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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

#271

Post by alasdair_ »

bargl wrote: post #245
untog wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if you disagree I'd really like to know why. I'll take a stab at it. I agree with you that Fox actually does have some decent news output at various points in the day (dearly departed Shep...), but I simply don't think that CNN has any equivalent to the Fox opinion programming. MSNBC comes closer but it still doesn't have hosts spouting outright disinformation on a regular basis.

Who do you like on CNN? Any specific shows you like over there? I named Don Lemon, but I also really dislike a lot of what Anderson Cooper talks about. Shep was awful. What alternate news sources do you like to go to for unbiased news? What forms of disinformation have you found? And I'd like to classify disinformation as a situation you feel they are being purposeful about misinformation. I believe we're both going…

> What forms of disinformation have you found?

One example is the remarkably-common “mistake” of putting a “(D)” after the name of an obscure congressman or senator caught committing some crime or other, when the person in question was a Republican.

Or the recent coronavirus coverage e.g. https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/media/4907...

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

#272

Post by basch »

stevenwliao wrote: post #53
karatestomp wrote: post #3

Oh, I thought the headline meant remote voting for, you know, voters, not Senators, and was very surprised to see an R next to one of the sponsor's names. The bill's just to let the Senate vote remotely. I'd imagine most of the interesting nuance is about "presence" and quorum-making. This is not about expanding remote/by-mail voting in elections, which Republicans have generally been strongly against, including and…

Imagine a DDoS attempting to prevent quorum or affect vote outcomes! Lots of edge cases to iron out.

Or a nation state kidnaps a senator, and vpn their vote back through the senators primary residence. They create a fake room that looks identical to the senators house. Any bad guy that's seen Mission Impossible one too many times would be inspired.

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

#273

Post by bargl »

alasdair_ wrote: post #267
bargl wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get really frustrated when people only mention Fox News and not CNN/MSNBC in the same sentence. There are people on Fox who are good, I.E. Chris Wallace. I mean he's my only example, but Jon Stewart did a skit with him and the quote that got me was, "how many times have you seen your show on my show?" It was a nod to the fact that Chris Wallace does actual news not opinion pieces. I'd actually say he's better and l…

> I get really frustrated when people only mention Fox News and not CNN/MSNBC in the same sentence. I was sharing a personal anecdote of something that happened to me. Why would I add “CNN/MSNBC” to the sentence when I didn’t watch those channels? Nowadays, outside of a couple of notable exceptions (Fareed Zakaria’s GPS and Perhaps one or two others) all of the stations are absolute total garbage. They are only worth…

>I was sharing a personal anecdote of something that happened to me.

Fair enough. I infrequently get situations where I have to watch Fox/CNN or at least it's on in the background. But I find them both to be aggravating in similar ways.

I comment because a lot of people use this to justify their side by attacking the other. I've been leaning into other sources a lot. I find Bloomberg still has issues but I like them more.

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

#274

Post by giantg2 »

triceratops wrote: post #259
giantg2 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, l…

You mention having that service at many places, including sending individuals to homes. What about that opportunity cost? You could use that budget for other community services. With voting as a part of your civic duty, one should be willing to incur small costs like spending a day getting a license every 4-7 years. My experiences have been fairly convenient, much better than other government agencies like the sheriff's office, county treasurer, etc. It should be seen as a service to their fellow citizens of not having to pay another government employee salary, benefits, and retirement. The DMV handles the same ID services for drivers licenses, so they are a logical choice to be efficient (if there are no political games with availability).

I was going for a more general approach to reducing opportunity cost. What about the opportunity cost of reducing this opportunity cost? It's a tradeoff for what to tackle. Should we spend effort and money here, or on education, etc. I'd rather they just modernization the process or address the tax situation.

Yep, thanks to turbotax etc lobbyists.

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

#275

Post by triceratops »

giantg2 wrote: post #274
triceratops wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, l…

You mention having that service at many places, including sending individuals to homes. What about that opportunity cost? You could use that budget for other community services. With voting as a part of your civic duty, one should be willing to incur small costs like spending a day getting a license every 4-7 years. My experiences have been fairly convenient, much better than other government agencies like the sherif…

> With voting as a part of your civic duty, one should be willing to incur small costs

Another way of looking at it is as an additional, backdoor tax. And a regressive one at that, since it disproportionately affects the poor.

A day's wages is a pretty heavy tax.

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

#276

Post by giantg2 »

specialist wrote: post #269
giantg2 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree we need modernization. Do you have any links to how we can provide vote tracking/verification and voter eligibility while maintaining anonymity? It seems this type of system would work well for some other subjects.

IIRC, Brookings Institute had a handful of studies. (I'll help you find some when I get back to my computer.) My TLDR: Ballots should be secret. It takes very specific procedures to protect voter privacy, especially with postal ballots. Voter registration and participation (that you voted) are public records, by necessity, with some exceptions (judges, cops, victims, public figures). Voter eligibility should be adjud…

If they can successfully keep judges and cops out of the public registry, then they should be able to to that for everyone - no second rate citizens.

I was hoping you had a system that could use something like public/private keys to verify the voter and the vote while remaining anonymous while providing furure result validation through your key.

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

#277

Post by kfrzcode »

12xo wrote: post #216
kfrzcode wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have, I live in the United States (Minnesota). I've voted absentee and I've even worked in local election offices. The process is fragile and fragmented at best.

Can you cite any instances of this "fragility" being abused? There have been very few instances of voter fraud. Fraud in elections is common, that's how we end up with criminals and liars in charge...But election fraud is virtually non-existent.

I guess I can't. I'll go back to lurking.

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

#278

Post by rovolo »

giantg2 wrote: post #225
karatestomp wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't find any evidence of this with a search. Was this a joke? I can't tell.

It's not that they are fraudulent, but that people are voting as someone who may have the same name as them. The 6k article was probably a decade ago. This is a 2k article more recently. Maybe that's progess? https://www.phillyvoice.com/6abc-reports-it-found-dead-peopl...

For those who don't want to click through, this is the thesis of the article:

> People with similar names — often a relative of the deceased voter — signed the poll book in the wrong spot, Schmidt said. In no case, he said, did the living voter then cast another vote under his or her actual name.

> Such mistakes most frequently occur when a deceased voter's name appears at the top or bottom of a poll book, Schmidt said.

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

#279

Post by Loughla »

giantg2 wrote: post #263
Loughla wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Un…

Yep, and it seems like more and more felony crimes are added to the law books, or lower crimes elevated to felonies. I knew a guy that gave a 20 year old alchohol, got caught, got a felony for it. He killed himself due to some of the stuff you listed above.

I currently work at a community college; one of my programs is a re-entry program. The ones that kill me are the people who have marijuana charges and can't get a job.

They're extremely brittle and bitter now that people are being celebrated as geniuses and business leaders for doing exactly what the felons were doing.

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

#280

Post by 24gttghh »

kissickas wrote: post #94
24gttghh wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Security, fraud, and lack of a physical paper trail.

In addition to the point raised by wool_gather, why do you need a paper trail with non-anonymous voting? The votes never need to be re-counted, as far as I know. A senator would surely notice if a "yea" appeared next to her "nay" vote.

I said that before realizing the article was about literal senators voting remotely. My bad.
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