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Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

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Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#111

Post by sebbi »

ars wrote: post #86
jarek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you never hear about these things in your own country that means that apparently no one there cares. Or that they don't happen...

> Or that they don't happen... Yah, somehow I doubt that, unless you managed to hire god to run your elections. Humans make mistakes, and machines and systems that humans build mess up. If you never hear about problems that's quite worrying - that means no one is even checking.

Well ... I live in a country without voting machines and we still manage to count all votes on the same day. There is no need for faulty machines, is there?

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#112

Post by ricardobeat »

anonymouz wrote: post #87

Even if this is just accidental or some weird calibration issue (weird, because it only seems to affect one button according to the report), it just goes to show how little confidence one can have in these machines. Does anyone think if they can't get the touchscreen right, the remaining parts of the system can be expected to work correctly? The only positive thing is that such an easy to demonstrate failure might op…

The fact that the current implementation is not reliable doesn't make the whole idea of electronic voting bad. We've had electronic voting for general elections in Brazil since 2000, with very few accusations of fraud.

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#113

Post by jusben1369 »

mindstab wrote: post #63
pnathan wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(1) We have > 300 M people. That's a huge population. (2) We are OK publicizing it. (3) Probability would indicate that we'll have a certain error, and it'll be shouted about. --- But it's very strange that it was "miscalibrated" to not select one particular candidate, no? :)

> We have > 300 M people. That's a huge population Um, unless you're talking to India which manages to pull off votes with 1.2 Billion People. You are like 25% their population.

Somehow, given the context of this thread, I suspect you're realize this wasn't really a very productive counter ;-)

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#114

Post by weaksauce »

potatolicious wrote: post #68
weaksauce wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electronic voting should be allowed but not unless it prints out a ballot with all your selections on it so you can verify and have a real paper trail; not some bit in a database that can be changed and most likely has been changed in the past based on grand jury testimony from one of the diebold programmers. As a programmer knowing how insecure programs are I want paper for something like this.

> "Electronic voting should be allowed but not unless it prints out a ballot with all your selections on it so you can verify and have a real paper trail" The lack of a receipt is deliberate and prevents vote-buying. A carbon copy of your vote will open as many avenues to fraud as it will close.

Not what I was meaning. A physical ballot that you can actually put into a box that then gets counted. You don't get to keep it.

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#116

Post by mkr-hn »

baltimore wrote: post #105
marshallp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The republicans are the party of liars. Who is more likely to actually commit these crimes? Republicans. Even the 4 votes thing you came up with is probably republicans spreading lies.

Seriously? Why are you even here (HN)? This place does not suffer trolls lightly.

HN loves trolls as long as they aren't lazy about it.

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#118

Post by ryanhuff »

TwistedWeasel wrote: post #47
llambda wrote: post #37

What I've read[1][2] in regard to this incident is that it is most likely a calibration issue: i.e. the touch screen is improperly calibrated and as a result is not selecting the proper region of the screen. Now this is concerning because it likely means other machines could be or are miscalibrated. However the important takeaway here is that this is not some malicious attempt to rig the vote. If that were the case t…

The consumer electronics industry has shipped hundreds of millions of touch screens in the last few years and i've not seen a single article complaining that they opened up their new tablet/phone to find it mis-calibrated and that their touches were off my such a huge margin. Why are voting machines apparently subject to calibration problems that other touch screen devices are not?

Miscalibrated devices shipped to consumers get returned, resulting in extra costs to the retailer or manufacturer. Miscalibrated voting machines don't.

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#119

Post by danielweber »

TwistedWeasel wrote: post #47
llambda wrote: post #37

What I've read[1][2] in regard to this incident is that it is most likely a calibration issue: i.e. the touch screen is improperly calibrated and as a result is not selecting the proper region of the screen. Now this is concerning because it likely means other machines could be or are miscalibrated. However the important takeaway here is that this is not some malicious attempt to rig the vote. If that were the case t…

The consumer electronics industry has shipped hundreds of millions of touch screens in the last few years and i've not seen a single article complaining that they opened up their new tablet/phone to find it mis-calibrated and that their touches were off my such a huge margin. Why are voting machines apparently subject to calibration problems that other touch screen devices are not?

1. Because they probably have to standardize on an older model and can't push out newer models at will.

2. Because these machines are open to the general public who are hitting the screens with their meaty fingers all day.

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