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CISA: The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history

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Re: CISA: The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history

#91

Post by untog »

motohagiography wrote: post #41

Was there a reason CISA needed to release a statement? I haven't seen anything controversial in the news. As they say, if you have to say it... I have a few comments going back a couple of years predicting how electronic voting will cause civil unrest because it is so vulnerable to being discredited. Edward Snowden even recently tweeted a prof's video about the same thing. Everybody who had given the issue any seriou…

> Was there a reason CISA needed to release a statement? I haven't seen anything controversial in the news.

Perhaps not if you read reputable outlets but if you take a look on Facebook, Twitter (including the President’s account) and YouTube you’ll find a frenzy of conspiracy theories about voter fraud. None of it with any real evidence attached, but it’s spreading like wildfire in many social circles.

Of course, this statement won’t really do anything. If you were the “Deep State” rigging an election this is exactly what you’d order CISA to say!

Re: CISA: The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history

#92

Post by bobthepanda »

refurb wrote: post #80
garyrichardson wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadian here. We still count ballots the old fashioned way and get our election results out the night of the election (typically). Presumably that scales linearly.. more voters means more ballot boxes and more officials counting and auditing. This seems like a solved problem to me. Why doesn't/wouldn't this work in the US? My guess is the complexity of your ballots -- we typically vote for one person and every coupl…

The ballots are much simpler in Canada. I remember getting a ballot that was the size of a 4' x 6' card. Put a check next to the candidate you want as the MP in your riding. Done. The US ones can be multiple pages where you end up voting for a dozen candidates across multiple federal, state and local offices, plus a number of ballot initiatives. It's kind of nuts. But I agree the old fashion paper and pen is the best…

I mean, Canadians also have local and provincial elections and referenda, no?

Re: CISA: The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history

#93

Post by gwright »

shripadk wrote: post #86
gwright wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have a Court in Pennsylvania throw out 10,000 ballots * The Constitution says that the state legislatures set the election mechanism. * The Secretary of the State decided to change the rules on her own without the state legislature's approval. * The Court ruled that the ballots that were accepted by the Secretary's adjusted rules but that would not be accepted by the legislature's approved rules can not be consider…

> If you disagree with that chain of reasoning, what is your disagreement? I don't disagree with this at all. I never said I disagree with the ruling anywhere. I am happy the Courts did their job. I am talking about the electoral system not the Courts. I am saying that if it needed a Court to rule that the ballots needed to be discarded then the electoral system, by itself, is not robust enough. Court must be the las…

OK, well I guess we agree, but your post certainly didn't read as though you agreed with the court's decision.

It would be helpful if the press didn't show so much favoritism in its treatment of politicians. Everyone in a position of power should have their actions viewed critically and subject to regular scrutiny regardless of their party affiliation.

Re: CISA: The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history

#94

Post by shripadk »

dragonwriter wrote: post #62
shripadk wrote: post #52

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/11/12/pennsyl... I don't understand how you can say the Election was the "most secure" when you literally have a Court in Pennsylvania throw out 10,000 ballots! If the system was so "secure" it shouldn't have even gone to the Courts in the first place and instead the electoral system should have found out the discrepancies on its own! The truth is that US electoral syste…

> I don't understand how you can say the Election was the "most secure" when you literally have a Court in Pennsylvania throw out 10,000 ballots! Because that wasn't an election security issue, and it wasn't (at least you source does not say it was) 10,000 ballots. “It is unclear how many ballots will be affected by the ruling, but [...] Philadelphia County, the largest county in the state, only flagged 2,100 ballots…

I answered in more detail here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25078905

> (at least you source does not say it was) 10,000 ballots

It does. Quoting:

"The U.S. Supreme Court could also still potentially invalidate Pennsylvania’s extended mail-in voting deadline, which allowed mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be accepted as long as they were delivered by Friday, Nov. 6. That ruling would only affect approximately 10,000 ballots, elections officials have said—which are being segregated and are not included in the current vote count—and thus invalidating them would not affect Biden’s win in Pennsylvania."

The idea being that it doesn't have anything to do with who won or lost. It is more to do with the fact that the ballots are being contested in the Courts when it should have been the electoral system actually ensuring integrity. Court should be the last resort. I give my reasons in the answer above.

Re: CISA: The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history

#95

Post by garyrichardson »

bobthepanda wrote: post #92
refurb wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ballots are much simpler in Canada. I remember getting a ballot that was the size of a 4' x 6' card. Put a check next to the candidate you want as the MP in your riding. Done. The US ones can be multiple pages where you end up voting for a dozen candidates across multiple federal, state and local offices, plus a number of ballot initiatives. It's kind of nuts. But I agree the old fashion paper and pen is the best…

I mean, Canadians also have local and provincial elections and referenda, no?

Yup. But local, provincial and national elections are different events. Referendums are occasionally attached. Ballots are almost always one question for provincial and national.

Re: CISA: The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history

#96

Post by airstrike »

aw1621107 wrote: post #66
throwawaysea wrote: post #56

In order to secure the vote we need open source machines, verifiable ballots (including online verification), complete chain of control, body cams on anyone handling ballots, transparency to public and party observers via cameras, multiple isolated tabulations (verifying they all agree), and also strongly verifiable voter ID. Nothing in this process should be left up to chance. I don’t accept the stance that a lack o…

> verifiable ballots (including online verification) Is this at odds with secret ballots?

Not if you split the info on the ballot in two halves, who voted vs. who they voted on

Re: CISA: The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history

#97

Post by shripadk »

gwright wrote: post #93
shripadk wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you disagree with that chain of reasoning, what is your disagreement? I don't disagree with this at all. I never said I disagree with the ruling anywhere. I am happy the Courts did their job. I am talking about the electoral system not the Courts. I am saying that if it needed a Court to rule that the ballots needed to be discarded then the electoral system, by itself, is not robust enough. Court must be the las…

OK, well I guess we agree, but your post certainly didn't read as though you agreed with the court's decision. It would be helpful if the press didn't show so much favoritism in its treatment of politicians. Everyone in a position of power should have their actions viewed critically and subject to regular scrutiny regardless of their party affiliation.

> It would be helpful if the press didn't show so much favoritism in its treatment of politicians. Everyone in a position of power should have their actions viewed critically and subject to regular scrutiny regardless of their party affiliation.

Completely agree!

Re: CISA: The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history

#98

Post by garyrichardson »

jcranmer wrote: post #63
garyrichardson wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadian here. We still count ballots the old fashioned way and get our election results out the night of the election (typically). Presumably that scales linearly.. more voters means more ballot boxes and more officials counting and auditing. This seems like a solved problem to me. Why doesn't/wouldn't this work in the US? My guess is the complexity of your ballots -- we typically vote for one person and every coupl…

One of the main reasons it is taking so long is the volume of mail-in ballots is extremely high compared to prior elections. And on top of that, in several states, Republicans were adamant that vote tabulation not begin early to deal with this volume, with the entirely foreseeable result that counting took far longer than necessary.

Right. That's this year. What about the last 20 years of US elections?

Re: CISA: The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history

#99

Post by throwaway_l33t »

jlgaddis wrote: post #90
throwaway_l33t wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it reasonable to want the people who make a decision to know what they’re making a decision about? I want all the informed voters to vote but, by and large, uninformed voters make the outcome arbitrary.

I forget who said it and I won't even get the quote exactly right, but I'm reminded of something I once heard: > The greatest thing about a democracy is that every idiot is allowed to vote. > The worst thing about a democracy is that every idiot is allowed to vote.

Yeah, the problem is coming up with a test that actually identifies who’s “informed” without biasing the electorate unfairly.

Re: CISA: The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history

#100

Post by tylerhou »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #18
Someone1234 wrote: post #8

Eight states[0] still have electronic voting systems without paper backups. They're un-auditable. I'm not going to weigh in on the current politics of this situation, but US Election security is awful, now, and since at least 2000. I actually did my degree thesis on designing electronic voting systems (and built one), and ultimately concluded it was impossible to make them fully secure. The best you can do is paper b…

What’s your thinking on the “request” process of mail-in ballots? To me, it’s wild to think all one needs to request a ballot is a name, address and ssn... and on top of all of that, you can get the ballot sent to a different address...

But to return the ballot, you need to match the signature with the one on file, which is very difficult to do at scale.
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