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US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

durbin.senate.gov

191–200 of 311 posts

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#191
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be wowed by this kind of hypocrisy, but lately I've concluded that these things are happening so frequently because the voters have proved to them sufficiently that they will take no heed provided it "hurts the other team." Everything on the news looks ironic now because the political class has realized there's almost no limit to what they can get away with.

There was a comment on: > Absolutely. America is internally fractured enough now to make any resistance movement useless. Most people are content to attack each other while the political/managerial class makes further extractions and the world moves beyond American hegemony. > It's sad, really. This country pulled in generally the same direction for a long time. We don't have that strength anymore. Which was deleted…

>even while the US might be the most armed populace, the US military is even more excessive.

that didn't help against insurgents in Afghanistan/Iraq/Vietnam

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we do remote voting securely? The moment you move from a tiny minority voting by mail to the overwhelming majority voting by mail, the payoff for corrupting that process goes up dramatically.

Is there some part of the way states that already do it are doing it that you take umbrage with?

What's peculiar about your response is that this is Hacker News and if I had posted a similar question on a topic about how to do some computing operation securely it would be upvoted. Somehow the moment we talk about voting, people throw out all concerns about security.

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be wowed by this kind of hypocrisy, but lately I've concluded that these things are happening so frequently because the voters have proved to them sufficiently that they will take no heed provided it "hurts the other team." Everything on the news looks ironic now because the political class has realized there's almost no limit to what they can get away with.

>Everything on the news looks ironic I was born and grew up in Scotland. I remember the first time I watched Fox News after moving to the states - for almost fifteen minutes I genuinely thought I was watching some (honestly pretty funny) satire.

Fox News is classified as entertainment in Canada, rather than a news agency.

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#194
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right. There's a vast potential for very real problems. When those problems manifest, we should deal with them. To try to address problems that don't actually exist is absurd overregulation and government overreach. It certainly is wasteful to expend resources on solving problems that don't need solving because they don't exist, isn't it? Is there evidence of voter fraud by undocumented migrants tha…

> When those problems manifest, we should deal with them I think this is one of the key problems with a hyper-conservative government. If your default position is "don't change it" on every issue, then you have a very difficult time solving problems. More liberal governments that frequently change the rules are like startups vs very large corporations. They are more agile and better able to quickly deal with problems…

I could see that being true in some cases. The iterative process can work quite well if done correctly. You certainly don't want to solve problems that won't exist, but you also need to put a reasonable amount of forethought into the possible consequences of the changes so that you don't create more problems (push new bugs in with that code fix).

The problem with elections is a bit different. If the elections were manipulated either through people voting who shouldn't have, or foreign governments, do you think the people who benefited from that who are now in power will fix that issue? Probably not, especially when there is most likely close to 50% of the population who feel the person was their preferred candidate anyways.

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Washington and Oregon only have remote voting. It works extremely well, is less open to voter suppression and tampering, and lets you sit down and research what you're voting for in comfort. A ballot is mailed to you, you fill it out, seal it up, and mail it back or put it in one of the many ballot drop boxes. Electronic voting? Absolutely not. But it's hard to have cyberwarfare campaigns against paper trails.

Paper by mail voting should be our standard in the US. There is absolutely no need for real-time efficiency when it comes to potentially changing political office seats. There usually is a month or two before the successor takes office so we don't need to know that night, it could be a week later. Sometimes technology introduces more potential problems.

It will be hard to walk back from the election night hysteria we've developed as a populace.

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think with 10+ million undocumented immigrants - a not insignificant portion of the population, but not citizenry - that people should not be concerned about ensuring only valid citizens can vote?

Don't forget there are also tens of millions of felons who are not eligible to vote as well.

Which is a whole different problem altogether. I honestly have never understood what the purpose of even letting people out of prison was. Really, think about it.

Here you are, you've been 'punished' for a time the state has deemed appropriate. Now you're out. Very little support. No real integration plans, at least not formal ones. No oversight to see whether or not you fall into patterns of behavior from before. Undercut, actively, via loss of certain rights (gun ownership, voting as examples) in your attempts at integrating to society. And it's almost impossible to get anything but the most entry level, low paying jobs.

The US really has a hard on for kicking people when they make a mistake. It's almost a sport, it seems.

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right supports mail-in ballots with voter-id, and voter-id in general. The left doesn't support that, why?

> The left doesn't support that, why? Because it's a transparent attempt to reduce the ability of some groups of people to vote. The right pushes for voter ID while simultaneously doing everything possible to reduce the availability of ID. Put the Federal Election Commission in charge of voter ID, make the cards free and make it the mission of the FEC to track down and ensure every qualified citizen has one. Then I s…

We already have cards like this given to every citizen at birth.

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#198
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scenario: I'm living in a household with three roommates, unrelated to me. Maybe they're not granted the right to vote. The mail-in ballot arrives and is completed by one other than myself, without my knowledge. How do you prevent this? Signing the envelope that you return the ballot in would further de-anonymize the vote. I'm asking not out of snarkiness but because I don't know.

What? Signatures are and remain the best way to verify a ballot. It seems you are stuck in digital, the real world is analog, always will be.

If I go to a voting location I can sign a voter roll and establish my presence as a voter, I sign the roll and I get a ballot in exchange (in my jurisdiction).

This ballot is then filled in and anonymously submitted into whatever box or diebold machine.

With mail-in, a signature is attached to the ballot, which is a different situation. I'm missing something.

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#199
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has it been an actual problem in states that allow mail-in voting without also having voter ID laws? If it's a real issue, it ought to already be causing problems.

It has not. Oregon has had vote by mail exclusively for over twenty years and, in the 2016, with over two million votes cast, 54 problematic votes (according to an audit done by the then-republican secretary of state.)

54 across the state is good. In Philly, we have about 6k dead people voting in presidential elections.

Re: US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

#200
post #163

I am deeply concerned about the security of any online voting system for anyone. It can be done securely, but I have zero confidence in the IT ability of our government to actually achieve security. The past record of pathetic electronic voting machine security speaks to this.

How can it be done securely? Just curious about the updated models
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