Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by icarus_drowning » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 7:11 PM UTC

marshallp wrote: post #89

citricsquid wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it's very strange that it was "miscalibrated" to not select one particular candidate, no? :) The internet loves Obama. There are many stories of people that support Obama cheating the system (right now there's a popular story of someone admitting on Facebook to voting for Obama 4 times...) and that isn't on the front page of HN, when that is absolutely confirmed to be a misuse of the system. Everything that is…

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.

Look, we get it that you have strong political opinions. That's great. Have fun expressing them as well or as poorly as you like. But for many, many reasons-- for example, that this is a technology site, or that this is a site that tries to cultivate a community of thoughtful commentary-- it isn't a good idea to post this kind of thing here.

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

#142

Post by blinkingled » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 7:11 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #67

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? :)

> But it's very strange that it was "miscalibrated" to not select one particular candidate, no? :) The internet loves Obama. There are many stories of people that support Obama cheating the system (right now there's a popular story of someone admitting on Facebook to voting for Obama 4 times...) and that isn't on the front page of HN, when that is absolutely confirmed to be a misuse of the system. Everything that is…

>here you go, same problem that affects Romney votes on another machine

To be fair it is a claim of a problem affecting Romney by some person which is then refuted by another person (some sort of voting official?). The problem affecting Obama was captured first hand and confirmed as voting machine problem by second source per the Gawker article.

[ Note : I have no dog in this hunt - just pointing out something that I noticed. ]

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

#143

Post by eli » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 7:11 PM UTC

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?

Most likely it's the difference between capacitive versus resistive screens. If you purchased your phone based on the lowest bidding vendor, I'd bet there be a lot more problems with it too.

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

#144

Post by MartinCron » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 7:11 PM UTC

morsch wrote: post #128

MartinCron wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our government is structured in such a way that elections are run at the local level, which can be seen as a strength. Imagine how dangerous it could be if one company manufactured every single voting machine used in every single polling place.

How many companies does it take to cover 90% of the electronic vote? Five companies are more difficult, but hardly impossible to manipulate. One company may be easier to audit, on the other hand.

In some ways, one company would be more difficult to audit than multiple companies, as the auditor wouldn't have any frame of reference.

If we are looking at a future with pervasive electronic voting machines from multiple manufacturers, I would insist on having multiple different kinds of machines in each polling place. That way, any meaningful differences between machines would stand out.

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

#145

Post by avolcano » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 7:11 PM UTC

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?

Not all touch screens are created equal.

I remember the old Nintendo DS touch screen, which was resistive, required user calibration where you would press on the corners of the screen. If you missed the corners (which, with the relatively thick stylus and the relatively thick bezel on the original DS, wasn't uncommon), the accuracy of your touch positions would be very notably off, to the point that using touch-screen keyboards in some games would be difficult.

Obviously I don't know for sure if this was the exact case with this voting machine, but the point being, some touch screens do require calibration and there is a chance for error. Or, of course, it could simply have been a factory mistake.

Either way, I doubt there's any malice behind this error.

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

#146

Post by skrause » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 7:11 PM UTC

jusben1369 wrote: post #122

skrause wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understand the population argument. Counting votes is perfectly scalable, if one in a thousand people volunteers to count votes it doesn't matter if your population is 1000 or one billion. In Germany voting machines have been banned completely with good reasons, because they're unsafe and easy to to hack. And still we can pull off a purely paper-based votes with 82 million people completely without any lines…

You are correct good Sir. Your error is to assume the US is a single country the way Germany is a single country. The US has some characteristics that best resemble Europe and some characteristics that resemble a single country. You'll get into trouble every time you try and put it into one bucket or the other.

Note that Germany is a federal republic with multiple states just like the USA, where each state has different voting laws. It just happened that our constitutional court declared that all current voting machines are inherently unsafe. This judgement applies to all states of the republic.

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

#147

Post by eli » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 7:13 PM UTC

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #140

If there were one aspect of electronic voting I could change it would be the following: allow electronic votes to be reviewed by each individual at a later date, from two independent organizations. Each vote gets sent to two independent electronic counting organizations, and each let you verify your vote after the election, with an (anonymous) confirmation number issued at voting time. If enough people cry foul to ru…

Definitely not! It's a secret ballot -- you cannot have any way to prove which candidates you voted for.

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

#148

Post by headShrinker » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 7:13 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #67

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? :)

> But it's very strange that it was "miscalibrated" to not select one particular candidate, no? :) The internet loves Obama. There are many stories of people that support Obama cheating the system (right now there's a popular story of someone admitting on Facebook to voting for Obama 4 times...) and that isn't on the front page of HN, when that is absolutely confirmed to be a misuse of the system. Everything that is…

The video you linked to has no video evidence what you say is 'the same problem' is actually happening. Furthermore, republicans have been public and outspoken about false outrage regarding voter fraud which statistically almost doesn't exist. Then behind closed doors reveal their false outrage is to cover their actual motive, 'to make it harder for minorities to vote'. This is happening all over the country. People care about both sides cheating. The internet loves both candidates, however, we all know it 'reality' that has a liberal bais.

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

#149

Post by marshallp » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 7:13 PM UTC

icarus_drowning wrote: post #141

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.

Look, we get it that you have strong political opinions. That's great. Have fun expressing them as well or as poorly as you like. But for many, many reasons-- for example, that this is a technology site, or that this is a site that tries to cultivate a community of thoughtful commentary-- it isn't a good idea to post this kind of thing here.

I'm not really being political. The OP said democrat fraud isn't getting attention on here, I simply pointed out it's more likely republicans would be committing fraud. That is all. I get it that republicans would "feel" offended, but that doesn't counter the likelihood of which party would harbor the unsavoury characters.

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

#150

Post by thechangster » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 7:14 PM UTC

jarek wrote: post #54

ars wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it's quite the opposite: People get so worked up about these things because they don't tolerate it. If you never hear about these things in your own country that means that apparently no one there cares.

> 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...

Must not be a programmer if you actually believe bugs don't exist.