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US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

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Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#91

Post by roenxi »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #85
stouset wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same proponents of stronger voter ID laws are also the same people who are incomprehensibly paranoid about the notion of a national ID system.

Is that really so weird? All elections are essentially state elections. Even the presidency is really a state level election due to the way the electoral college works. There is no nationwide election so why would there need to be a nationwide ID system for voting? I'm in favor of requiring a photo id to vote but am well aware of the problems some have in obtaining such an id. That's the problem that needs to be corr…

Indeed. I hold a similar dual position and it is very easy to rationalise. Government controls the police and military, and so has the capability to threaten me in a way that pretty much nothing else does. I want the process of controlling the government to be transparent, difficult and controlled - hence voters should be identified on voting. I want the government's power to be controlled - hence I don't want them to have a database where they can quickly and easily match bits of my data up.

There tension between those two positions is of little practical importance. I'm not worried that they can link my name and address, I'm worried about a sudden outbreak of majority-vs-miniority where someone I really don't like gets in to power and links, I dunno, tax records-name-address, racial-history-name-address , travel-history-bank-account-photo or somesuch. I don't think it is practically feasible to target someone off the information in a voter role.

The real issue to me is that there isn't much organisation against governments laying the groundwork, and in practice opposing an ID card doesn't mean anything. In Australia we basically have all the infrastructure for a national ID card except the formalisation of a little piece of plastic.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#92

Post by daphneokeefe »

unethical_ban wrote: post #62
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #60

Paper ballots are the superior method of voting. It makes it nigh impossible to cheat at a large scale and there's a paper trail verified by multiple adversarial parties. It's also way more reliable due to the sheer simplicity of the system. For a system as important as our elections we should take every precaution possible. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I don't even trust mail-in ballots. I'm perfectly content to fill out…

I respect the idea that paper is "unhackable" and that decentralized voting counts are less vulnerable to attack. I've been thinking alot about Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) and how to do an instant runoff with paper ballots at scale, notably for something like President. I suppose it's unlikely to occur, but in the instance of a national popular vote for president that results in a runoff, it is worth the extra time to…

I am a pollworker in San Francisco, and I can tell you from personal experience with thousands of voters that Ranked-Choice Voting is widely misunderstood. The common refrain is: I only want to vote for this one candidate, and not for anyone else. In a hotly-contested election, they absolutely do not want to vote for the other guy as #2.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#93

Post by daphneokeefe »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #60

Paper ballots are the superior method of voting. It makes it nigh impossible to cheat at a large scale and there's a paper trail verified by multiple adversarial parties. It's also way more reliable due to the sheer simplicity of the system. For a system as important as our elections we should take every precaution possible. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I don't even trust mail-in ballots. I'm perfectly content to fill out…

In order to have an impact on election results, wouldn't you need a very large number of people without ID's standing in line all day long, for hours, to vote multiple times at different precincts?

And they would have to give a valid name of a registered voter who had not showed up yet, or the pollworkers would realize that the same person was trying to vote twice.

Or you could only impersonate voters who voted by mail (thereby voting twice in the same name).

Sure, you can come up with examples where a very small number of votes determined an election outcome. But for the vast majority of important contests -- and especially for state and federal level -- it does not seem feasible to round up enough thousands of people to cast enough fraudulent ballots to affect the election outcome.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#94

Post by tropo »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #80
Muromec wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please explain for non-americans what's the actual problem with havinf ID in US? Is it like most people only have driver license and ones who don't have a car (because they are poor) don't need one or it's more complicated? Where I'm from everybody is required by law to have one from the age of 14 and gets it for free for the first time. You just can't have anything done without id and tax identification code…

E.g. Poor without car in big city, required to show up at DMV office to get ID card during work hours. Two weeks to get the time off, two hours on the bus, find the ID office closed because budget forced limited hours. The ID law has been shown to be slanted to disfavor the working poor who vote for one party over another. It's not done as a legitimate concern over fraud; its a political maneuver to favor one party o…

It doesn't work like that. The poor have ID.

Sure, it isn't easy, but they get ID because they need it for damn near everything. For example, you mentioned "work hours". If they are legally working, they have ID. If they get any sort of welfare, they have ID. If they smoke or drink, they have ID.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#95

Post by int_19h »

adjkant wrote: post #69
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #60

Paper ballots are the superior method of voting. It makes it nigh impossible to cheat at a large scale and there's a paper trail verified by multiple adversarial parties. It's also way more reliable due to the sheer simplicity of the system. For a system as important as our elections we should take every precaution possible. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I don't even trust mail-in ballots. I'm perfectly content to fill out…

> I think it should also be a requirement to show a state or federal ID before you can cast your vote. I'm always floored when people try to defend voting without requiring any kind of identity verification. In Puerto Rico you're required to register ahead of time for a voter ID and you must present it in order to vote. If Puerto Rico, which is drastically poorer than all 50 states, can pull this off without it being…

I wholeheartedly agree. Which is why whoever will be the first one to propose a no-cost, easy-to-get national ID (could be issued via post offices, since those already have pervasive geographic coverage) combined with voter ID, pitching it all as "a real investment into election security while protecting the right of all citizens to vote" or some such, would likely win this political fight.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#96

Post by int_19h »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #85
stouset wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same proponents of stronger voter ID laws are also the same people who are incomprehensibly paranoid about the notion of a national ID system.

Is that really so weird? All elections are essentially state elections. Even the presidency is really a state level election due to the way the electoral college works. There is no nationwide election so why would there need to be a nationwide ID system for voting? I'm in favor of requiring a photo id to vote but am well aware of the problems some have in obtaining such an id. That's the problem that needs to be corr…

> All elections are essentially state elections. Even the presidency is really a state level election due to the way the electoral college works. There is no nationwide election so why would there need to be a nationwide ID system for voting?

The Constitution explicitly gives Congress the power to regulate how congressional elections are held - Article 1, Section 4 - precisely because those elections are national in practice (in terms of how their outcome translates to policy). Congress already uses the power to, for example, set the date of the elections to be the same across the country, or to enforce a uniform electoral system (single-member districts). That same power could be similarly used to enact uniform voter ID requirements, and one could argue that it is the only way to ensure that states aren't abusing the system to benefit whatever party controls them. And once you go there, it makes sense to tie those requirements to a national ID.

States can use their own IDs for state elections. But I don't see why they should get away with arbitrary restrictions (or arbitrary lack of restrictions) for elections that directly apply outside of their borders. They're not sovereign countries, and federal elections are one of the issues on which federal-level regulation is clearly both reasonable and constitutional.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#97

Post by fabian2k »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #60

Paper ballots are the superior method of voting. It makes it nigh impossible to cheat at a large scale and there's a paper trail verified by multiple adversarial parties. It's also way more reliable due to the sheer simplicity of the system. For a system as important as our elections we should take every precaution possible. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I don't even trust mail-in ballots. I'm perfectly content to fill out…

In Germany you get a letter with an invitation to vote automatically for every election. This is based on the general resident registry, and you're required to register when you move.

To vote you simply have to bring that letter with you, and then you usually don't need to show any ID. The election officers can still ask you for it if there is any doubt about your identity. Just before you enter your ballot your name is checked against the voter registry and crossed out from it.

Of course that still leaves a bit of fraud potential, but not really on any scale that would affect the election. You'd still need to forge the letter and know the personal details of a voter that won't vote themselves.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#98

Post by throwaway2048 »

int_19h wrote: post #95
adjkant wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it should also be a requirement to show a state or federal ID before you can cast your vote. I'm always floored when people try to defend voting without requiring any kind of identity verification. In Puerto Rico you're required to register ahead of time for a voter ID and you must present it in order to vote. If Puerto Rico, which is drastically poorer than all 50 states, can pull this off without it being…

I wholeheartedly agree. Which is why whoever will be the first one to propose a no-cost, easy-to-get national ID (could be issued via post offices, since those already have pervasive geographic coverage) combined with voter ID, pitching it all as "a real investment into election security while protecting the right of all citizens to vote" or some such, would likely win this political fight.

Unfortunately this has a lot of opposition behind it from republican voters who believe in kooky mark of the beast theories, and concerns about federal government surveillance. You can be completely certain they would fan those flames hard if a proposal like this ever saw the light of day.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#99

Post by int_19h »

Muromec wrote: post #77
pjc50 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, require ID; but it must be freely available and easily accessible, and states which end up with different ID takeup rates for different races should be prosecuted.

Can you please explain for non-americans what's the actual problem with havinf ID in US? Is it like most people only have driver license and ones who don't have a car (because they are poor) don't need one or it's more complicated? Where I'm from everybody is required by law to have one from the age of 14 and gets it for free for the first time. You just can't have anything done without id and tax identification code…

Americans have a historical paranoia about the government tracking its citizens. I don't think it's entirely unjustifiable, but clearly, that ship has sailed a long time ago. At this point, the federal government already has so much information on the citizens, it could effectively implement a national ID scheme (and pretty much everyone will admit to that if you phrase the question right).

So the remaining opposition is more symbolical than anything - accepting a national ID would be acquiescing to this state of affairs, while rejecting it allows to maintain the pretense that all the massive data-gathering operations (from IRS and Social Security, to DHS and NSA) are somehow fundamentally different.

In practice, this just means extreme inefficiency whenever you have to deal with the government. I would dare say that citizens actually suffer a lot more from it than the government does (the government can always hire more bureaucrats to maintain and synchronize more databases).

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#100

Post by ikfmpwdsoz »

daphneokeefe wrote: post #92
unethical_ban wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respect the idea that paper is "unhackable" and that decentralized voting counts are less vulnerable to attack. I've been thinking alot about Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) and how to do an instant runoff with paper ballots at scale, notably for something like President. I suppose it's unlikely to occur, but in the instance of a national popular vote for president that results in a runoff, it is worth the extra time to…

I am a pollworker in San Francisco, and I can tell you from personal experience with thousands of voters that Ranked-Choice Voting is widely misunderstood. The common refrain is: I only want to vote for this one candidate, and not for anyone else. In a hotly-contested election, they absolutely do not want to vote for the other guy as #2.

How hard is it to explain to people that their vote only goes to #2 if #1 is already out of the running?
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