Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani • Hacker News Board

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#541

Post by guilhas » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 1:25 AM UTC

jancsika wrote: post #424

guilhas wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opposing political views are badly taken on HN, so many people might create extra accounts to comment political posts? There is enough affidavits, and statistical anomalies to warrant an investigation. And until there is one, anyone is free to claim voter fraud. But nonetheless all comments claiming fraud to be tangentially possible are getting destroyed. Even though the media has been bragging how easy is to hack a…

It looks to me like you've created a dichotomy between pre- and post-(hypothetical)-investigation discourse. From that dichotomy you then claim by fiat that no statements or allegations pre-investigation can be reasonably labeled as misinformation. That certainly doesn't follow, and neither does the flipped implication that it wouldn't be reasonable for someone to make a good faith claim of voter fraud after such an…

1. My point was the opposite, people should be free to make allegations of vote fraud, as they are to allege that it was fair. But blanket calling one side of the argument misinformation, is a waste of time for everyone, unless there is a good claim to back it up.

An allegation of rape can be misinformation but it probably has to be investigated first? You shouldn't just call it misinformation without backing it up.

2. After an investigation you can still make claims, but you would be more liable to lawsuits. Or, in an online discussion, it would be more probable that you would be wasting everyone's time. e.g. people that keep insisting Trump works for Russia. For that we have conspiracy forums.

Your comment was completely unnecessary. I'm not sure what to call it, perhaps "the phantom footbal referee"

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#542

Post by wcunning » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 1:25 AM UTC

akiselev wrote: post #338

vsareto wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's the point -- lawyers are a licensed profession based on the bar exam and bar association.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#543

Post by worldsayshi » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 1:26 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #497

worldsayshi wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the point of a voting machine with a paper trail. You get preliminary statistics a bit faster and you get people used to the idea of voting machines.

You also get final results much faster in most cases. Suppose candidate X beats candidate Y by 20% according to the machine count. You can then pull a randomly selected subset of the paper ballots and count them. You only need to pick a fairly small subset to establish that the 20% machine count is accurate to within a margin of error much smaller than 20%. This is called a risk-limiting audit. If X beats Y by 10% ac…

Still, i fell that machines make it needlessly complex. Most democracies do fine without that. Getting a fast result seems like the least important aspect of voting for representatives.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#544

Post by Merman_Mike » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 1:35 AM UTC

rglover wrote: post #437

Merman_Mike wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you referencing the barriers that were filmed... from inside the room... by the dozens of national media crews and party observers? Those barriers?

Yes? They had metal fence barriers (like at a concert) up with chairs behind them for the observers. During the recount they had the observers 30-40 ft back which meant they weren't observing anything. They were just in the room. I saw the obvious issue with this and called to ask why. His response was that "legally we're in compliance."

Oh, I think we're referring to different things. I thought you were referring to this:

https://twitter.com/_HeatherWalker/status/132408570469203149...

Wherein people posted views from the other side of the glass claiming they were trying to count the votes in secret or something. Which was ironic, given all the news crews and observers on the other side of the glass documenting the same thing.

I agree that its BS to keep observers so far back that they cannot meaningfully observe the counting.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#545

Post by throwaway12992 » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 1:35 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #530

aw1621107 wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That link contradicts you. If you take its contents at face value, there were multiple cases decided on merits. If anything, I can see the potential for an argument to be made that that that site's definition of "decided on merits" is too narrow. For example, depositions were submitted in Law v. Whitmer , significant parts of the decision were dedicated specifically to discussing the merits of the case, and the concl…

Yeah, there is a sense in which dismissal for “failure to state a claim” (which is very common for the Trump cases, often alongside other grounds like laches and/or lack of standing) is “procedural”, but it definitely and unequivocally amounts to a finding on the merits, since it is literally “does the plaintiff allege the actual elements of an offense, with specific alleged factual bases, and profer evidence which w…

There was a bit of a catch-22 in many of these. There was statistical and/or witness evidence that looking more closely at dominion machines and/or ballots was warranted. However, the only way to actually be allowed to look was during discovery ... which required a suit to actually be heard rather than dismissed. So you don't get to go looking for evidence because you are told you don't have any evidence.

I remember this county being an early catch that angered many on the right, where people actually made an effort to recount. I wonder how many here are aware of it? https://www.westernjournal.com/michigan-recount-confirms-tru...

We are told by the "fact check" websites that we may (and must) disregard the conclusions [2] that Navid Keshavarz-Nia [1] swore an affidavit to, because there is no proof. But how can we get such proof without the cases actually being heard? Left leaning people in general, and HN posters in particular have a disdain for those who make up the non-urban, non-coastal heart of the USA. But wouldn't it have been better to allow these cases to come to trial, so that the nation could actually determine the facts and begin to heal?

[1] https://www.wnd.com/2020/11/4873267/ [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20201202043332/https://www.court...

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#546

Post by qwerty12345678 » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 1:38 AM UTC

wcunning wrote: post #225

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…

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.

Serious Question: Why is everyone assuming they're lying? And why doesn't anyone want to prove Biden won?

From my perspective, the accusations he made were completely dodged by Dominion and by Democrats (since their guy was labeled the winner by the media). I'm not aware of any individual claim that was debunked via substantiating evidence. They refused to answer, refused to report it in the media, and ran full speed in the opposite direction.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#547

Post by scoopertrooper » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 1:38 AM UTC

tartoran wrote: post #98

the_local_host wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be a win/win situation if baseless allegations of fraud are punished, and every detail of how voting machines work, including source code, are made public.

I agree but wouldn't making the source code becoming public make the machines more prone to hacking?

Open sourcing software security flaws more prone to discovery, but also enables more people to discover the flaws, which can be a good thing.

If you hide away the source code, then only criminal actors and security agencies can evaluate security flaws. Open sourcing, at least, places legitimate security researchers on equal footing with these groups, so flaws can be disclosed publicly and rectified.

That being said, I think there are sufficient safeguards in the process that effectively mitigate any potential compromising of Dominion software. The software prints out the voters' ballot and the voter is given an opportunity to review the ballot before scanning it with a separate machine and it entering a locked box. This allows for a manual recount to guard against any possible shenanigans.

One additional step they could take, would be for the voter to verify their vote after scanning. This would ensure that they actually read the ballot. Though I could see that causing problems if the voter, for whatever reason, decided to repudiate their vote while travelling between the two machines.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#548

Post by jamiesonbecker » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 1:39 AM UTC

wvenable wrote: post #508

jamiesonbecker wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd have flagged it already but "voting machines" is vaguely tech related and it's still here. Agreed. > It appears you only care what a sizable portion of HN wants up to a point as they are the one's upvoting and downvoting the comments. Fair point, but in a flame war, HN runs a risk of having a one-sided discussion. Of course, some people believe that the losers in any particular forum should be silenced, because…

There's no value in a flame war, regardless of which side is the majority. Extremely heated subjects do not lead to positive results here or anywhere. The only way to win as a person is not to play the game despite the very strong temptation. But to your point, if you can't convince someone of the value of your contribution then perhaps it just isn't valuable. Do you believe all opinions and expressions of those opin…

> There's no value in a flame war, regardless of which side is the majority. Extremely heated subjects do not lead to positive results here or anywhere. The only way to win as a person is not to play the game despite the very strong temptation.

I agree, and the oblique War Games reference is appreciated.

> Do you believe all opinions and expressions of those opinions are equally valuable and require equal advertisement?

(Who would believe such a thing? Well, I guess there was the FCC Fairness Doctrine, but fortunately that's gone.)

Of course not all opinions are equally valuable, but an echo chamber of people parroting the party line also has no value. In fact, that has negative value to me; I'd prefer a cacophony of divergent opinions to a single narrative.

I'd just like to see the top 10 or 20 comments instead of the top single comment.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#549

Post by unanswered » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 1:41 AM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #535

unanswered wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The observers are not there to make sure the ballot scanners are working. They're there to audit the portion of the process which can never ever be re-audited: the provenance of secret ballots. Of course if you re-count the same ballots over again you'll come up with something roughly the same. This "hand recount had identical* results" mantra to reinforce the core idea "the election has been independently verified"…

If that’s the issue with the video, then why does everyone’s main concern about it seem to be that they came from a box under a table? There’s certainly an implication that these were fake ballots that had been snuck in surreptitiously, given that its origin was clearly shown in the same video but had been cut out. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. But then why is it called “SuitcaseGate”? Does “StandardContainerOf…

Okay, so they weren't permitted in until counting had been completed. They were told to leave because counting was complete, then when they came back (due to a tip, not an invitation) they were delayed at the door until all activities they wished to observe had ceased. This isn't getting any better!

Your whole argument boils down to "there's no need for observers because I trust the process". The whole point of observers is that it shouldn't be necessary to just trust the process. Right now what you and the media and HN are telling me, on pain of cancellation, is that 100% of the essentially self-selected people involved in the election are honest. That all of the dishonest people decided it was too much bother to do a day's work to influence the outcome of the election, because The Process is infallible. I guess I should be thankful that all the dishonest people didn't bother voting either, right?

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#550

Post by apsec112 » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 1:41 AM UTC

qwerty12345678 wrote: post #546

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.

Serious Question: Why is everyone assuming they're lying? And why doesn't anyone want to prove Biden won? From my perspective, the accusations he made were completely dodged by Dominion and by Democrats (since their guy was labeled the winner by the media). I'm not aware of any individual claim that was debunked via substantiating evidence. They refused to answer, refused to report it in the media, and ran full speed…

The complaint by Dominion very thoroughly refutes all the accusations here, and shows convincingly that they knew they were lying. It's 107 pages and has a total of 235 footnotes: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20463212/rudy.pdf