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Hand recounts are almost never performed. So tampering with tabulation machines could easily sway an election. I’m the last person to believe the Jan 6 conspir

Hand recounts are almost never performed. So tampering with tabulation machines could easily sway an election. I’m the last person to believe the Jan 6 conspiracy theory (I’m more inclined to think the accusations of fraud were a pre-emptive strike to discredit anyone challenging the next election). But there is absolutely positively incentive for both domestic and foreign interests to interfere with the machines.

bediger4000 7mo ago
The ProPublica article specifically said "hand recount". That was in April of 2021, as I read The Internet. There's also risk limiting audits done by most or all vote-by-mail states. The selection of ballots that are used in the audit is via randomly seeded RNG. I've only looked at Colorado:s RLA in detail, but it seems like RLA would be done by hand. I wrote a program to simulate CO's RLA algorithm so I can understand it. It detected "wrong candidate won" with far fewer audited ballots than "correct candidate won". I agree about the incentive to tamper. Qanon Tina Peters did so, as did a Republican team led by Sidney "release the kraken" Powell, in Coffee County, GA in 2021.
- apothegm 7mo ago
  TFA may have been about a hand recount, but the comment I was originally responding to seemed to suggest the existence of paper ballots negated the incentive to tamper with the computers. Do those vote by mail states that audit audit only mail ballots? Or also ballots tallied at polling places? Because there are very few states that are mail-only; and mail ballots typically reflect different demographics and thus different voting tendencies than in-person ballots. My state tallies paper ballots by machine, and doesn’t even show me whether it read my ballot correctly. I just have to take it on faith that tallies are correct and never tampered with.
  - bediger4000 7mo ago
    Sorry, I misread you. Paper ballots don't eliminate incentives for tampering, but they certainly lessen them, and make it harder. Paper ballots can be recounted, by hand if need be, and audited (risk limiting audits). Nothing will eliminate the incentive to tamper if ideology pushes it (Qanon) or policy positions are religious doctrine, but very unpopular (use imagination). We can certainly decrease the incentives. My state (CO) emails me when my ballot is in the mail, when they receive it back from me, and after it's counted. Practices vary, I guess. This raises another question: what happens to mail in ballots of Trump and Project 2025 destroy or privatize the USPS?
    - apothegm 7mo ago
      Telling you the ballot has been counted isn’t the same as counting it, counting it correctly, or protecting the count from tampering. Paper ballots and the possibility of a recount decreases the tampering incentive only if there’s sufficient reason to expect a recount. Given the rarity of recounts, that doesn’t seem to me like much of a deterrent. ETA: re mail-in ballots and the USPS, that’s an incentive to vote in person if you can. It’s a legit concern for those for whom voting in person is problematic. I’m personally far more worried about the integrity of the count — and frankly, whether we’ll get to vote in a “free and fair” election at all. After all, even Russia still has “elections”.

bediger4000 7mo ago

The ProPublica article specifically said "hand recount". That was in April of 2021, as I read The Internet. There's also risk limiting audits done by most or all vote-by-mail states. The selection of ballots that are used in the audit is via randomly seeded RNG. I've only looked at Colorado:s RLA in detail, but it seems like RLA would be done by hand. I wrote a program to simulate CO's RLA algorithm so I can understand it. It detected "wrong candidate won" with far fewer audited ballots than "correct candidate won". I agree about the incentive to tamper. Qanon Tina Peters did so, as did a Republican team led by Sidney "release the kraken" Powell, in Coffee County, GA in 2021.

apothegm 7mo ago
TFA may have been about a hand recount, but the comment I was originally responding to seemed to suggest the existence of paper ballots negated the incentive to tamper with the computers. Do those vote by mail states that audit audit only mail ballots? Or also ballots tallied at polling places? Because there are very few states that are mail-only; and mail ballots typically reflect different demographics and thus different voting tendencies than in-person ballots. My state tallies paper ballots by machine, and doesn’t even show me whether it read my ballot correctly. I just have to take it on faith that tallies are correct and never tampered with.
- bediger4000 7mo ago
  Sorry, I misread you. Paper ballots don't eliminate incentives for tampering, but they certainly lessen them, and make it harder. Paper ballots can be recounted, by hand if need be, and audited (risk limiting audits). Nothing will eliminate the incentive to tamper if ideology pushes it (Qanon) or policy positions are religious doctrine, but very unpopular (use imagination). We can certainly decrease the incentives. My state (CO) emails me when my ballot is in the mail, when they receive it back from me, and after it's counted. Practices vary, I guess. This raises another question: what happens to mail in ballots of Trump and Project 2025 destroy or privatize the USPS?
  - apothegm 7mo ago
    Telling you the ballot has been counted isn’t the same as counting it, counting it correctly, or protecting the count from tampering. Paper ballots and the possibility of a recount decreases the tampering incentive only if there’s sufficient reason to expect a recount. Given the rarity of recounts, that doesn’t seem to me like much of a deterrent. ETA: re mail-in ballots and the USPS, that’s an incentive to vote in person if you can. It’s a legit concern for those for whom voting in person is problematic. I’m personally far more worried about the integrity of the count — and frankly, whether we’ll get to vote in a “free and fair” election at all. After all, even Russia still has “elections”.