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They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

theguardian.com

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Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#131

Post by specialist »

nostrademons wrote: post #82
amenghra wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you go online (not to be confused with electronic-in-person), you cant really hide your vote. Whoever is buying your vote can instead buy your credentials to vote.

Isn't that also a problem with in-person voting and fake IDs?

Every poll site has a poll book of eligible voters (for that location). Voters present their ID, sign next to their name, are issued a ballot. In order for mass fraudulent voting, impersonators would have to choose IDs (of persons) they were very confident were not going to vote.

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#132

Post by Buttons840 »

henrikschroder wrote: post #100
logfromblammo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The voting system sends out postcards to registered voters with a temper-evident scratch-off covering, over a private key. This key can be used with a personal computer, or public voting computer, each using the same open-source, audited software, to produce a printed ballot with a 2D barcode on it, and a printed voting token with a 2D barcode on it. The ballot printout can be scanned and verified independently, befo…

Fantastic. Now explain how that works to non-programmers. You may not hand-wave, you may not ask them to trust a black box, and they must truly understand and trust your system. And then you can compare that explanation to the explanation for paper ballots, envelopes, and voting urns. The public's trust in a voting system is a very important feature of that voting system. That the public can participate in voting is…

Well said. I like to remember that our highest goal is not to count votes correctly, but to build a stable society where we can be safe and happy.

I believe a foolproof computer system could count votes perfectly, but it may make our society less stable in the process. Our current population is not ready to understand a fancy computer voting system, and are not capable of distinguishing between a foolproof system and `print "I win!"`.

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#133

Post by specialist »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #50

No machines are needed for voting. Votes should be counted manually. Several tiers if error correction ensure honest counting and no manipulation. Counters should be paid well and be recruited from all parts of society.

Tabulation is the smallest part of the election administration software stack. Even when ballots are counted manually, vendors would still get their cheddar.

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#134

Post by pulisse »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #125
pulisse wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> require voting in person, but make voting mandatory. This is only feasible if employers are legally required to allow employees time off to vote. In many countries, election days are holidays, but attempts to follow suit in the US haven't gone anywhere.

You could also move voting to Saturday.

That would require a constitutional amendment.

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#135

Post by specialist »

joshfraser wrote: post #4

It would be a lot easier to trust an electronic voting system if it was open-source, open-hardware, and votes were recorded on a public blockchain.

What makes the Australian Ballot (private voting, public counting) is the one-way hash of dropping one's ballot into the box.

All of the crypto systems I've studied try to accomplish the same with hash collisions. So that individual ballots get lost within the herd. Unfortunately, due the complexity of our ballots and the small size of our jurisdictions (elections are administrated per precinct), those hash collisions don't happen. One remedy may be to split complicated ballots into many simple ballots.

As of yet, I've not seen an electronic voting system proposal which states under which circumstances it will (likely) preserve the secret ballot and public count. A failing I consider to be gross intellectual malfeasance, willful ignorance, or both.

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#137

Post by specialist »

int_19h wrote: post #119
hannasanarion wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cuomo is not a good example of an mainline Democrat. He sides with Republicans in the state senate as often as Democrats. The only NY politician with a worse approval rating is Mayor DeBlasio. Election reform is a major piece of the Democratic party platform, and has been for a very long time. Whenever it comes up in Congress, the vote is party-line: all Democrats in favor of more secure and less money-influenced ele…

Democrats consistently oppose all forms of voter ID, which is pretty much standard practice in most other developed countries. The usual explanation is that it amounts to racial profiling in practice, which is true enough with the implementations that GOP proposes - but then why not propose an implementation that doesn't have those problems (again, like most other developed countries already have)? Don't forget that…

No Democrat any where opposes properly identifying voters.

One's identity and eligibility to vote is verified upon registration.

One's identity is confirmed when being issued a ballot.

The current system works so well, until recently [1], that there have been very few cases of voter or registration fraud.

If you are you unhappy with forms of identification accepted to be issued a ballot, then you should advocate that all voters are issued a government issued identification for free. Which is pretty much standard practice in most other developed countries.

Requiring government issued ID to vote that is not free is called a poll tax. And that's unconstitutional.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47323556

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#138

Post by munk-a »

ska wrote: post #130
colmmacc wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia has this and it gets turnout rates in the 90%+ range. In 2015, Obama threw out that maybe it was time for mandatory voting in the US: https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/19/politics/obama-mandatory-voti... But the idea has never gotten very far. In general, the idea of a collectivist state that is underpinned by citizen responsibilities has been subsumed by the idea of the state as service supplier, and the citizen…

I suspect an even bigger problem is that there are powerful players who seem to have have an interest in the opposite - that is, reducing the number of potential voters who actually vote. I can't imagine them letting mandatory voting go without a real fight.

There is a whole alt-right idea of "Demographic shifting" as a tactic being used to suppress their opinion. Unfortunately Americans are really stupid and conspiracy theories have gotten a deep hold on society.

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#139

Post by hannasanarion »

jerf wrote: post #81
hannasanarion wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a lie. The Democrats have tried at least six times in the last fifteen years to get money out of elections and make elections more secure, such as by requiring paper backups. Every time they were blocked by Bush, or the Republican Filibuster, or Trump. Election security is not a "both sides" issue. Democrats want more of it, Republicans want less of it, and this is bourne out very clearly in their voting reco…

This is a Uniparty issue. There's several issues in the US that are always proposed by the minority party and blocked by the majority party. The reason is that neither party wants them, but both see an advantage in calling for them while in the minority.

The 2016 Democratic platform included a resolution for constitutional amendment to undo Citizens United in the first 90 days, do you think they were hoping to lose?

I provided a bunch of evidence over two decades of Democrats uniformly supporting election reform, and Republicans uniformly opposing. If what you say is true, it should be trivial to provide examples of the opposite, so why don't you?

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#140

Post by chrisdhoover »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #108
colmmacc wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true of all remote voting. The all-postal ballots in Washington and Oregon are certainly subject to this, and there is a certain rate of voter coercion that goes undetected, particularly within households. For the proponents of all-postal voting, this trade-off is worth it for the sake of the increased participation rates. Democratic legitimacy can be very nuanced and delicate. A well-publicized example of vo…

> For the proponents of all-postal voting, this trade-off is worth it for the sake of the increased participation rates. It occurs to me that there's a fairly obvious way to get the benefits of both: require voting in person, but make voting mandatory.

And what would be the penalty for not voting. Me not voting is a vote of FU to the whole endeavor. Now police state thugs are going to what, no knock raid my house in the middle of night? Garnish my wages? Take away by constitutional rights? Oh or will it be tax by another name, you’ll get a tax credit with proof of voting. Its all too illiberal and un-American. Sure Australia requires voting but they also voted to remain a commonwealth. The US on the other rejected subjugation. Voting is a right. Rights can be freely exercised. That means either participating or not participating. Compare to the 1st and 2nd amendments. I can speak freely or own arms but I have to do neither. I can keep my mouth shut and remain unarmed.
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