Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani • Hacker News Board

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#331

Post by perydell » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 10:35 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #295

jonas21 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the thing about Dominion -- their machines do generate a paper trail, and this paper trail was audited. One of the big pushes to secure this election compared to previous ones was to use as many voting machines with auditable paper trails as possible.

> their machines do generate a paper trail Not the same kind of paper trail that exists when a voter fills out a paper ballot. If I fill out a paper ballot, that ballot is independent evidence of the votes I intended to cast, because I filled it out directly, with no machine in the middle. So that paper ballot is a useful auditing mechanism for checking on machine-generated vote counts. If I electronically cast votes…

The electronic voting machines I use in Southern California actually print my selections on a piece of paper that I can look at under a little piece of plastic. I approve that it shows my votes accurately and then the paper slides away. Presumably kept with the machine so an audit could be done.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#332

Post by enzanki_ars » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 10:35 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #313

athenot wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since I voted in Georgia on these machines, the process is the following: - get ID validated & ability to vote - get an initialized smart card - insert in polling machine, fill out stuff - submit, get printout from printer - scan printout into a machine - return smart card At the polling places I was at (we had a runoff), the staff + signage was emphasizing to check results on printout. The printing and the scanning…

So you take the printout from one machine and insert it into another to be scanned? I agree that would satisfy auditability, since you can look at the printout and make sure it's correct. Were these Dominion voting machines?

In Ohio, we used the same Dominion voting systems with the same process:

Poll worker validates proper ID, get ballot code for your precinct, walk to voting system, poll worker enters the precinct, voter validates info on screen, voter votes on the touch screen, system prints out choices, walk to scanner system, vote gets scanned, scanner stores those ballots in it's tray in case need for audit.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#333

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 10:36 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #321

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the court rules that the statements were false, but Giuliani is off his rocker and so Dominion doesn't get their billion, Dominion might still find that an acceptable outcome. They need their reputation at least as much as they need the money; a court ruling that the claims were factually wrong would go a long way toward restoring their reputation.

All the claims if significant vote fraud were thrown out by courts up and down the land, including the Supreme Court and yet still a huge mob of nutters stormed the Capitol. A mere court finding isn’t going to stop Dominion employees getting death threats. It needs to be clearly and forcefully demonstrated that knowingly and recklessly and maliciously lying to the public with the intention of causing harm to a compan…

The most significant cases were dismissed on procedural issues without reaching the merits. That doesn't necessarily mean they had merit, but arbitrarily many procedural dismissals don't show that one way or the other.

I feel like this is the problem with the discourse right now. It's understandable why you're making that argument, because the media has been saying that for months now. Because in fact a large number of cases were dismissed (so it's not technically a lie), but it's only rhetorically effective if you don't look at the details.

So then we end up with this massive polarization because one side keeps relying on an argument that sounds very convincing to their base who never hear the counterargument, but will never convince the other side who have, and then there is never reconciliation. Or even a motive to find more convincing arguments that there wasn't fraud, because they're only talking to their base and not even trying to convince the other side.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#334

Post by useerup » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 10:36 PM UTC

arminiusreturns wrote: post #265

This is hn and we should recognize the inherent weakness in electronic voting machines for the blatant issue it is. That said, the primary retort I keep seeing is something along the lines of "well, but these produce an auditable paper ballot". So my question is this: How much of those auditable trails have actually been audited, in what places, and in what numbers (I don't think spot checks will suffice to reassure…

The entire state of Georgia. where Guiliani alledged that votes were "switched" by Dominion machines, were in fact hand counted and affirmed the machine-counted tally.

Even after the hand-count clearly confirmed that the machines had not switched any votes, Guiliani spread the same lie. This is actually documented in the suit.

Mind you, it is not that the vote-tally machines leave a paper audit trail. The vote-tally machines work by scanning the actual paper ballots.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#335

Post by simonh » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

bonestamp2 wrote: post #256

LaMarseillaise wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, I think the numerous tangential and unsubstantiated comments in this very thread suggest that the strategy has been highly successful. While I imagine Dominion could win against Giuliani, he is only one person and this disinformation has been spread through many channels. I expect we will see it again. Edit: grammar.

One of the things that makes this more complex is that we should be skeptical of any person, company or machine that handles election data and has the power to make any significant change to that data. So, I think the dissenters at least got the skepticism part right. The problem, of course, is that a healthy level of skepticism should only inform the investigation of facts, and then perhaps new legislation and overs…

> Without the investigation, oversight or legislation... the skepticism is pointless.

Which is the tell that Trump didn’t believe his own claims of vote fraud. Bear in mind he pulled exactly the same stunt in 2016 claiming massive vote fraud but when he won never mentioned it again until 2020.

If he’d actually believed there was vote fraud or a chance of it, he would have done something about it. Investigations, hearings, technical audits, best practices and standards. Statistical analysis to identify issues (as against the analyses that do happen that show insignificant fraud). He had 4 years to sort this out. You’d think it would be one if his top priorities.

Of course none of that happened because the whole show is entirely performative. In fact doing anything about it would take his excuse away, because if he addressed vote security he couldn’t blame vote security issues on anyone else.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#336

Post by jackson1442 » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 10:39 PM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #317

ChrisLomont wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely, hand filled out ballots are a mess, often illegible, the hanging chad fiasco, etc. With electronic voting, the voter can (should?) see on a screen exactly what they did, and the machine can make multiple exact copies in electronic and paper formats of that exact result. There is far less ambiguity in the physical record once this has been done.

The UK has paper-only ballots and none of this stuff is a problem. (There are no "hanging chads" because ballots are marked by the voter with a pen or pencil on a piece of paper). The polls close at 10pm, the votes are counted overnight by volunteers, and the winner takes office the next morning. It always baffles me that the US system is so complicated.

It's definitely unnecessarily complicated, and the hanging chad problem simply stems from elections where making such a claim can win the whole election for your candidate.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#337

Post by whatshisface » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 10:39 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #134

Ken White has been talking about the potential for this suit for a couple weeks now. He spends a lot of time talking about what isn't defamation --- people use defamation suits and threats thereof to chill free speech, and he's a 1st Amendment guy --- but the Dominion cases are apparently examples of very serious defamation cases. The core of defamation is (1) a false statement of purported fact that (2) causes damag…

>If he himself was sold by the (false) facts he received from others, he is a more difficult defamation target.

A skilled liar would never for a moment reveal that they did not truly believe what they were saying, not even in private correspondence. Even in typical, not overtly evil companies, the saying "write for the subpoena" is passed around as advice for would-be upfront communicators.

Still, if criminals never made mistakes the justice system would convict almost nobody of anything.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#338

Post by akiselev » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 10:41 PM UTC

vsareto wrote: post #234

wcunning wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As to (3), Ken and others have also pointed out, Rudy or Sydney Powel being lawyers have a duty to know this sort of thing so there's a chance that they'll be found to have actual malice even without a finding that Rudy was knowingly lying.

Rudy also had a cybersecurity company and was named as a cybersecurity advisor. Would that help Dominion's side that this wasn't just crazy beliefs on Giuliani's part and be in favor of actual malice?

IANAL but "they should have known" doesn't follow from how they market themselves as a business unless it's a licensed profession. It's not uncommon for defendants to completely contradict their previous public statements under threat of a lawsuit like all the Fox News lawsuits where their lawyers win by claiming that it's an entertainment channel and their viewers should know better [1]. Beyond that, one can easily argue that political appointments and executive positions rarely deal with the nitty gritty details, instead providing value through things like political connections and existing business relationships.

[1] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-yor... - "Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer 'arrive with an appropriate amount of skepticism' about the statement he makes."

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#339

Post by gamblor956 » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 10:41 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #298

gamblor956 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scale matters. 160 million votes were cast in the U.S. in each of the past 2 elections. 36 million votes were cast in France in the last election. The U.S. is capable of counting 36 million votes by hand overnight as well, and most votes were once counted by hand in the U.S. What constitutes what's "out of threshold"? If a voting machine, either by design or flaw, pushes a close vote outside the threshold - then that…

You scale by district. You just get more people involved in the counting per ballot location. It's a scalable method. Yes, the reconfirmation at the regional levels are important. Your faith in machines is questionable. I leave you with this obligatory xkcd - it's still completely valid: https://xkcd.com/2030/

In my state, the machines print out paper ballots in legible English saying exactly who I voted for.

I don't trust the machines, but I do trust the people doing the counting, especially since the counting process is observed by both sides.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#340

Post by jackson1442 » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 10:42 PM UTC

dionian wrote: post #312

yesdocs wrote: post #8

I hope whatever happens with these lawsuits it chills the baseless accusations of voter fraud used to undermine voter confidence in our democracy

Shutting people up is going to do the opposite. We need to debunk their claims piece by piece to convince the people that are somehow convinced by the evidence

You'd be surprised how few people are interested in evidence these days. More often than not, your Reuters/AP source will be shoved aside in favor of some page along the lines of reallycoolnews.blogspot.com.

We've already seen this happen–when YouTube started putting labels on all COVID-19-related content, deniers were unsatisfied by the sources presented because they have been indoctrinated to believe nothing mainstream can be trusted.