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

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

#411

Post by detst » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 9:21 PM UTC

hahainternet wrote: post #281

beatpanda wrote: post #193

This is just the tip of the iceberg, folks. If you're in the U.S. I highly reccomend being a poll worker in a contentious district in a swing state if you ever get the chance. I was in a suburb of Denver last election and saw all kinds of shenanigans, from people pulling fire alarms to clear out the polling places to people walking aaround with laptops "checking voter registration" (actually just lying to people to g…

That's just disturbing. The last time I went to vote I walked to a local school, waited politely in a queue, went and filled in my paper ballot and went home. A couple of people there were monitoring but nobody tried to influence or interrupt or anything. It was very British.

That's exactly my experience voting in the US. I suspect these stories are the exception but no less disturbing.

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

#412

Post by dignan » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 9:22 PM UTC

api wrote: post #200

morsch wrote: post #4

The shenanigans you seem to tolerate during elections are just incomprehensible to us foreigners. The number of horror stories I've heard in the last couple of weeks regarding everything from just weirdness of the system to blatant manipulation is farcical. It's possible that I'm getting a bleaker picture than reality, I suppose, since I only read about the broken stuff and not the instances where everything just wor…

Americans tend to have this unbelievably naive idea that there's no high-level organized or institutional crime in their country.

How many Americans do you know?

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

#413

Post by danielweber » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 9:22 PM UTC

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #371

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...

I often vote for LIZARD PEOPLE as a write-in if there's one race where I don't know anything about the people in it, because of that guy. (I didn't know he had come forward until I searched for that story today.)

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

#414

Post by mcantelon » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 9:25 PM UTC

mietek wrote: post #402

mcantelon wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What happened to this court case? Why isn't there a huge outcry about this?

My guess is the people who fund both the Democrats and Republicans like the idea of being able to rig elections and therefore there's mainstream silence about it. Otherwise, I find it hard to explain.

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

#415

Post by tzs » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 9:25 PM UTC

JoeCortopassi wrote: post #295

I know that this will remain at the bottom of this thread, because it doesn't have enough conspiracy theory in it, but does anyone really think that this is actual vote tampering ? I mean, why on earth would you tamper with a voting machine so that it stuffs the ballot, but have it update the UI so that the user can see and report the error? This should fall to the way side of failing basic logic, but it doesn't beca…

If I were tampering with voting, I would do it on the front end, not the back end. That's because if the code is ever discovered on the back end, it is damning. A misaligned or badly proportioned mapping from touch coordinates to ballot options is much easier to explain away as an error or incompetence.

Doing it at the front end won't flip as many votes because many people will see the incorrect registration and stab at the touch screen a few more times until they find the right spot. But some will not notice, and in a close race that could be good enough.

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

#416

Post by evandena » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 9:26 PM UTC

morsch wrote: post #300

evandena wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bubbles seem stupid to me. It's a lot easier and less subjective on review to fill in an arrow than it is to fill in a bubble. Here's an example ballot of what I'm talking about: http://www.town.oregon.wi.us/uploads/ckfiles/images/nov_06_s...

Here's what our ballots look like: http://www.leinfelden-echterdingen.de/servlet/PB/show/141628... There's never been any real discussion about it being complicated, confusing or needing any other kind of design change. (Which isn't to say that you couldn't make arguments in that vein.)

That's much clearer than some of the Scanatron bubble types.

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

#417

Post by btilly » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 9:26 PM UTC

bobwaycott wrote: post #328

indiecore wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't denying someone the right to vote a crime?

Not only that, but it is grounds to apply Section 2 of the 14th Amendment. Not many people seem to be aware of the second clause. Basically, it says that any state found to be denying citizens their vote will have their representation in Congress proportionately decreased in accordance with how many people were denied their voting right. All this nonsense about voter IDs, altering votes, making it difficult for peopl…

When the election is decided by under 2%, a targeted denial that is enough to swing the election is small enough that very few states would lose any representation at all in Congress.

Besides, it is hard to convince a government to apply section 2 if the party in power is the one that was doing the disenfranchising.

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

#418

Post by evandena » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 9:28 PM UTC

danielweber wrote: post #257

evandena wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bubbles seem stupid to me. It's a lot easier and less subjective on review to fill in an arrow than it is to fill in a bubble. Here's an example ballot of what I'm talking about: http://www.town.oregon.wi.us/uploads/ckfiles/images/nov_06_s...

The arrow-thing is also confusing to people. I guarantee you that election officials have had to make a judgment call about them. EDIT : Out of 1000 people, how many will get confused by this design? http://www.umsl.edu/~kimballd/polk.pdf SECOND EDIT : misaligned arrows were also a problem in Florida in the 2000 election

It just seems more natural to fill in a line than to fill in a circle. Your wrist is more stable and less shaky to make a couple straight lines with a marker.

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

#419

Post by dripton » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 9:28 PM UTC

amalag wrote: post #259

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…

Virginia does this as well. I think it's a great system. No need for costly machines, just optical scanners which can be spot checked by pulling a percentage to verify. Plus you can scale it very easily, just add more people for ID checking and more spaces to sit and fill in the boxes. Virginia has both right now and a lot of people prefer to wait for the machine. I would love for them to switch completely to the pap…

We used to only have the optical scanners in Virginia. The machines are a recent addition, and a big step back. I want them gone.

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

#420

Post by bdunbar » Tue, Nov 06, 2012, 9:28 PM UTC

thomasz wrote: post #406

briandear wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Perhaps you know libertarians that I don't.

The ones I know are well armed, but about as non-violent as you can be and not be a Quaker.