6 ms·

I’m not into Lindell or whatever is going on here, but that said closed source voting machines that are not open for audit and have remote access setup really d

I’m not into Lindell or whatever is going on here, but that said closed source voting machines that are not open for audit and have remote access setup really do not sound like the ideal platform for trust. Really if you wanted people to distrust these machines I couldn’t think of a more perfect solution for distrust than that.

2devnull 3y ago
And then sue anybody who questions the machines security.
- rtkwe 3y ago
  Loads of people raise concerns about electronic voting machines without getting sued, it's making wild direct claims that they're switching votes while writing in internal emails you know it's false that gets you in trouble...
  - 2devnull 3y ago
    I’m talking appearance which is not necessarily the same thing as reality. Public trust is about appearance.
mindslight 3y ago
One of the biggest problems with these nutjob movements is that they're playing off very real problems to fuel their circuses. Proprietary untrustable voting machines have always been a major problem. You used to be able to bring this up, and since it wasn't a partisan issue, people would at least hear you out even though they understood little about the technicals. But these days if you talk about it to most people or without including a bunch of nuanced disclaimers, you're pigeonholed as if you're part of this mentally ill cult. So reasonable opposition/criticism gets pushed into this shitty position of just having to support the status quo, despite seeing its glaring problems and injustices.
- appplication 3y ago
  This statement is basically a metaphor for really any political issue. Modern political discourse is about picking sides and entrenching defenses rather than developing reasonable, nuanced takes on individual issues.
  - mindslight 3y ago
    100% agree. I think it's just gotten much worse recently with the rise of Facebook geniuses and the like. I used to ignore both major parties, vote third party or deliberately not vote, comfortable that they were roughly balanced and would do roughly similar magnitude damage. I can't fully rule out just getting more conservative as I get older, but these days it feels like there's basically one half-sane option where the preaching-to-the-choir issues are at least still mostly the fringes of the party. The last primary election I found myself reading candidate blurbs on dogmatic issues trying to figure out which candidates were merely paying lip service to the expected narratives and wouldn't actually focus on them as a priority.
    - michaelmrose 3y ago
      This has basically never been even slightly true. Look at Bush Jr normalizing torture and mass surveillance while starting a war based on false presences that killed a half million people and cost trillions. Basically you threw away your vote because you didn't understand any of the stakes.
      - mindslight 3y ago
        Oh golly gee, I'd never considered that before. Thanks for enlightening me. Of course we have no data about the counterfactual where Gore was president instead. Half of Bush's wars were a direct reaction to external stimulus. The "Patriot" act was a bipartisan thing. And when the team in office did change, it's not like Obama did much of anything to roll back Bush's activities - hence the equivalency of considering both parties not terribly opposed to authoritarianism, just favoring different flavors of it.
HWR_14 3y ago
While open-source would be great, in reality who is going to be verifying the binaries on every machine? Human readable paper ballots backed by audits are the gold standard.

2devnull 3y ago

And then sue anybody who questions the machines security.

rtkwe 3y ago
Loads of people raise concerns about electronic voting machines without getting sued, it's making wild direct claims that they're switching votes while writing in internal emails you know it's false that gets you in trouble...
- 2devnull 3y ago
  I’m talking appearance which is not necessarily the same thing as reality. Public trust is about appearance.

mindslight 3y ago

One of the biggest problems with these nutjob movements is that they're playing off very real problems to fuel their circuses. Proprietary untrustable voting machines have always been a major problem. You used to be able to bring this up, and since it wasn't a partisan issue, people would at least hear you out even though they understood little about the technicals. But these days if you talk about it to most people or without including a bunch of nuanced disclaimers, you're pigeonholed as if you're part of this mentally ill cult. So reasonable opposition/criticism gets pushed into this shitty position of just having to support the status quo, despite seeing its glaring problems and injustices.

appplication 3y ago
This statement is basically a metaphor for really any political issue. Modern political discourse is about picking sides and entrenching defenses rather than developing reasonable, nuanced takes on individual issues.
- mindslight 3y ago
  100% agree. I think it's just gotten much worse recently with the rise of Facebook geniuses and the like. I used to ignore both major parties, vote third party or deliberately not vote, comfortable that they were roughly balanced and would do roughly similar magnitude damage. I can't fully rule out just getting more conservative as I get older, but these days it feels like there's basically one half-sane option where the preaching-to-the-choir issues are at least still mostly the fringes of the party. The last primary election I found myself reading candidate blurbs on dogmatic issues trying to figure out which candidates were merely paying lip service to the expected narratives and wouldn't actually focus on them as a priority.
  - michaelmrose 3y ago
    This has basically never been even slightly true. Look at Bush Jr normalizing torture and mass surveillance while starting a war based on false presences that killed a half million people and cost trillions. Basically you threw away your vote because you didn't understand any of the stakes.
    - mindslight 3y ago
      Oh golly gee, I'd never considered that before. Thanks for enlightening me. Of course we have no data about the counterfactual where Gore was president instead. Half of Bush's wars were a direct reaction to external stimulus. The "Patriot" act was a bipartisan thing. And when the team in office did change, it's not like Obama did much of anything to roll back Bush's activities - hence the equivalency of considering both parties not terribly opposed to authoritarianism, just favoring different flavors of it.

HWR_14 3y ago

While open-source would be great, in reality who is going to be verifying the binaries on every machine? Human readable paper ballots backed by audits are the gold standard.