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Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

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Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#811

Post by lawnchair_larry »

briandear wrote: post #509
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All the claims if significant vote fraud were thrown out by courts up and down the land, including the Supreme Court I don’t believe that is true. As far as I know, there weren’t really any claims of voter fraud from Trump’s legal team.

The claim is that voter laws were changed by Secretaries of State rather than the legislatures as is required by the constitution. Secretaries of State changing voter laws is unconstitutional. Read the constitution. It’s crystal clear. That happened. It’s a fact.

Did you reply to the wrong comment? This doesn’t appear to relate to what I said. We’re talking about voter fraud.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#812

Post by jancsika »

guilhas wrote: post #541
jancsika wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> My point was the opposite, people should be free to make allegations of vote fraud, as they are to allege that it was fair.

Even broadly speaking, there are two separate buckets for each claim:

1. allegations of voter fraud supported by evidence (circumstantial or otherwise)

2. wild allegations of voter fraud

3. allegations of fair election results supported by evidence (circumstantial or otherwise)

4. wild allegations of fair election results

There were myriad examples of #2 circulating around the election, many debunked even before they started to spread more widely. I see no reason to call these claims anything other than misinformation.

Given the incentives for each party after the initial vote tally of the election, there happened to be a lot more examples of #2 than anything else. But the exact same logic applies to #4, esp. in authoritarian countries where that kind of misinformation is more common.

Edit: typo

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#813

Post by Qub3d »

ekianjo wrote: post #679
ahupp wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source doesn't really help here, because even if I can see the source I don't have a way to verify what was running. It's more important to just not rely on software for the critical path, and make sure there's an auditable paper trail.

What if you used the combination of FOSS and a blockchain ledger?

Tom Scott made an excellent summary of why electronic voting is a bad idea, and explicitly covers both open source and blockchain as proposed solutions (hint: they don't solve the problems that make e-voting bad)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#814

Post by adictator »

useerup wrote: post #140
adictator wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would anyone know they are baseless unless a proper investigation is conducted independently? What about the thousands of sworn affidavits? Surely, ALL of them can't be lying.

Baseless means that there is no proof of the allegations. Dominion is under no obligation to prove the that the election was fair. Guiliani now have the opportunity through discovery to support his allegations, or at least the was in good faith. If he fails to do so he risk being on the hook for $1B+. It is curious that of all his public allegations against Dominion, he never asserted those in court. He is a lawyer a…

[dead]

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#815

Post by nokcha »

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…

> actual malice or negligence, meaning Dominion must show that Giuliani either intended to destroy Dominion's reputation by spreading facts he knew to be false, or that he was at least negligent, acting with reckless disregard for the truth.

The so-called "actual malice" standard doesn't require proof of intent to damage reputation. It only requires proof that the defendant said the defamatory statement "with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not". New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964). (This is important because Rudy probably didn't care one way or the other about Dominion's reputation; they were just collateral damage as far as he was concerned.)

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#816

Post by xerxespoy »

wvenable wrote: post #798
xerxespoy wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general: long-form, balanced, well-researched essay comments are exactly what's exhibited on HN, and precisely the reason many frequent the site. It is starkly obvious to frequent visitors when comment threads deviate from this norm into highly-polarised, emotional and often baseless and yet miraculously-synchronised agenda. That this only occurs pertaining to particular topics, and reliably so, reveals to incumbe…

> well-researched essay comments are exactly what's exhibited on HN For technical subjects. If you want a good conversation about politics, you should go where those experts are. > yet miraculously-synchronised agenda. Hey look, a conspiracy theory! As for highly-polarised, emotional and often baseless, you'll find that wherever politics are discussed from forums to the dinner table. There's no point in adding tools…

Organised efforts to sway public opinion using technology is not a conspiracy theory, it's present reality and if we don't watch for it and err on the side of caution, it will only get worse.

The stance that this is not worthwhile and that no measures should be employed to mitigate it is negligent at best.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#817

Post by tim333 »

Qub3d wrote: post #813
ekianjo wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you used the combination of FOSS and a blockchain ledger?

Tom Scott made an excellent summary of why electronic voting is a bad idea, and explicitly covers both open source and blockchain as proposed solutions (hint: they don't solve the problems that make e-voting bad) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs

It seems to me a fundamental problem of it all being electronic is any records if the system is hacked can be downloaded by the million fairly easy. On the other hand if the records of which voter number voted which way are printed on bits of paper and put in a big locked box it's pretty hard to reconstruct that on the fly unnoticed. But they are there if there is a court ordered investigation.

The UK system I think is a bit like that. When I go in my name is checked against a voting slip number (on paper) and then I vote on a bit of paper so someone could theoretically figure which way I voted but the odds of someone going through both paper lists is minimal.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#818

Post by rsynnott »

bredren wrote: post #803
rsynnott wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lying about a company generally isn't a crime (except in restricted circumstances; there are probably scenarios where it could be a securities law issue, say), but a company is absolutely able to take a civil suit against someone who maliciously lies about it.

I realize this thread is flagged, but this reminded me of the recent situation in Thailand and the review on Tripadvisor. Thought I'd share in case you hadn't seen it. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/world/asia/thailand-revie...

Oh, yep, I should have caveated that as "lying about a company isn't generally a crime IN DEVELOPED DEMOCRACIES". Some countries do still have in-use criminal libel laws, and the story is different there.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#819

Post by sidlls »

Paradigma11 wrote: post #806
sidlls wrote: post #802

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that the electronic machines aren’t necessary to have secure and trusted elections. Our ballots are more complicated because the counting technology is. Electronic voting is unnecessary and unnecessarily complicated. Your response to this is basically “they’re too dumb to to understand and so don’t matter anyway.”

Afaik the ballots are complicated because you also have tons of stuff like sheriffs, judges.. on it. And sometimes a confusing ballot is better for one party to suppress the vote of certain populations. "Your response to this is basically “they’re too dumb to to understand and so don’t matter anyway.”" No, my response is that a pure paper ballot system wont change a thing and would just shift the conspiracy theories…

The ballots may have more votes, but they aren't more complicated: they're lists of choices next to which a person makes a mark indicating a preference. The "complexity" there is still not a technology problem, it's a people and process problem.

Re: Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani

#820

Post by dragonwriter »

rsynnott wrote: post #818
bredren wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize this thread is flagged, but this reminded me of the recent situation in Thailand and the review on Tripadvisor. Thought I'd share in case you hadn't seen it. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/world/asia/thailand-revie...

Oh, yep, I should have caveated that as "lying about a company isn't generally a crime IN DEVELOPED DEMOCRACIES". Some countries do still have in-use criminal libel laws, and the story is different there.

Several US states have criminal libel laws that might protect a company (particularly if the company is a bank or other financial institution, which seem to be the most common to be specifically protected.)
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