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Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

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Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#151
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this had an actual impact on the election you would see one side push for changing the day as a strategy if they are more popular in the poorer populations than their opponent. Republicans would definitely want this more now considering Donald Trump's voter base was mostly lower income people. Same could be said for Barack Obama during 2014.

FYI. Trump won every income bracket above $50k, while Hillary only won those below https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/e...

That's not what the graph shows at all. The graph shows that there is no statistical correlation between income and votes, except that lower incomes slightly preferred Clinton. The problem with this data is that it doesn't appear to be weighted by electoral college result, so we don't get to actually see what the impact on the election result is. And, even worse, the survey appears to include the question "Did you vote for Clinton or Trump" yet doesn't include that answer in the graph, so we don't get to compare the relative results. I tried to extract that result by using the male/female data assuming 50/50 representation, but ended up in a tie, and we don't get to know the bias of participants vs non-participants.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#152
post #18

With all of this discussion in Washington about Russian hacking and Russian voter influencing, why are these demonstrably vulnerable voting machines hardly mentioned? It would seem to me this should be a number one priority to prevent outside interference.

Because this doesn't give you political points.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#153
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voter suppression is an actual real world problem that happens today, not a hypothetical problem like the one you are worried about. Allowing voting by mail is an improvement to that real world problem as it reduces the barriers to voting for those that are employed in jobs that don't give time off for voting or who don't have transportation to their voting location. Voter intimidation is already illegal and there is…

Vote buying is also illegal and vote-by-mail makes it easy to document your ballot to get the promised kickback. This is logistically difficult for national elections but for local office it is much more likely to succeed.

Is there any evidence at all that vote buying is a problem in US elections?

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get an ID card that works as legal id but isn't a driver's license, but it still requires going to the DMV and burning at LEAST several hours, which isn't an option available to everybody.

It's slightly insane that we make people go to a physical location and derp around waiting for a piece of ID. You should be able to handle this like you do getting a passport. Fill out the forms, get a proper picture taken, slap it in the mail, get your shiny new documents back in two weeks.

Counterpoint:

I filled out the forms to renew my passport and took them to my local post office. The only person staffing the passport desk refused to take my forms because I hadn't filled in the name of my employer. I pointed out that the website explicitly states that that field is optional, and that the website will not even allow you to print a form that doesn't pass its validation. She hallucinated that the field is optional only in the case that you have no employer.

So, I had to travel to a passport office. The desk there really wanted me to fill in the name of my employer, but at least they didn't refuse to take my perfectly valid form based on their own personal delusions.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#155
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what cost? Are you interested in ensuring that additional voting restrictions actually prevent more illegal votes than they prevent legitimate votes? What makes you think the base rate of non-citizen voting is even high enough to be a problem that can be addressed without invariably causing more harm than good?

Integrity of our system is important. It doesn’t need to be a partisan issue.

Turning ten people who have the right to vote away, to catch one cheater is a ten times worse violation of integrity then the converse.

Not letting a citizen vote is just as much voter fraud as a non-citizen voting. Except its worse, because it is performed by the state.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Integrity of our system is important. It doesn’t need to be a partisan issue.

Sure, but how is any of that relevant to voter ID? If you really care about integrity of the voting system, then you should also care about prioritizing the problems that are real, easily exploited, and have the greatest potential for harm. Voter ID is largely a solution looking for a problem, with undeniable side effects of voter suppression. It's being made into a partisan issue not by its opponents but by the prop…

Nonsense. We've been asking for voter id for years and you've been opposing it for years. Why is that? You talk about conspiracy theories. This notion that there is this huge population of legal, eligible voters who are functioning in our society without ID is ludicrous.

But if you want to implement paper ballots across the board at the same time, or even 1st, than let's make that happen. As you say, any progress is better than none. Since you are obstructing voter id and not obstructing paper ballots (I assume), than by all means, let's do that first.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#157
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote buying is also illegal and vote-by-mail makes it easy to document your ballot to get the promised kickback. This is logistically difficult for national elections but for local office it is much more likely to succeed.

Is there any evidence at all that vote buying is a problem in US elections?

No, but why worry about actual problems when you can make up excuses to disenfranchise people!

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#158
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law required you be given enough time off to vote, or you be given advance notice to get an absentee ballot if they won't be close to home.

This isn't followed well enough to make it practical, though. If you aren't scheduled to begin work until 2 hours after the polls open, they say you have time. It doesn't matter if you cannot physically get to the voting booth, vote, and travel to work in the time given. As far as absentee ballots are concerned, sometimes they are difficult to get. My mother had trouble getting one when she was pregnant - my sister w…

These tactics are often combined with restricting voting locations in urban areas to force people to travel farther in an effort to maximize disenfranchisement.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#159
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's in the realm of tinfoil hat and freakishly paranoid conspiracy theories that there's any meaningful amount of non-citizens voting. Feel free to design a system that meets the John Rawl's "veil of ignorance" thought experiment, such that the burden of obtaining such ID is equal among all. What would that really look like? If Joe Bob has to take 2 hours off work, without pay, to get ID, how do you get a Warren Buf…

Obtaining an ID card can be as easy or as painful as our local governments decide it to be. Amazing, it’s the most painful I have ever experience here in California where the DMV borders on insanity. I would think such a progressive state would care more about the burden it places on its citizens than on maintaining tight control over the process but such is California.

I was able to schedule my DMV appointment in California and was in and out.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#160
post #40
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The state of Oregon has vote by mail. Its awesome. My ballot gets mailed to me a few weeks before the election. I fill it out, and can either mail it back (I have to pay for a postage stamp) or drop it off at a ballot drop box all over town. there are all sorts of safeguards for things like not getting your ballot in the mail, etc. I was also automatically register to vote as an independent when I got my drivers lice…

This actually a bad idea: The reason for in person voting is poll monitors there are watching to make sure nobody knows how you voted. There are have been cases of "vote for me or I'll break your legs". When you vote from home someone can come by and watch you mail your vote the "correct" way in.

In-person voting has its own issues.

Polling locations can be (and allegedly are) reduced in number and/or moved farther away from specific groups in order to influence who votes.

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