by hand, and by 10PM you usually know the results with pretty high confidence. Romania only has 10 mil votes, but as I said, it scales very well.
    - nebula8804 3y ago
      >You can have very fast results by getting more poll workers. It's not that big of a deal, as people willing to work the polls scale with the number of voters. Thats a lot of overhead and costs that is not going to fly with voters. > I come from Romania Well that explains it. You do not fully understand the "election night frenzy" that occurs every four years in the US.
      - flavius29663 3y ago
        > Well that explains it. You do not fully understand the "election night frenzy" that occurs every four years in the US. I actually understand it, it's very similar for us. Why would you immediately assume it's different? In the UK it's different, it's incredibly quiet and somber. And I just told you that we finish counting earlier than many if not most US states anyway. Recounts happen but are limited to individual poll stations, because of all the party representatives they have very few chances of changing anything. It's really not that much overhead, the US has 900k people operating the polling stations on the voting day (https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/document_library/files/EAVSDeepDive_pollworkers_pollingplaces_nov17.pdf https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/document_library/fil...). That means 10 workers need to handle 1600 votes. It's really not that much, you can manually count those in a couple of hours once the polls are closed. Also, you can tap into volunteers from both parties. I really don't understand the US: you have half the country saying that the 2000 elections were decided by malfunctioning counting machines in Florida. Now in 2020 you have the other half distrusting machines for fear of tampering, and you still rely on machines? why? This is the norm in Europe, poll stations count their own votes and they get tallied up centrally. e.g. Germany https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/politics/election-in-germany-counting-and-checking-the-votes-cast https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/politics/election-in-ger... or UK https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-britain-counts-its-votes-41265 https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-britain-counts-its...
LawTalkingGuy 3y ago
> Is it perfect? No, The problem is that it introduces all these failure cases. Pen+Paper's only drawback is that it's said to be slow, in practice it can be finished same-day by booking enough elections volunteers. > but it is better than having no paper record at all That's a weird standard. "Sure, it costs a lot and introduces all these weird and nigh-undetectable failure cases but the other machines were even worse! ..." > the option of a manual recount Which will be fought, of course. They always are. So in the end only some areas will ever have a human audit. The public deserves that every vote be hand counted by a bipartisan team.
- nebula8804 3y ago
  The public wants instant results more than any of that. After speaking to the other guy making this same argument I have to preface my comment with a question: Are you American? Because the other person was from Romania and clearly did not understand the election night frenzy that occurs every four years where people are waiting in extreme anticipation for the results.
  - LawTalkingGuy 3y ago
    Canadian. And we generally have results in under an hour after the polls close. I've actually gone to viewing parties at pubs for the last two US elections. Your media dominates ours.