5 ms·

The USA threads the needle by simply not having verifiable voting. And it turns out it works pretty well. Despite countless hours and lawsuits dedicated to find

by jfengel 8mo ago

The USA threads the needle by simply not having verifiable voting. And it turns out it works pretty well. Despite countless hours and lawsuits dedicated to finding people who voted more than once, only a handful of cases have actually turned up. It's not that there are no checks. You have to give your name, and they know if you've voted more than once at that station that day. To vote more than once you'd have to pretend to be somebody else, in person, which means that if you're caught you will go to jail. We could certainly do better, but thus far all efforts to defeat this non-problem are clearly targeted at making it harder for people to vote rather than any kind of election integrity.

Joker_vD 8mo ago
> You have to give your name, and they know if you've voted more than once at that station that day. So you go to other stations, duh. It's called "carousel voting" [0], if done on a large, organized scale. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carousel_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carousel_voting
- cj 8mo ago
  At least in NY, you would have to know the name of someone else assigned to the 2nd polling site, since your name is only on the list of 1 polling location?
  - drstewart 8mo ago
    This is of course a very high bar to clear, as data such as people's names is highly confidential and almost impossible to get unless you're any one of these 750+ data brokers: https://privacyrights.org/data-brokers https://privacyrights.org/data-brokers
    - alistairSH 8mo ago
      You'd also need a fake ID. And be willing to risk a felony conviction to add a single vote. It just doesn't happen here, despite the GOP trying to prove otherwise for decades.
      - trelane 8mo ago
        I've only ever seen one time it was tried. The experiment was wildly successful: https://www.nationalreview.com/2014/01/voter-fraud-weve-got-proof-its-easy-john-fund/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2014/01/voter-fraud-weve-got-...
        alistairSH 8mo ago
        Looks like those were in states that don't require ANY ID to vote, which I find ridiculous, so I guess we agree. I live in VA, we require ID, so the problem shown in NY shouldn't be possible. And again, you still have to be willing to commit a felony to move the needly by ONE vote, which is not likely to be very common. The risk/reward simply isn't there.
      - MC995 8mo ago
        > You'd also need a fake ID For what? In my state there's no requirement to show ID. When I first moved here I attempted to show mine at the poll and the poll worker told me to quickly put that away and she didn't want to see it. I'm not even sure it's legal for them to ask for ID here, given her panicked reaction to me trying to show it. Since then I've voted in this state for around 10 years and it's always the same. I could say I'm whoever I want, and just be given a ballot. Edit: I don't live in NY either, as the other poster used as an example. ID should be an obvious and necessary requirement, but it isn't in many states.
        alistairSH 8mo ago
        Yeah, it's inconsistent between states. I'm in VA and an ID is required. Despite being a bleeding heart liberal, I'm ok with that safe-guard (despite much of the left being against the notion). I'd also prefer an actual national ID (not the half-baked RealID programs, which some states still haven't adopted).
        kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 8mo ago
        It's not really "much of the left" that is against it, just the loudest voices. Pew research says [1 sorry for the ugly URL] Support for photo ID requirements also remains widespread in both parties. More than nine-in-ten Republicans (95%) and about seven-in-ten Democrats (71%) favor requiring all voters to show government-issued photo identification to vote. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/08/22/majority-of-americans-continue-to-back-expanded-early-voting-voting-by-mail-voter-id/#:~:text=Support%20for%20photo%20ID%20requirements%20also%20remains%20widespread%20in%20both%20parties.%20More%20than%20nine%2Din%2Dten%20Republicans%20(95%25)%20and%20about%20seven%2Din%2Dten%20Democrats%20(71%25)%20favor%20requiring%20all%20voters%20to%20show%20government%2Dissued%20photo%20identification%20to%20vote. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/08/22/majority-of-...
    - throwaway85825 8mo ago
      Confidential? You can buy the voter list from your state government. They legally have to give it to you.
- _whiteCaps_ 8mo ago
  Interesting. In Canada, for federal elections at least, you're assigned to a specific location and station. You can't vote anywhere else. There's a separate process for mail in ballots to confirm you didn't vote in advanced voting or on election day as well.
  - jfengel 8mo ago
    Same in the US. You can try voting again at other stations, especially since they don't require ID. You just need the name of somebody assigned to that station, who hasn't already voted. There is a signature check if there is a suspicion, but that's rarely done. But that's practically never done. The risks are too high, and to have a significant impact would require enough votes to make it certain you'd get caught.
    - ChoGGi 8mo ago
      You still need id in Canada; either that or someone at the same polling station to vouch for you. https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=bkg&document=ec90518&lang=e https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=bkg&do...
    - Scubabear68 8mo ago
      The signature check is actually not uncommon, particularly if the vote is contested or a recount done. We had a vote thrown out of an election several years ago, the woman died right after the election, the signature on the card looked nothing like hers and was probably done by her daughter. That said all indications are voter fraud is not any kind of wide spread problem in the United States.
- jfengel 8mo ago
  And in Russia, it is. That's why they call it "карусель". In the United States, it hasn't been. The article you link to doesn't even mention the United States. To do it on a large scale requires cooperation from the people running the election, and the US isn't (yet) that corrupt. The US system isn't completely robust against it, and perhaps some day it will be a problem. But right now there is no evidence that it is a problem, and all of the attempts to "fix" it are clearly aimed at preventing some people from voting.
  - HeWhoLurksLate 8mo ago
    Famously, there have been significant issues in the past (see Tammany Hall) but I don’t think it’s anywhere near as widespread as it used to be, and especially not at the national election level. I’m sure that there’s shady stuff happening in local (county) level elections, but that’s of significantly less importance to the rest of the general public
    - cge 8mo ago
      An added point about Tammany Hall is that for much of time it was a relevant political power, the US did not have secret ballots. Arguably, it was the lack of anonymity/secrecy in voting that allowed for the types of election fraud that Tammany Hall and others were known for. The secret ballot perhaps made a particular type of election fraud, the kind done by dedicated partisans voting multiple times themselves, theoretically easier. But it removed the mechanics that allowed far more prevalent and lucrative election fraud. In the Tammany Hall era, you could buy votes and know that your paid voters actually voted the way you wanted. You could promise that your preferred candidates, if elected, would give rewards only to people who voted for them, and actually follow through with that promise. You could physically prevent people from voting with ballots that weren't yours, rather than trying to rely on demographics.
- alistairSH 8mo ago
  Limit voters to one polling location. Problem solved. That's what we do in the US. You are assigned a polling location based on your home address. You can't vote anywhere else. If you try, they turn you away. You can do a provisional ballot (for people who recently moved, and poll data isn't updated, etc) and they validate your ID/address/etc later.
  - yellowapple 8mo ago
    > That's what we do in the US. You are assigned a polling location based on your home address. You can't vote anywhere else. If you try, they turn you away. That ain't universally true. Here in Nevada you can vote at any polling station (I think within the same county).
  - SideburnsOfDoom 8mo ago
    > You are assigned a polling location based on your home address. You can't vote anywhere else. If you try, they turn you away And this is a way to disrupt and tilt elections. see: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/chaos-and-voter-suppression-texas-primary https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/chao...
- orthoxerox 8mo ago
  It only works if the people working at the polling station are in on it, because you can't normally get an absentee ballot more than once.
buckle8017 8mo ago
[flagged]
- moduspol 8mo ago
  Also, most crimes aren't uncovered by lawsuits. They're uncovered by law enforcement. The reason people resort to lawsuits is because law enforcement does not rigorously investigate or monitor. Voting laws vary by state / municipality, and they're mostly run by well-meaning volunteers acting in good faith. When we're not sure how well the TSA is doing, we try to send prohibited items through, and infamously get abysmal results [1]. IMO the reason we don't see more election fraud cases is because *we're not looking for it*, so we just see the obvious cases like when dead people vote or people brag about voting twice publicly. Until we actually do some "red teaming" of elections, we won't ever know. But the reality is, if we actually did, the results would reduce credibility of numerous prior elections. [1] https://abcnews.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-operation-us-airports/story?id=51022188 https://abcnews.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-ope...
  - trelane 8mo ago
    Red teaming, yes. But also, what other signals of fraud are we able to detect? What measures of validity (or signals that sending was attempted) are there? How are they distinguishable from honest voter errors?
    - moduspol 8mo ago
      It's going to be difficult with our current policies because we've erred on the side of making it as easy as possible for everyone to vote. We don't have a complete whitelist of citizens, it's against the law to require proof of citizenship to register to vote (unless that changed recently) and address verification in most jurisdictions isn't done more than the first time unless it's challenged. To be clear, though, I don't think non-citizens are voting en-masse. My concern is that if you aren't even verifying they're citizens, you probably aren't really verifying that they are a real and unique person that isn't already registered. Honestly I think if we actually wanted secure elections, we'd start with the red teaming and go from there. The signal to noise ratio of fraud is too meaningless to resolve without tightening up rules, which the results of the red teaming would give you the political capital to do.
alistairSH 8mo ago
This. The process in my precinct is roughly... - Enter queue - A front of queue, show ID of some sort (various accepted) to volunteer - They scratch you from the list and hand you a paper scantron sheet - Go to private booth, fill out scantron - Go to exit, scan ballot (it scans and then drops into a locked box for manual tally later, if necessary) The "easy" ways to vote fraudulently are also easily caught... fake ID documents, voting twice, etc. For people who forget their ID or have address changes that haven't propagated through the voter roll, there is provisional voting - you do the same as above, but they keep the ballot in a separate pile and validate your eligibility to vote at a later time. IIRC, the voter gets a ticket # so they can check the voter portal later to see if the ballot was accepted. As noted, the number of fraudulent votes are astonishingly small, given the amount of money spent on proving otherwise. The current GOP has spent 100s of millions or billions on proving wide-spread fraud and so far, all they've managed to prove a few voters, most of whom were actually GOP-leaning, have committed fraud (and most of them were caught day-of already).
- rayiner 8mo ago
  > As noted, the number of fraudulent votes are astonishingly small, given the amount of money spent on proving otherwise How would you even know? The fact that prosecutions for fraudulent voting are rare tells you nothing. Prosecutions for tax evasion are also rare. Does that mean nobody evades taxes? If you have a system that’s insecure, how would you even know when it’s been compromised?
  - jfengel 8mo ago
    There have been numerous efforts to scrutinize the voting. In 2020 there were 62 lawsuits; none of them succeeded. Tax evasion is rarely prosecuted because nobody is looking very hard. People looked very, very, very hard for fraud in 2020 and found zilch.
    - rmunn 8mo ago
      Most of those 62 lawsuits were thrown out on procedural grounds, such as lack of standing (which I think was a bad reason: if the losing candidate doesn't have standing to challenge an allegedly fraudulent voting system, then who does?). But that means they never reached the fact-finding stage, so citing those cases as meaning "there was no fraud" is not supported by the evidence. The cases thrown out on procedural grounds only mean "no conclusion was reached on whether the facts alleged in the complaint were true".
dmix 8mo ago
> Despite countless hours and lawsuits dedicated to finding people who voted more than once, only a handful of cases have actually turned up. Trust in the system should always be highly valued even if the skepticism is largely unwarranted. Saying a lawsuit hasn't caught it yet won't persuade many skeptics.
- esseph 8mo ago
  > Saying a lawsuit hasn't caught it yet won't persuade many skeptics. It wasn't a factual argument to begin with, wholly based on vibes and fear of Other
PoignardAzur 8mo ago
> The USA threads the needle by simply not having verifiable voting. And it turns out it works pretty well. No, no, no. January 6 is a systemic failure. The purpose of a voting system is to select the most popular candidate in a way that is so far beyond doubt that a populist loser can't claim the results are wrong without alienating his base. Even leaving aside the whole "Trump doesn't care if his lies are credible" thing, the US system works very poorly there. Mail-in voting, drive-in voting, voting machines, they leave room for suspicion, no matter how confident the people running the system are.
- Muromec 8mo ago
  >The purpose of a voting system is to select the most popular candidate in a way that is so far beyond doubt that a populist loser can't claim the results are wrong without alienating his base. The systemic failure is not in a voting system in this case, unfortunately.
  - max51 8mo ago
    Then why did it happen 3 elections in a row?! We had front-page news about how the election was "hacked by Russia" and trump cheated for over a year after his first win in 2016 (let's not pretend that keyword was chosen accidentally); They tried to put him in jail for it. In 2020, trump did the exact same thing and went even farther with it. And in 2024, the DNC tried again to claim cheating happened. How many cycle of this BS do we need to go through before we accept that elections need to be done properly and safely? The entire point of a democracy is that elected leaders get their legitimacy and their acting power from the certainty that it was voted by the population. Not everyone will agree with their ideas, but the majority do and we all agree to follow their lead because that's what the population want. If the vote is compromised, everything falls apart. If the "will of the people" turn into the "will of an intern at Dominion who fucked with the code and rigged the election" or "the will of Pakistani hacker", it breaks the entire system.
    - PoignardAzur 8mo ago
      I have to seriously disagree on the particulars, here. The Russia allegations ranged from "Russia hacked DNC servers/accounts to interfer in favor of Donald Trump" (demonstrably true in several instances) to "Russia hacked voting machines" (very probably false). And then in 2024 the DNC quickly accepted election results. By comparison, Donald Trump still claims that he legitimately won the 2020 elections, the majority of his base still believes it, Fox News spent years spreading that message even though their own journalists thought it was bullshit, etc. I maintain that this is a systemic problem and a better system would not have given Trump the leeway to do this, but let's not pretend it's a bipartisan issue.
max51 8mo ago
>And it turns out it works pretty well. Does it? This is the third election in a row where the losing party claim the election was not legitimate and/or hacked.
- 0xy 8mo ago
  Just to be clear, the 2024 election was indeed compromised. Salt Typhoon (China) hacked the communications of both campaigns due to massive cybersecurity failures in law enforcement portals of all major US telecommunications companies.

by jfengel 8mo ago

Joker_vD 8mo ago

> You have to give your name, and they know if you've voted more than once at that station that day. So you go to other stations, duh. It's called "carousel voting" [0], if done on a large, organized scale. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carousel_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carousel_voting

cj 8mo ago
At least in NY, you would have to know the name of someone else assigned to the 2nd polling site, since your name is only on the list of 1 polling location?
- drstewart 8mo ago
  This is of course a very high bar to clear, as data such as people's names is highly confidential and almost impossible to get unless you're any one of these 750+ data brokers: https://privacyrights.org/data-brokers https://privacyrights.org/data-brokers
  - alistairSH 8mo ago
    You'd also need a fake ID. And be willing to risk a felony conviction to add a single vote. It just doesn't happen here, despite the GOP trying to prove otherwise for decades.
    - trelane 8mo ago
      I've only ever seen one time it was tried. The experiment was wildly successful: https://www.nationalreview.com/2014/01/voter-fraud-weve-got-proof-its-easy-john-fund/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2014/01/voter-fraud-weve-got-...
      - alistairSH 8mo ago
        Looks like those were in states that don't require ANY ID to vote, which I find ridiculous, so I guess we agree. I live in VA, we require ID, so the problem shown in NY shouldn't be possible. And again, you still have to be willing to commit a felony to move the needly by ONE vote, which is not likely to be very common. The risk/reward simply isn't there.
    - MC995 8mo ago
      > You'd also need a fake ID For what? In my state there's no requirement to show ID. When I first moved here I attempted to show mine at the poll and the poll worker told me to quickly put that away and she didn't want to see it. I'm not even sure it's legal for them to ask for ID here, given her panicked reaction to me trying to show it. Since then I've voted in this state for around 10 years and it's always the same. I could say I'm whoever I want, and just be given a ballot. Edit: I don't live in NY either, as the other poster used as an example. ID should be an obvious and necessary requirement, but it isn't in many states.
      - alistairSH 8mo ago
        Yeah, it's inconsistent between states. I'm in VA and an ID is required. Despite being a bleeding heart liberal, I'm ok with that safe-guard (despite much of the left being against the notion). I'd also prefer an actual national ID (not the half-baked RealID programs, which some states still haven't adopted).
        kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 8mo ago
        It's not really "much of the left" that is against it, just the loudest voices. Pew research says [1 sorry for the ugly URL] Support for photo ID requirements also remains widespread in both parties. More than nine-in-ten Republicans (95%) and about seven-in-ten Democrats (71%) favor requiring all voters to show government-issued photo identification to vote. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/08/22/majority-of-americans-continue-to-back-expanded-early-voting-voting-by-mail-voter-id/#:~:text=Support%20for%20photo%20ID%20requirements%20also%20remains%20widespread%20in%20both%20parties.%20More%20than%20nine%2Din%2Dten%20Republicans%20(95%25)%20and%20about%20seven%2Din%2Dten%20Democrats%20(71%25)%20favor%20requiring%20all%20voters%20to%20show%20government%2Dissued%20photo%20identification%20to%20vote. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/08/22/majority-of-...
  - throwaway85825 8mo ago
    Confidential? You can buy the voter list from your state government. They legally have to give it to you.
_whiteCaps_ 8mo ago
Interesting. In Canada, for federal elections at least, you're assigned to a specific location and station. You can't vote anywhere else. There's a separate process for mail in ballots to confirm you didn't vote in advanced voting or on election day as well.
- jfengel 8mo ago
  Same in the US. You can try voting again at other stations, especially since they don't require ID. You just need the name of somebody assigned to that station, who hasn't already voted. There is a signature check if there is a suspicion, but that's rarely done. But that's practically never done. The risks are too high, and to have a significant impact would require enough votes to make it certain you'd get caught.
  - ChoGGi 8mo ago
    You still need id in Canada; either that or someone at the same polling station to vouch for you. https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=bkg&document=ec90518&lang=e https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=bkg&do...
  - Scubabear68 8mo ago
    The signature check is actually not uncommon, particularly if the vote is contested or a recount done. We had a vote thrown out of an election several years ago, the woman died right after the election, the signature on the card looked nothing like hers and was probably done by her daughter. That said all indications are voter fraud is not any kind of wide spread problem in the United States.
jfengel 8mo ago
And in Russia, it is. That's why they call it "карусель". In the United States, it hasn't been. The article you link to doesn't even mention the United States. To do it on a large scale requires cooperation from the people running the election, and the US isn't (yet) that corrupt. The US system isn't completely robust against it, and perhaps some day it will be a problem. But right now there is no evidence that it is a problem, and all of the attempts to "fix" it are clearly aimed at preventing some people from voting.
- HeWhoLurksLate 8mo ago
  Famously, there have been significant issues in the past (see Tammany Hall) but I don’t think it’s anywhere near as widespread as it used to be, and especially not at the national election level. I’m sure that there’s shady stuff happening in local (county) level elections, but that’s of significantly less importance to the rest of the general public
  - cge 8mo ago
    An added point about Tammany Hall is that for much of time it was a relevant political power, the US did not have secret ballots. Arguably, it was the lack of anonymity/secrecy in voting that allowed for the types of election fraud that Tammany Hall and others were known for. The secret ballot perhaps made a particular type of election fraud, the kind done by dedicated partisans voting multiple times themselves, theoretically easier. But it removed the mechanics that allowed far more prevalent and lucrative election fraud. In the Tammany Hall era, you could buy votes and know that your paid voters actually voted the way you wanted. You could promise that your preferred candidates, if elected, would give rewards only to people who voted for them, and actually follow through with that promise. You could physically prevent people from voting with ballots that weren't yours, rather than trying to rely on demographics.
alistairSH 8mo ago
Limit voters to one polling location. Problem solved. That's what we do in the US. You are assigned a polling location based on your home address. You can't vote anywhere else. If you try, they turn you away. You can do a provisional ballot (for people who recently moved, and poll data isn't updated, etc) and they validate your ID/address/etc later.
- yellowapple 8mo ago
  > That's what we do in the US. You are assigned a polling location based on your home address. You can't vote anywhere else. If you try, they turn you away. That ain't universally true. Here in Nevada you can vote at any polling station (I think within the same county).
- SideburnsOfDoom 8mo ago
  > You are assigned a polling location based on your home address. You can't vote anywhere else. If you try, they turn you away And this is a way to disrupt and tilt elections. see: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/chaos-and-voter-suppression-texas-primary https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/chao...
orthoxerox 8mo ago
It only works if the people working at the polling station are in on it, because you can't normally get an absentee ballot more than once.

buckle8017 8mo ago

[flagged]

moduspol 8mo ago
Also, most crimes aren't uncovered by lawsuits. They're uncovered by law enforcement. The reason people resort to lawsuits is because law enforcement does not rigorously investigate or monitor. Voting laws vary by state / municipality, and they're mostly run by well-meaning volunteers acting in good faith. When we're not sure how well the TSA is doing, we try to send prohibited items through, and infamously get abysmal results [1]. IMO the reason we don't see more election fraud cases is because *we're not looking for it*, so we just see the obvious cases like when dead people vote or people brag about voting twice publicly. Until we actually do some "red teaming" of elections, we won't ever know. But the reality is, if we actually did, the results would reduce credibility of numerous prior elections. [1] https://abcnews.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-operation-us-airports/story?id=51022188 https://abcnews.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-ope...
- trelane 8mo ago
  Red teaming, yes. But also, what other signals of fraud are we able to detect? What measures of validity (or signals that sending was attempted) are there? How are they distinguishable from honest voter errors?
  - moduspol 8mo ago
    It's going to be difficult with our current policies because we've erred on the side of making it as easy as possible for everyone to vote. We don't have a complete whitelist of citizens, it's against the law to require proof of citizenship to register to vote (unless that changed recently) and address verification in most jurisdictions isn't done more than the first time unless it's challenged. To be clear, though, I don't think non-citizens are voting en-masse. My concern is that if you aren't even verifying they're citizens, you probably aren't really verifying that they are a real and unique person that isn't already registered. Honestly I think if we actually wanted secure elections, we'd start with the red teaming and go from there. The signal to noise ratio of fraud is too meaningless to resolve without tightening up rules, which the results of the red teaming would give you the political capital to do.

alistairSH 8mo ago

This. The process in my precinct is roughly... - Enter queue - A front of queue, show ID of some sort (various accepted) to volunteer - They scratch you from the list and hand you a paper scantron sheet - Go to private booth, fill out scantron - Go to exit, scan ballot (it scans and then drops into a locked box for manual tally later, if necessary) The "easy" ways to vote fraudulently are also easily caught... fake ID documents, voting twice, etc. For people who forget their ID or have address changes that haven't propagated through the voter roll, there is provisional voting - you do the same as above, but they keep the ballot in a separate pile and validate your eligibility to vote at a later time. IIRC, the voter gets a ticket # so they can check the voter portal later to see if the ballot was accepted. As noted, the number of fraudulent votes are astonishingly small, given the amount of money spent on proving otherwise. The current GOP has spent 100s of millions or billions on proving wide-spread fraud and so far, all they've managed to prove a few voters, most of whom were actually GOP-leaning, have committed fraud (and most of them were caught day-of already).

rayiner 8mo ago
> As noted, the number of fraudulent votes are astonishingly small, given the amount of money spent on proving otherwise How would you even know? The fact that prosecutions for fraudulent voting are rare tells you nothing. Prosecutions for tax evasion are also rare. Does that mean nobody evades taxes? If you have a system that’s insecure, how would you even know when it’s been compromised?
- jfengel 8mo ago
  There have been numerous efforts to scrutinize the voting. In 2020 there were 62 lawsuits; none of them succeeded. Tax evasion is rarely prosecuted because nobody is looking very hard. People looked very, very, very hard for fraud in 2020 and found zilch.
  - rmunn 8mo ago
    Most of those 62 lawsuits were thrown out on procedural grounds, such as lack of standing (which I think was a bad reason: if the losing candidate doesn't have standing to challenge an allegedly fraudulent voting system, then who does?). But that means they never reached the fact-finding stage, so citing those cases as meaning "there was no fraud" is not supported by the evidence. The cases thrown out on procedural grounds only mean "no conclusion was reached on whether the facts alleged in the complaint were true".

dmix 8mo ago

> Despite countless hours and lawsuits dedicated to finding people who voted more than once, only a handful of cases have actually turned up. Trust in the system should always be highly valued even if the skepticism is largely unwarranted. Saying a lawsuit hasn't caught it yet won't persuade many skeptics.

esseph 8mo ago
> Saying a lawsuit hasn't caught it yet won't persuade many skeptics. It wasn't a factual argument to begin with, wholly based on vibes and fear of Other

PoignardAzur 8mo ago

> The USA threads the needle by simply not having verifiable voting. And it turns out it works pretty well. No, no, no. January 6 is a systemic failure. The purpose of a voting system is to select the most popular candidate in a way that is so far beyond doubt that a populist loser can't claim the results are wrong without alienating his base. Even leaving aside the whole "Trump doesn't care if his lies are credible" thing, the US system works very poorly there. Mail-in voting, drive-in voting, voting machines, they leave room for suspicion, no matter how confident the people running the system are.

Muromec 8mo ago
>The purpose of a voting system is to select the most popular candidate in a way that is so far beyond doubt that a populist loser can't claim the results are wrong without alienating his base. The systemic failure is not in a voting system in this case, unfortunately.
- max51 8mo ago
  Then why did it happen 3 elections in a row?! We had front-page news about how the election was "hacked by Russia" and trump cheated for over a year after his first win in 2016 (let's not pretend that keyword was chosen accidentally); They tried to put him in jail for it. In 2020, trump did the exact same thing and went even farther with it. And in 2024, the DNC tried again to claim cheating happened. How many cycle of this BS do we need to go through before we accept that elections need to be done properly and safely? The entire point of a democracy is that elected leaders get their legitimacy and their acting power from the certainty that it was voted by the population. Not everyone will agree with their ideas, but the majority do and we all agree to follow their lead because that's what the population want. If the vote is compromised, everything falls apart. If the "will of the people" turn into the "will of an intern at Dominion who fucked with the code and rigged the election" or "the will of Pakistani hacker", it breaks the entire system.
  - PoignardAzur 8mo ago
    I have to seriously disagree on the particulars, here. The Russia allegations ranged from "Russia hacked DNC servers/accounts to interfer in favor of Donald Trump" (demonstrably true in several instances) to "Russia hacked voting machines" (very probably false). And then in 2024 the DNC quickly accepted election results. By comparison, Donald Trump still claims that he legitimately won the 2020 elections, the majority of his base still believes it, Fox News spent years spreading that message even though their own journalists thought it was bullshit, etc. I maintain that this is a systemic problem and a better system would not have given Trump the leeway to do this, but let's not pretend it's a bipartisan issue.

max51 8mo ago

>And it turns out it works pretty well. Does it? This is the third election in a row where the losing party claim the election was not legitimate and/or hacked.

0xy 8mo ago
Just to be clear, the 2024 election was indeed compromised. Salt Typhoon (China) hacked the communications of both campaigns due to massive cybersecurity failures in law enforcement portals of all major US telecommunications companies.