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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

#371

Post by aaronbrethorst »

tokenadult wrote: post #189

The system here in Minnesota works much better. All ballots are paper ballots that are indelibly marked by voters. My wife and I voted this morning in our busy precinct in Minnesota, where there are some tight statewide contests about constitutional amendments and perhaps the most contested race for our state's House of Representatives of any electoral district in our state. As usual, we voted by marking bubble-shape…

I'm disappointed that the LA Times story doesn't include my favorite anecdote from the Franken/Coleman recount: the person who voted for "lizard people" http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/11/23/so_w...

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

#372

Post by marshallp »

icarus_drowning wrote: post #323
marshallp wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chill out, I'm half-trolling. It's election day. I knew I'd get a downvote-kicking. I've been on here for 3 years, I'm a hugely valuable but underrated member of this community.

If you knew you'd get a downvoting-kicking, what exactly motivated you to engage in a behavior that so clearly violates the culture here? I'm not accusing, I'm genuinely curious.

Sacrifice karma to hack undecideds

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

#374

Post by MartinCron »

Symmetry wrote: post #368
MartinCron wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bringing up the Coleman/Franken election reminds me of my particular pet peeve. When the margin of victory is less than the margin of error, it's impossible to know the will of the people. One hundredth of one percent is not within any reasonable margin of error.

In the end, if one candidate got 100,000 votes and the other got 100,001 then to the extent that we randomly select between the two I'm not sure that it really makes a difference which one wins. In this case the will of the people is that the two candidates are equally good. "The greatest value of free elections is in all of the out-of-equilibrium outcomes that, because of the regularity of free elections, never come…

In this case the will of the people is that the two candidates are equally good

That's a very positive way to look at it. The problem of reduced legitimacy persists, though. The disgruntled Coleman supporters will probably always have a sneaking suspicion that the election was stolen from them, which tends to poison actual discourse.

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

#375

Post by heliostatic »

hnal943 wrote: post #340
howeyc wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't be serious. More people voting == voter manipulation??!?? I would call that a MORE REPRESENTATIVE democracy.

Dead people voting is manipulation. Just because more votes are cast doesn't mean they are legitimate.

However, since the post to which you're replying specified more people voting, not more votes, your vacuous statement is not on point. Stop fear mongering and being a pointless pedant.

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

#376

Post by pbhjpbhj »

eli wrote: post #227
zbowling wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way hash with secret salt would work. You enter a secret password as a salt and get a hash code from all your votes so you have a provable record your vote got counted that you can verify but no body can reverse to know it's you. Then stick all the votes up on a server somewhere. Let us go and check our votes are in the list. We could then have informal verification and audits of the counts.

No dice. One of the goals is that you can't prove how you voted (i.e. so you can't sell your vote).

>you can't prove how you voted (i.e. so you can't sell your vote). //

I assumed that if anything it was to prevent people being pressured in to voting a particular way (eg an abusive spouse) - what' wrong with selling your vote, surely that's still democratic: you've chosen to accept a particular candidate based on the outcome for you.

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

#377

Post by briandear »

mcantelon wrote: post #329
m_myers wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hanlon's Razor would suggest a bug in the hardware or software as the more likely explanation. Unfortunately, when politics are involved, people default to assuming malice far more than they perhaps should.

These voting machines flaws were widely reported last election. They always favoured the Republican candidate. Here's court testimony of an developer who was asked to create one of these rigged systems: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVmsaDS_FwY

They don't "always" favor the republican. That's just hyperbole. There have been widespread reports of Romney votes being altered -- days ago.

I think our biggest problem is voter registration flaws and the lack of being able to identify that the person listed on the form is the actual one voting. We should also be dipping people's thumbs in ink like they do in Africa and Mexico to ensure that people don't vote twice.

Voter fraud is far more common than alleged insidious voting machine malfunctions. Those machines are checked by reps of both parties and under heavy, continual scrutiny. Voter rolls, on the other hand, or absentee ballots are rife with fraud. For example, thousands of military members won't get to vote this election because the department of defense failed to mail the ballots on time.

In 2010, I lived in China and didn't get my absentee ballot until 1 month after the election, even though I requested it 6 months prior from the US Consulate in Shanghai. I was disenfranchised like millions of other legal voters, both civilian and military.

Some people are more concerned about some old minority lady allegedly with the inability to get a free photo id, yet ignore the military and overseas vote. Yet for the old minority lady, she need only go to the local courthouse to get things straightened out, while a solider in Kabul doesn't have that luxury.

Another problem is blantant violations of election law by generally Democrat election judges. Examples from today: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2012/11/06/judge-orders-oba...

http://mrctv.org/blog/obama-poster-hanging-florida-polling-s...

http://washingtonexaminer.com/philly-gop-poll-inspectors-bei...

And voter intimidation here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/nov/6/problems-blac...

If the KKK were to show up at a Philidelphia polling site, there'd be cries of outrage and National Guard deployments, but since it's the New Black Panthers, it's ignored.

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

#378

Post by briandear »

blindhippo wrote: post #260
ry0ohki wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So say if some party were to gain power and start harassing people that voted for the other party...

If this is the reason, there is a bigger problem in America then simple voter fraud...

Ever dealt with a union election? That's exactly the problem with non secret ballots. You vote against unionization and thugs show up at your house. Union activists are among the most violent people around.

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

#379

Post by mherdeg »

MartinCron wrote: post #283
tokenadult wrote: post #189

The system here in Minnesota works much better. All ballots are paper ballots that are indelibly marked by voters. My wife and I voted this morning in our busy precinct in Minnesota, where there are some tight statewide contests about constitutional amendments and perhaps the most contested race for our state's House of Representatives of any electoral district in our state. As usual, we voted by marking bubble-shape…

Bringing up the Coleman/Franken election reminds me of my particular pet peeve. When the margin of victory is less than the margin of error, it's impossible to know the will of the people. One hundredth of one percent is not within any reasonable margin of error.

Sure, and in scenarios like that, perhaps the best thing to do is to flip a coin.

Instead of going to all the expense of flipping a coin, though, you could just take the person who seemed to get the most votes (after you've counted them all really hard to make sure you're within the margin of error). Just an arbitrary rule, no biggie.

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

#380

Post by briandear »

Alex3917 wrote: post #85
btilly wrote: post #77

There have been problems like this in every election with these machines. More troubling, exit polls and voting results have routinely disagreed with each other since 2000. In most countries that would be taken as proof that the election was not fair. But not in the USA! http://www.ukprogressive.co.uk/breaking-retired-nsa-analyst-... claims evidence of systemic manipulation of the vote, with the trend strongly being…

"Anyone who has been paying attention this election cycle knows about the attempts by both sides to manipulate rules about who can vote, when, in ways that advantage themselves and disadvantage each other." Since when have Democrats been passing laws to prevent old white people from voting?

Since when have Republicans passed laws to prevent anyone from voting?
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