Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 682 posts

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#601

Post by anigbrowl »

wannacboatmovie wrote: post #342
anigbrowl wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many products does Walmart sell, though? I don't think they advertise on 'right side broadcast network', which also inexplicably advertises 'Trump combat knives' during his rallies.

You can't accuse something of being a dog whistle only when Person A says it, but not Person B. It either is or isn't. To do otherwise would be applying a double standard.

Well, I'm not the person who posted about it in the first place, but on their behalf I disagree. There's a rather obvious difference between between a retailer who sells many thousands of products (where pricing decisions are made across broad categories and likely automated) and one that just markets a single product.

I don't think Lindell is a nazi, but I also don't feel sorry for him for having to fend off such accusations, since he is an enthusiastic trafficker in conspiracy theories in his own right. He could make the non-troversy go away any time by changing the price to some similar number, but probably sees it as free advertising.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#602

Post by EGreg »

mulmen wrote: post #556
EGreg wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tons of other countries require voter ID. You could say they’re all just being racist or whatever. But that wasn’t my point. My point was — when it comes to challenging things you agree with, you write long explanations with nuance. But when it’s things you disagree with, you say they’re “simply wrong”. That’s what I was getting at. You need to have a consistent standard for discussion, and clearly the latter approac…

I’m not calling voter ID racist. I’m saying that in the United States it has an established history of being abused by racists to suppress minority votes. This is a verifiable fact. Look at the Voting Rights Act for proof. > You need to have a consistent standard for discussion, and clearly the latter approach isn’t very helpful or productive. And yet you just did what you accuse me of.

Yes I did it after you to mimic you and prove a point

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#603

Post by irq-1 »

blibble wrote: post #538
pluto_modadic wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

scanned paper ballots. simple, fast, auditable. humans are WAY more error prone than computers at counting.

so then the attack becomes introducing enough error at critical counts such that it affects the result without being regarded as having been tampered with pretty easy if your company produced the machines

Scanned paper ballots are changed all the time -- the manufacturer doesn't know that row 2 option 1 is a particular candidate. Authorities aren't stupid and know to change the ballots and test the machines.

Teachers and students understand how this all works, so it has a lot of trust.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#604

Post by acdha »

anon291 wrote: post #594
acdha wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, my point is that “rogue election” as a term is using the language of deniers. Every election has mistakes, and the pandemic especially created novel challenges, but that’s a strong term to use if the best you can say is that a statistically insignificant number of ballots were challenged with no evidence of misconduct.

Mistakes sure. This was intentionally done though. It's a strong term but there is no denial. I'm not even sure why people are so against calling out the obvious. Biden probably would have won a legitimate contest

What was intentionally done? Every election has ballots received late but that’s almost always human error, not someone trying to cheat, and in this case there’s been no evidence of that despite a massive effort looking for anything amiss.

> Biden probably would have won a legitimate contest

That’s why you’re getting pushback: he did a legitimate contest. The language you’ve been using has implied otherwise, which is implicitly throwing in with the convicted fraudsters.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#605

Post by pedalpete »

mattclarkdotnet wrote: post #357
sadeshmukh wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if you're willing to spend that much, and it'll be very expensive, then sure. It's just technophobia - machines are going to be more accurate than a human (who also can make a mistake!).

The disconnect is that in most of the world we only vote for one or two candidates on a ballot. In America you vote for everything from the president to the dog catcher on one ballot. While I think of it, the USA and UK should both stop holding votes on working days. That is nuts! Do what Australia does and vote on a Saturday and make it compulsory.

In Australia, (I believe) you have to pick your top 5...for a bunch of different items you're voting for. Here's an example ballot https://www.ecsa.sa.gov.au/images/article/2018_LC_Above.png

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#606

Post by treebeard901 »

Way to go. For maybe half of the voters in United States to question election integrity right now all it takes is any amount of doubt.

They will run with it. You can explain the details of computer security all day, and how one password doesnt matter.

They will not listen. They are not looking for details or a reasonable explanarion. The voting conspiracy people only look for confirmation.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#607

Post by MichaelZuo »

anon291 wrote: post #596
MichaelZuo wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not upset? It’s a factual example, that’s what ‘e.g.’ means… It’s not some fanfiction story I made up while reading a novel…

I don't care if America wines and dines commie Vietnamese.

Okay…?

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#608

Post by sroerick »

_heimdall wrote: post #574
sroerick wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the state but generally just requires proof of address or ID, I registered in Illinois with nothing but a phone bill.

Oh that's interesting. I don't remember the last time I had to register to vote but it was probably done at the DMV who would already have on record my birth certificate or similar. If just an ID is used, how do they confirm someone is a citizen? Can you only get an Illinois ID if you are eligible to vote?

My experience is that in getting a state ID, you need birth certificate or another document.

In the case of a state without voter ID, there is no check — you literally just have to bring an electric bill. A non citizen could easily vote. It would be illegal, but the odds of being caught are slim to none.

If there was a suspicion that the voter was illegal, a poll worker could have them cast a provisional ballot. In places like California, it is a felony to require a provisional ballot without evidence.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#609

Post by AnimalMuppet »

arp242 wrote: post #545
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue in question was truth, not authoritarianism. Specifically, the issue was truth about election security. The point was that both sides will, and have, claim election fraud when they lose, and "most secure election in history" when they win. More generally: In the current election, Harris isn't the firehose of lies that Trump is. She isn't a shining beacon of truth, either.

"Most secure election in history" was a superlative I'm not happy with either, no. But the core of it is correct: there is no evidence of wide-spread fraud. The core of the other side is outright lies and fraud, rooted in nothing more than one person's narcissism. Equating these two is just bizarre. "Murder, arson, and jaywalking". Or something like that. And "both sides will, and have, claim election fraud when they…

> there is no evidence of wide-spread fraud.

Agreed. There were 60+ court cases, but not evidence of fraud.

> The core of the other side is outright lies and fraud, rooted in nothing more than one person's narcissism.

Also agreed.

> Equating these two is just bizarre.

I wasn't.

> And "both sides will, and have, claim election fraud when they lose" is just not true. There have been a few disagreements over the decades of course, some more reasonable than others, but nothing like 2016 has happened in recent history, from either party.

I presume you mean 2020, not 2016. Yes, nothing like that has happened in recent history... until next week.

But speaking of 2016, I remember a large number of people (including Hillary) saying that Hillary "really won" because she had more votes than Trump did, as if the Electoral College was not a thing. I recall seeing it, here on HN, over and over, for months, that Trump wasn't "really the legitimate president".

No, nobody actually tried to do anything. Obama didn't tell states to send fake electors to the House for the vote. He didn't have a "demonstration of love and respect" or whatever Trump is currently trying to paint January 6th as. So that's better. Months of talk is better than 60 court cases, fake electors, and attempting to physically prevent the vote in the House.

Since you seem to keep mis-reading me, I'm going to say that again, more clearly: The two are not comparable.

And yet... the "it's not legitimate because our person lost" was still there as a definite idea. The idea wasn't election fraud - it was that the Electoral College had thwarted the will of the people, and therefore the election was somehow illegitimate. Never mind that we had rules in place, and we followed the rules, and under the rules that were in place, Hillary lost. But no, "it's not legitimate".

Nobody ever took it as far as Trump did. But both sides de-ligitimatize the other side's victories, if only verbally. (Again, "only verbally" is better than attacking the Capitol. But it's not as close to "we'll see you in four years" as I would wish.)

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#610

Post by sroerick »

Timon3 wrote: post #539
sroerick wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly don’t think we should restrict voting to landowners but maybe having a minimum requirement for citizens to participate in democracy (having an ID) isn’t a bad thing. I think the concern with not requiring ID is that it could allow non-citizens to vote. Making it illegal for non-citizens to vote also disproportionately affects minorities, but that doesn’t justify changing that. Do you know any minorities p…

> I certainly don’t think we should restrict voting to landowners but maybe having a minimum requirement for citizens to participate in democracy (having an ID) isn’t a bad thing. Come on, you can't mean this in good faith as a response to my previous comment. It's a fact that minorities are less likely to have government ID, and that it's on average harder for them to acquire it. This is not "a minimum requirement",…

> Come on, you can't mean this in good faith as a response to my previous comment.

I sincerely do, I don’t know what else to tell you.

> It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote, but I'm sure you know that.

In many states, non citizens can vote in state or municipal elections just not the federal. In states without Voter ID, a non citizen could easily register with an electric bill. It would be illegal, but it would be very hard to prosecute.

> Do you have anything meaningful to contribute to this discussion?

I think you bring up great points in a challenging and partisan topic. I’m just outlining some of the concerns that people have with not requiring Voter ID. You can dismiss them as invalid if you want! But I think you would have more luck trying to prevent the disenfranchisement of minorities if you wouldn’t dismiss all of these concerns out of hand.

Again, you’ve made a fairly strong case that voter ID disproportionately affects minorities, but you haven’t made the case that wide swaths of voting citizens are actually disenfranchised, nor have you made an argument that justifies abandoning the concept of election security altogether.

Post reply on HN