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US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

durbin.senate.gov

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

#251

Post by akvadrako »

throwaway9899 wrote: post #185
natch wrote: post #19

Off topic since this is about senators, but to nip a possible related thread in the bud, an important reason why remote voting for citizens is a bad idea is that it can enable massive scale vote manipulation through schemes to buy or otherwise influence votes. In the privacy of one's home, outside a controlled voting booth, the problem is exacerbated, counterintuitively. A voter at home or in another uncontrolled set…

As someone who lives in a single party state with zero hope of my vote ever mattering in a federal election my vote would definitely be for sale if voting from home was the norm, not that anyone with a brain would buy it.

I agree - I don't think votes are worth much and would be willing to sell mine for $100 or so. I'm sure many people would do it for less.

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

#252

Post by giantg2 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #241
giantg2 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting services are the responsibility of the states. The Feds can require states to implement certain regulations, but it's up to the state to provide the enforcement. You don't need a separate identification card. You can register to vote for free electronically or via mail, some state even allow in-person enrollment on the same day as the election. In most states, the county maintains the voter registration. They…

> This lack of photo ID argue is soooooo old. Most states will issue an ID card good for 4-7 years for a very minimal cost, usually much less than even a driver's license. If it's not a big deal, then why does the right actively try to make getting valid photo ID more difficult? Things like closing all the DMV branches in poorer areas, or allowing them to be open just a few hours every couple weeks, etc. The right ma…

I never said it was the right or the left making anything a big deal. I think many government agencies have inconvenient hours (sheriff's office, marriage license, etc). In my experience the DMV has better hours than most. I'd be interested in your examples of the right making ID harder to get.

So they shut down the DMV in the poorest area. Where's the next closest one?

As you can see in my other comments, I'm not a fan of political game playing. But using that as an defense against the underlying principle of validating voter identity is not a valid argument.

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

#253

Post by MiroF »

bobthepanda wrote: post #51
Uehreka wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t need to be a power-grab (“We’re taking over the election to make sure it’s done right”). In all likelihood it would be some sort of funding incentive (“If you resolve to do vote-by-mail, we’ll give you the money to hire people and buy equipment to do it, and even throw in some money for infrastructure as a cherry on top”).

The problem with this approach is that it leaves a patchwork solution and still leaves the most disenfranchised out of the running, because ideology trumps free money. See: ACA Medicare expansion.

Not always... I think you underestimate the extent to which this sort of approach underlies most federal government rule making. Consider the drinking age of 21 - that is a state-by-state law and yet somehow universal in the United States.

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

#254

Post by irrational »

kfrzcode wrote: post #198
12xo wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are missing something. The envelope comes in. A person checks that the signature on the envelope matches that of the person the ballot belongs to. If they match, the envelope is opened and the interior sealed envelope is removed. This interior sealed envelope contains no identifying information. That interior sealed envelope is mixed in with all the rest of the interior sealed envelopes (hundreds of thousands to millions of envelopes) so there is no way to identify which ballot belongs to whom. Then the interior sealed envelopes are opened, the ballots are extracted and scanned. All of this is overseen by observers and you can go and watch it if you want.

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

#255

Post by karatestomp »

triceratops wrote: post #240
buckminster wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure you don't have cyberwarfare, but you do have old-fashioned vote selling and coercion. Postal voting denies many women a free vote.

> Postal voting denies many women a free vote. How many? Is it more than the number of people who can't vote in person on election day due to work or inability to travel to voting places? If it's not, vote-by-mail still wins in aggregate. If it is, then it sounds like there's a serious domestic abuse issue in the broader society that needs to be addressed.

I'd also expect womens' rights organizations to be strongly against vote-by-mail, then. Are they? If not (for, say, political conflict-of-interest reasons) and it's a real problem, I'd expect some of their spokespersons to have had to answer questions about that at some point, and their responses not to have been very convincing. Has that, at least, happened?

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

#256

Post by triceratops »

karatestomp wrote: post #255
triceratops wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Postal voting denies many women a free vote. How many? Is it more than the number of people who can't vote in person on election day due to work or inability to travel to voting places? If it's not, vote-by-mail still wins in aggregate. If it is, then it sounds like there's a serious domestic abuse issue in the broader society that needs to be addressed.

I'd also expect womens' rights organizations to be strongly against vote-by-mail, then. Are they? If not (for, say, political conflict-of-interest reasons) and it's a real problem, I'd expect some of their spokespersons to have had to answer questions about that at some point, and their responses not to have been very convincing. Has that, at least, happened?

Agreed.

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

#257

Post by giantg2 »

triceratops wrote: post #250
giantg2 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting services are the responsibility of the states. The Feds can require states to implement certain regulations, but it's up to the state to provide the enforcement. You don't need a separate identification card. You can register to vote for free electronically or via mail, some state even allow in-person enrollment on the same day as the election. In most states, the county maintains the voter registration. They…

Believe it or not, there are people who don't drive, take long-distance buses, or buy guns, and therefore don't have valid photo ID. > Most states will issue an ID card good for 4-7 years for a very minimal cost It's not just the cost of the license. There's also the opportunity cost of going to the DMV and potentially spending all day in line, which can mean missed work and lost wages, or childcare costs. And if you…

So just because they don't exercise those privileges/rights means they should be legally barred from doing so? If that is a valid argument, then you could use that same line of thinking against your position to say that who people who haven't voted impacted by the voter ID laws.

Sure, there's opportunity cost to everything. Take the kid with you. What do you suggest we do about it? And not just on this issue, but filing taxes, marriage licenses, etc.

If you think we should hold the actions of a few bad people as parts of debates, then I don't think I should pay taxes because of misappropriation, or because criminals use them to travel.

Again, (because I don't think you got it) my position is that I don't see the issue with requiring photo ID because it is required for many other aspects of life, including other rights. The law should be congruent in that respect. If there are implemetion issues, then that is a different story. If you wanted to advocate the removal of ID requirements in other areas of life, then I'd be open to that too.

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

#258

Post by lozaning »

malandrew wrote: post #192
lozaning wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What's peculiar about your response is that you're the only person that interpreted my question as trying to shut down the discussion as opposed to starting it.

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

#259

Post by triceratops »

giantg2 wrote: post #257
triceratops wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, there are people who don't drive, take long-distance buses, or buy guns, and therefore don't have valid photo ID. > Most states will issue an ID card good for 4-7 years for a very minimal cost It's not just the cost of the license. There's also the opportunity cost of going to the DMV and potentially spending all day in line, which can mean missed work and lost wages, or childcare costs. And if you…

So just because they don't exercise those privileges/rights means they should be legally barred from doing so? If that is a valid argument, then you could use that same line of thinking against your position to say that who people who haven't voted impacted by the voter ID laws. Sure, there's opportunity cost to everything. Take the kid with you. What do you suggest we do about it? And not just on this issue, but fil…

I'm not against the idea of voter ID. But a well-intentioned voter ID law would make ID easier and cheaper to obtain. It would set up ID registration at banks, post offices, libraries, courthouses, city halls, senior centers, college campuses, churches or other religious/community centers, workplaces, school gyms, supermarkets and convenience stores, gas stations. Make it as easy as buying Girl Scout cookies. Heck, let Girl and Boy Scouts get merit badges for volunteering to take pictures - with adult supervision even a 10-year-old can handle a camera well enough to take an ID picture. Maybe even have a person who comes to your door to take your picture, if you're physically disabled - contract it out to Uber or something.

> Sure, there's opportunity cost to everything. What do you suggest we do about it?

When it comes to voter ID...reduce it? Make it as close to zero as possible? Is that really so crazy? If we care about free, fair, and secure elections, they're worth investing in, right?

> And not just on this issue, but filing taxes, marriage licenses, etc.

Ditto. Tax filing shouldn't cost hundreds of dollars and hours of work.

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

#260

Post by karatestomp »

giantg2 wrote: post #242
karatestomp wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can both be true that it seems pretty reasonable that people put in some effort to acquire an ID to vote, and that if you require said effort, fewer people will vote and the ones who don't will disproportionately support one party or political ideology over another, meaning voter ID laws in fact favor one of our two viable parties over the other. If it also turns out there's little proof of an extant problem voter…

If we don't have comprehensive audits, how do we know it is not a problem? Eg. How do you know your server is secure if you don't have an IDS? You can say it isn't a problem, but even the supreme court has acknowledged the longstanding and still relevant issue of voter fraud, which is why voter ID is still legal. I can't remember the source but one study said there are about 3 million extra people registered in the U…

> If we don't have comprehensive audits, how do we know it is not a problem? Eg. How do you know your server is secure if you don't have an IDS?

A few politicians with strong motivations to find any evidence of significant election fraud they can, and holding positions that give them the authority and, indeed, responsibility, to go looking for it have done so, and so far as I know they've all found little enough that I think it'd be fair to round what they've discovered down to "nothing". All evidence I'm aware of is that there's a vanishingly small amount of not-particularly-well-coordinated honest-to-god deliberate voter fraud, plus a somewhat larger but still small amount of accidental illegal voting (I gather this is somewhat easy to do unintentionally if one might claim residence in more than one state) and bad book-keeping or clerical errors. If deliberate voter fraud were a significant problem I would expect these efforts to have turned up far more, even if they didn't find the full scope of it.

> I can't remember the source but one study said there are about 3 million extra people registered in the US (people who are eligible - people actually registered). They may not be acting fraudulently, say if they moved from one state to another, or a different precinct in the state. The 2000 election was decided by 500 votes.

I take your broader point, but do note that the 3,000,000 -> 500 here is comparing apples and oranges, due to the way our Presidential elections work (it wasn't decided by 500 votes nationally)

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