Democracy is in trouble....

[Abooga]

States do it differently. But ballots are only mailed to registered voters, the individual ballots and envelopes are tracked with bar codes, signatures on the envelopes are matched with signatures on file, and there often is an on-line mechanism to check whether individual ballots have been received. It's not like somebody can copy a zillion ballots and drop them in a box.
https://www.brookings.edu/policy202...ail-work-and-does-it-increase-election-fraud/
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/why-vote-mail-option-necessary

After reading all that, I´m not sure if it´s as secure as it needs to be. I can imagine there are ways to do some large scale cheating if sufficient means were employed. Having read about Randi´s exploits in discovering fraudsters should make one more aware of these things. Think of the lengths the JREF used to go to make the million dollar challenge foolproof... is this system equally robust? One way I can think of to make it safer would be if voters got to keep some sort of receipt, with a security code that they could check online (match with a public online list made of codes and votes) to see if their vote has been counted correctly.

 

[Abooga]

Their name is on the return, and often there's supposed to be a signature match check. That's supposed to make sure they don't vote multiple times, and that they really sent in the ballot. But it's really not secure. The voter registration itself could be invalid (though in-person polling is vulnerable here as well), and signature validation isn't universal and doesn't work even where it is implemented. There have been other problems as well.

I was thinking more in terms of how to avoid a large scale fraud of changing the whole envelope etc. Are the signatures the thing that is supposed to guarantee the safety of it? I´m sure someone could invent a signature copying robot or something like that, if enough will and money is put into it.

I´m not saying this has happened in the recent elections, I find it unlikely, there is no evidence of anything of the kind, so I´m quite sure that Biden won cleanly. I´m just saying that the system should be improved, in such a way that cheating should be near impossible, like it currently is with paper ballots. For future elections, so claims of fraud become a thing of the past. (And get rid of e-voting for good.)

 

[JoeMorgue]

I see the Trump trolls are going to continue their tactic of sitting there going "I simply don't understand why I shouldn't be treated the same way as someone who is right simply because I am wrong. Can you explain why to me again so I can not listen and ask to have explained again later?"

"Why is my spouting of lies about mass voter fraud from brown people not given the same creedence as verified, actual reports of massive voter disenfranchisement efforts? Why am I expected to lose this discussion just because I am wrong? That's just so unfair."

 

[Abooga]

I see the Trump trolls are going to continue their tactic of sitting there going "I simply don't understand why I shouldn't be treated the same way as someone who is right simply because I am wrong. Can you explain why to me again so I can not listen and ask to have explained again later?"

"Why is my spouting of lies about mass voter fraud from brown people not given the same creedence as verified, actual reports of massive voter disenfranchisement efforts? Why am I expected to lose this discussion just because I am wrong? That's just so unfair."

I don´t know who you´re talking about, I´m not a Trump supporter but I think the voting system should be improved. You seem to speak from an extremely partisan tunnel-vision, "Trump claimed the election was rigged, so then anyone who criticises the voting system must be a trumptard..." Not the case, one can criticise the system for its own sake (I´ve done it before in this forum, years back).

I go beyond, and I repeat, since you all partisans ignore it. If so many people believed Trump´s claims of election fraud it is in a way a failure of the system, for not being transparent enough. Notice that Trump did not claim (AFAIK) that the cheating happened with the presential paper voting, did he? Why is that? Because anyone who knows how it´s done wouldn´t believe it. Trump claimed cheating with the mail and e-voting. Since they are less transparent and verifyable, his claims were more readily believed. Doesn´t that warrant some looking into whether there is room for improvement? In the case of e-voting I go as far as to claim that it should be abandoned for good.

 

[bruto]

I see the Trump trolls are going to continue their tactic of sitting there going "I simply don't understand why I shouldn't be treated the same way as someone who is right simply because I am wrong. Can you explain why to me again so I can not listen and ask to have explained again later?"

"Why is my spouting of lies about mass voter fraud from brown people not given the same creedence as verified, actual reports of massive voter disenfranchisement efforts? Why am I expected to lose this discussion just because I am wrong? That's just so unfair."

I think this is what passes for clever among the not so clever. One can bemoan the possibility of fraud here, proven best by the sordid history of those who just lost, and use the betrayed faith of the deplorable to justify their anger and keep alive their potential for revolt while ostensibly condemning their actions.

The ship of state has rotten masts and a hole beneath the water line, but before we do anything we need to make sure the pirates in the brig get their organic granola.

 

[johnny karate]

I don´t know who you´re talking about, I´m not a Trump supporter but I think the voting system should be improved. You seem to speak from an extremely partisan tunnel-vision, "Trump claimed the election was rigged, so then anyone who criticises the voting system must be a trumptard..." Not the case, one can criticise the system for its own sake (I´ve done it before in this forum, years back).

I go beyond, and I repeat, since you all partisans ignore it. If so many people believed Trump´s claims of election fraud it is in a way a failure of the system, for not being transparent enough. Notice that Trump did not claim (AFAIK) that the cheating happened with the presential paper voting, did he? Why is that? Because anyone who knows how it´s done wouldn´t believe it. Trump claimed cheating with the mail and e-voting. Since they are less transparent and verifyable, his claims were more readily believed. Doesn´t that warrant some looking into whether there is room for improvement? In the case of e-voting I go as far as to claim that it should be abandoned for good.

Your opinions about the voting system are worthless in the absence of evidence that supports them.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Contextless calls for "improvement" only directed at one side while pretending to be "non-partisan" is the ultimate of mush-mouth weasel arguments.

 

[Abooga]

Your opinions about the voting system are worthless in the absence of evidence that supports them.

Evidence of what? I´m not claiming there was cheating in these elections, I think there wasn´t. Not more than usual, anyway, which according to anecdotal data offered by fellow posters is more often done by republicans, anyway.* But having an opaque system such as e-voting is just wrong. You don´t need "evidence" for this, you just need to compare the system itself to presential paper voting, which is done openly, in sight of watchers etc. With e-voting you have to have faith that a certain obscure company is threating the data correctly. Without watchers. Just some digital data in some servers. What could go wrong with that, right? It is a more obscure and prone to tamper system by definition. In fact, it´s so obscure that if there were cheating at some point, there would hardly be any evidence left.

*I suspect the real cheating happens probably 3x or more often than the one that gets caught and appears in statistics anyway. The same way only one third of crimes get solved, etc.

 

[Abooga]

Contextless calls for "improvement" only directed at one side while pretending to be "non-partisan" is the ultimate of mush-mouth weasel arguments.

You probably have yourself for a skeptic, but here you are, assuming nefarious intentions without any grounds. I personally have had an interest in e-voting for a long time. But perhaps this is not the right moment to talk about it, too much noise. Whatever.

 

[johnny karate]

Evidence of what? I´m not claiming there was cheating in these elections, I think there wasn´t. Not more than usual, anyway, which according to anecdotal data offered by fellow posters is more often done by republicans, anyway.* But having an opaque system such as e-voting is just wrong. You don´t need "evidence" for this, you just need to compare the system itself to presential paper voting, which is done openly, in sight of watchers etc. With e-voting you have to have faith that a certain obscure company is threating the data correctly. Without watchers. Just some digital data in some servers. What could go wrong with that, right? It is a more obscure and prone to tamper system by definition.

*I suspect the real cheating happens probably 3x or more often than the one that gets caught and appears in statistics anyway. The same way only one third of crimes get solved, etc.

You open your post by claiming you don’t think there was cheating and close it by claiming well, yeah there was probably some cheating. We’re not off to a great start.

That aside, the evidence we’re looking for is any kind of substantiation from people who actually know what they’re talking about that supports your beliefs.

To put a finer point on it, no one cares what you think.

If you want to be taken seriously, you need to bring something to the table aside from your “opinion”.

 

[trustbutverify]

You probably have yourself for a skeptic, but here you are, assuming nefarious intentions without any grounds. I personally have had an interest in e-voting for a long time. But perhaps this is not the right moment to talk about it, too much noise. Whatever.

Honest question... were you talking about election fraud here the day after the 2016 inauguration?

 

[Abooga]

Honest question... were you talking about election fraud here the day after the 2016 inauguration?

Not that I remember. Last thread about this was a long time ago I think. Were there any claims of cheating in the 2016 elections? This time I just saw the OP and reminded me of my personal hatred of e-voting and my fear that it signifies the end of democracy.

 

[Abooga]

You open your post by claiming you don’t think there was cheating and close it by claiming well, yeah there was probably some cheating. We’re not off to a great start.

That aside, the evidence we’re looking for is any kind of substantiation from people who actually know what they’re talking about that supports your beliefs.

To put a finer point on it, no one cares what you think.

If you want to be taken seriously, you need to bring something to the table aside from your “opinion”.

I think the way I put it is quite the same as it´s been reported by mainstream media these last weeks, and I have no reason to doubt it too much. There hasn´t been any cheating, except some very anecdotal cases, which happen every year anyway.

Regarding "bringing something to the table", the fact that e-voting is (almost)universally not used in elections should mean that its unsafeness should be the standard, not the other way around. Evidence should be required to show that it is safe, otherwise why is it not widely used?

I haven´t done any reading about the issue for a while, but a quick look at Wikipedia will tell you how:

It has been demonstrated that as voting systems become more complex and include software, different methods of election fraud become possible. Others also challenge the use of electronic voting from a theoretical point of view, arguing that humans are not equipped for verifying operations occurring within an electronic machine and that because people cannot verify these operations, the operations cannot be trusted.

and so on. There were threads about this years ago. The general consensus was that they are not safe enough (without paper trail).

 

[johnny karate]

Not at all. I just saw the OP and reminded me of my personal hatred of e-voting and my fear that it signifies the end of democracy.

I have a fear that roving packs of wild dogs taking over every major American city signifies the end of democracy.

 

[johnny karate]

I think the way I put it is quite the same as it´s been reported by mainstream media these last weeks, and I have no reason to doubt it too much. There hasn´t been any cheating, except some very anecdotal cases, which happen every year anyway.

Regarding "bringing something to the table", the fact that e-voting is (almost)universally not used in elections should mean that its unsafeness should be the standard, not the other way around. Evidence should be required to show that it is safe, otherwise why is it not widely used?

I haven´t done any reading about the issue for a while, but a quick look at Wikipedia will tell you how:

It has been demonstrated that as voting systems become more complex and include software, different methods of election fraud become possible. Others also challenge the use of electronic voting from a theoretical point of view, arguing that humans are not equipped for verifying operations occurring within an electronic machine and that because people cannot verify these operations, the operations cannot be trusted.

and so on. There were threads about this years ago. The general consensus was that they are not safe enough (without paper trail).

Your failure to adequately support your belief continues.

 

[trustbutverify]

Not that I remember. Last thread about this was a long time ago I think. Were there any claims of cheating in the 2016 elections? This time I just saw the OP and reminded me of my personal hatred of e-voting and my fear that it signifies the end of democracy.

You did post about e-voting in Oct, before the 2016 election. Trump was screaming about fraud stealing victory from him before the election, and stealing a landslide from him after. Actually, he's been screaming about voter fraud cheating him for decades.

 

[Abooga]

You did post about e-voting in Oct, before the 2016 election. Trump was screaming about fraud stealing victory from him before the election, and stealing a landslide from him after. Actually, he's been screaming about voter fraud cheating him for decades.

OK, fair enough, I have a personal hate of e-voting so then I must have done. But I remember also posting about this many years ago when Trump was just a Simpsons character.

 

[Abooga]

Your failure to adequately support your belief continues.

As I said, you are the one who should present evidence e-voting is safe, when it is almost universally not regarded as such.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

As I said, you are the one who should present evidence e-voting is safe, when it is almost universally not regarded as such.

what constitutes e-voting for you?

A voting machine that leaves a paper trail is not really electronic voting.

 

[Ziggurat]

States do it differently. But ballots are only mailed to registered voters, the individual ballots and envelopes are tracked with bar codes, signatures on the envelopes are matched with signatures on file, and there often is an on-line mechanism to check whether individual ballots have been received. It's not like somebody can copy a zillion ballots and drop them in a box.
https://www.brookings.edu/policy202...ail-work-and-does-it-increase-election-fraud/
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/why-vote-mail-option-necessary

Ballots are only supposed to be mailed to registered voters, but they are often mailed to the wrong address. Only some states require signature verification, and the process of signature verification doesn't really work. It's hard to do mass centralized fraud, but easy to do small scale distributed fraud.