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Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

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Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#831

Post by nerdponx »

cobbzilla wrote: post #620
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't even know how you'd generate fake votes in the first place > You can't just make people up! > You certainly can't just make up a final tally > the paper ballots have to match up It seems you live in an area with auditable physical copies of the poll receipts. Good. That should be the standard. But 5 states still don't do that: https://www.axios.com/2018/02/16/five-states-without-paper-t... And I seem to rec…

Receipts would not have mattered here. The guilty parties were literally casting votes for people they knew would not show up. It’s an identity issue, much harder, and with its own set of controversies.

Isn't this exactly what (in theory) systems like PKI or even PGP are supposed to fix?

I know this is probably techno-utopianism, but it'd be pretty cool if every resident were issued a certificate (for free) with their state or federal government as the certificate authority, which would be used for voting, paying taxes, etc. instead of ad-hoc verification systems like Name + SSN + Address.

I can imagine so many horrible problems with implementing such a system in any US state (let alone federally), but it would be pretty damn cool.

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#832

Post by nerdponx »

otikik wrote: post #689
travisgriggs wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn’t there something poeticly sound about this? It’s kind like “the family that eats together stays together” and other platitudes like that. A nation that requires a heavy involvement in the whole process is going to value it more. In the states, we worship money and automation, so we automate it true point where very few are involved. And then we’re surprised when “win at all cost” incidents start to rise over…

It almost guarantees that the electorate won’t be consulted often, though. That’s something you can afford to do every 4 years, but not every 6 months.

It's a lot easier when you have:

- substantial social services that don't directly require individuals to have disposable income and aren't tied directly to employment

- humane policies for vacation days in general, and

- national holidays for things like election day.

In the USA, we teach our children that civic engagement is important, but then corrupt politicians at all levels make civic engagement as hard as possible, abetted by moralizing reactionary conservatives.

No wonder Americans are generally cynical and don't participate in politics.

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#833

Post by a_e_k »

shrikant wrote: post #775
ChrisRR wrote: post #743

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you manage to find a single comic strip out of thousands from thirty years ago?

The wording from some comics get burned into your brain, and then you can just search for the text. For e.g., this one is the first result for "calvin hobbes everyone has his price" https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=calvin+hobbes+everyone+has...

That's exactly how I did it. I grew up reading C&H, owned all the books, etc., and some of them really just stuck with me like that one.

A simple Google search exactly like above was sufficient in this case, but there's also a C&H-specific search engine which has been discussed on HN a few times before:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1600211

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26119380

The official publisher for C&H can also search them (though it also finds matches in other comics they publish), e.g.:

https://www.gocomics.com/search/results?utf8=%E2%9C%93&terms...

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#834

Post by kortilla »

solar-ice wrote: post #766
LAC-Tech wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, every other country outside the US is the best at everything. That's why every American is desperate to make a better life for themselves in the EU, Australia, New Zealand and Canada while the reverse almost never happens.

"According to a Gallup poll from January 2019, 16% of Americans, including 40% of women under the age of 30, would like to leave the United States." In my experience of talking to said Americans, that many can't is largely a case of restrictive immigration policies in most places Americans would like to move to.

“ Though relatively average by global standards, the 16% of Americans overall who said in 2017 and again in 2018 that they would like to permanently move to another country -- if they could -- is higher than the average levels during either the George W. Bush (11%) or Barack Obama administration (10%).”

So usually America has lower than average citizens wanting to emigrate. Trump made Trump haters want to leave, bringing it up to global averages.

That’s a significant jump, but being globally average does not fit the narrative you’re trying to portray.

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#835

Post by kortilla »

girvo wrote: post #499
kortilla wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible that the solutions in other countries are not optimal?

It’s possible. But it’s certainly more likely that if every other developed western country agrees on how we should approach those topics, and the US disagrees, that the US is the one who’s wrong here. But there’s no way to really know either way, can’t really do blind testing of this can we!

> But it’s certainly more likely that if every other developed western country agrees on how we should approach those topics

That’s a bullshit statement though because countries don’t agree on how they should approach those topics.

The healthcare in Canada vs UK vs Germany is starkly different. Canadians even come to the US for elective procedures.

Gun access is also vastly different between Switzerland, Canada, and the UK. In the UK you can’t even bring a baseball bat to a park.

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#836

Post by xadhominemx »

philwelch wrote: post #764
xadhominemx wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know it’s not an issue because if people were returning mailed ballots without the knowledge of the intended recipient, there would be a ton of people who would be logged as voting twice (once the mail in ballot and once in person or after requesting and submitting a replacement mail in ballot).

Unless you’re one of the states that doesn’t have in person voting, like Washington.

It is of course possible to vote at a physical polling location in Washington state

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#837

Post by xadhominemx »

hattmall wrote: post #700
xadhominemx wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know it’s not an issue because if people were returning mailed ballots without the knowledge of the intended recipient, there would be a ton of people who would be logged as voting twice (once the mail in ballot and once in person or after requesting and submitting a replacement mail in ballot).

This was one of the issues in 2020. If a person voted in person, but a mail in ballot was received that mail in ballot was just rejected. Lots of politicians from one party were adamant about telling people who voted by mail to show up in person as well because the mail in ballots may not arrive in time. So there were millions of people with double votes where the mail in was auto-rejected. When analyst tried to nail…

In states like California where everyone was mailed a ballot, a voters who mailed a ballot but weren’t sure if it was counted were asked to vote in person using a provisional ballot.

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#838

Post by rdtsc »

CircleSpokes wrote: post #426
rdtsc wrote: post #383

> Beren would [...] cast fraudulent votes in support of Myers’ preferred candidates on behalf of voters she knew would not or did not physically appear at the polls. [...] If actual voter turnout was high, Beren would add fewer fraudulent votes in support of Myers’ preferred candidates. Great, so now this gives extra credence to the "the election was stolen" narrative. Well, I mean it looks like in this case it had a…

>Hopefully one day we can have paper trails, IDs, registration records matching and so on. You understand this happened right..? The extra votes weren't just ballots stuffed into a ballot box. The numbers of ballots matched the turn out numbers. They specifically used registered voters who they knew wouldn't be voting in this specific election. The issue was the people who check registration, ID, etc were in on the s…

> You understand this happened right..?

Of course.

The numbers match but the people didn't vote. Is that an impossible task to prevent his kind of fraud. It doesn't have to be technological, it could be a mix of human (procedural) and technological.

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#839

Post by xadhominemx »

upsidesinclude wrote: post #710
xadhominemx wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know it’s not an issue because if people were returning mailed ballots without the knowledge of the intended recipient, there would be a ton of people who would be logged as voting twice (once the mail in ballot and once in person or after requesting and submitting a replacement mail in ballot).

We do not know that this isn't an issue. You have described one particular case that doesn't involve fraud or bad actors. That is called a strawman argument.

I don’t follow

Re: Former U.S. congressman, operative pleads guilty to election fraud charges

#840

Post by JoBrad »

philwelch wrote: post #768
JoBrad wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please - we don’t need another single-purpose ID card. Why not just make a single ID card that all privileges that are recognized in all 50 states can be added to? Driver’s license classes, concealed carry, voting, security clearance, donor preferences, etc. everyone has to get a new one every 4 years, and there’s an electronic record for verification of basic info like photo and name when internet access is availabl…

We already use drivers licenses for this.

Driver’s licenses are not your voter id in many states, and aren’t a federal license. Real ID is supposed to bring all licenses to the same standards, but it’s not everywhere yet.
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