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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

#461

Post by king_jester »

btilly wrote: post #226
king_jester wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasing access to voting isn't a form of voting manipulation, because the whole point of voting is to provide voting opportunities to every person who is eligible to vote.

Democrats are trying to change the voting rules because they believe that doing so will make the vote come out the way that they want it to. If you don't call this voting manipulation, what do you call it? I agree that it is nicer than trying to disenfranchise people, but the intent is the same. And I believe that the people pushing the rule would be doing the opposite if that's what their poll data suggested would b…

I agree that elected officials and candidates are always looking to influence voters minds and the process itself to win. However, pursing better access to voting isn't unethical, even if people pursing those policies and systems themselves are attempting to use that access to bolster their own support. In fact, I would say that pursuing actions with positive externalities and outcomes that bolster your position is what we want politicians to do: being so successful at fixing and addressing our problems as a society that we want them in office again and again.

Granted, I don't think that the US gov't is an example of a system in which we are achieving wild successes and are therefore wanting to keep certain people in office :-)

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

#462

Post by danielweber »

MartinCron wrote: post #428
mherdeg wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

perhaps the best thing to do is to flip a coin Or have a runoff election, or have instant-runoff voting. Having elections determined by real or statistical coin-flips undermines the (important) story of self-rule.

You can't get rid of edge cases by moving the edge.

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

#463

Post by incongruity »

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.

I applaud your statistical sensibility, but I have a question – you're specifically looking for the margin of victory to be bellow the margin of error – but the margin of error of what, exactly?

Are you expecting the vote to be a proxy for the entire population of the country/state/whatever? Perhaps the entire population of eligible voters? Or, do you view it as simply the preference of those who took the time to vote?

Personally, I see little harm in disregarding the intentions of those who could vote but choose to not vote.

Issues of systemic inequalities in access to voting aside, I have little problem with viewing an election the task of accurately counting the votes of those who actually made it to the poling place. If you accept that concept, then the margin of error is extremely low – especially with electronic voting systems.

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

#464

Post by gordonguthrie »

specialist wrote: post #442
gordonguthrie wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all totally irrelevant - I speak as a former candidate for both the UK and Scottish Parliaments. The count needs to be verifiable, and needs to be simply comprehensible. The paper process has the following check points: * the ballot box is seen to be empty at the beginning of the process * the turnout can be collected and collated by the candidates nominees during the day * the first count is the ballot count…

Yup. I'm totally, utterly against electronic voting of any form. I'll weakly support ballot optical devices at poll sites in many USA jurisdictions, because our ballots can be quite complicated, until someone shows me that hand counting is generally feasible. With 30 issues on a ballot, sort / stack / count can get ugly. Aside: Thank you for your work on elections. I wish more geeks would actually work an election, o…

You have a much higher number of elected officials than we do in Scotland - we actually have the lower proportion of the population as elected officials in Europe - so I sympathise. Some of our elections use the de Hondt system which is a nightmare to count as well...

> I wish more geeks would actually work an election, or at least observe, before spewing about how to fix voting systems

Its the same every election - a hundred irrelevant cryptographically schemes...

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

#465

Post by incongruity »

danielweber wrote: post #456
grey-area wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no ambiguity about a spoiled ballot. It's a legitimate protest with a clear outcome - the vote is not counted. A simple system of slips of paper marked by hand and counted by hand works better than anything involving chads, touch screens or electronic counting. Paper ballots are really the best solution we have at present and I'd argue the involvement of as many people as possible in counting and supervision…

What if the bubble isn't fully filled in? What if it's 50% filled in? What if it there is a stray mark in another bubble? I'm not trying to play Loki's Wager -- there really have been incredibly close elections where you have puzzle out just what the voter intended and it's just not clear. Nor can you make the boundary be "well if it's not clear throw it away," because you can't tell when it doesn't become clear. Thi…

>What if the bubble isn't fully filled in? What if it's 50% filled in? What if it there is a stray mark in another bubble?

Count it before the voter leaves, reject any ambiguous ballots with feedback about what's wrong and have the voter fix it before they leave. Repeat until it's accepted.

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

#466

Post by kbutler »

csmatt wrote: post #388

A bit off-topic, but how do recounts work with electronic voting machines?

It varies.

Some systems have a "recount" button that returns the same result as before. Others have an actual paper trail that can be recounted by hand.

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

#467

Post by tadfisher »

specialist wrote: post #451
JoshTriplett wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system in Oregon works quite well. In the mail, you get a voter's pamphlet, a ballot to fill out, and two envelopes. You put your name, address, and signature on the outer envelope, put the ballot in the unmarked inner "secrecy" envelope, and put the secrecy envelope in the identifying envelope. The people counting the ballots use the outer envelope to check identity against the list of registered voters (and the…

Have you observed central count? I think you'll be less enthusiastic once you understand how it works. In my jurisdiction, ballots are stuffed into an image scanner (like a high speed fax) as they arrive, the votes are detected, any ambiguous votes are "electronically adjudicated" meaning workers alter the database to correct for voter intent or write ins. There's a nightly summary report, allowing people to peek at…

OR resident here; while your USPS comment might be true, we also have local elections offices where you can walk in, fill out a ballot, and turn it in, just like states without vote-by-mail. You can also call or check online to ensure your vote was counted, so the USPS issue is mitigated somewhat for the people who care enough to check.

[edit] In addition, we have locked dropboxes in many locations so you can avoid the USPS and the elections office entirely.

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

#468

Post by JoeCortopassi »

mcantelon wrote: post #447
kbutler wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 seconds with google found: http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2012/11/02/malfunctio... """touched the screen to vote for Mitt Romney but the machine lit up the name of Barack Obama. Stevens tried a second time and again the machine lit up Obama when she selected Romney. She tried a third time and finally Romney’s name lit up. Stevens reported the malfunction to board of elections personnel and was told the vot…

Established media sources (preferably with some statistical analysis showing pro-Democrat anomalies) rather than random blogs would be nice, but thanks.

As opposed to some random Reddit user?

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

#469

Post by usaar333 »

takeda64 wrote: post #354
usaar333 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

touchscreen calibration errors or related software glitches. I've certainly seen my own phone get screwed up enough on occasion that a touch on point x registered at y.

except the guy who recorded it claims that selecting candidate that's below Obama worked correctly.

From my phone experiences, it isn't always a matter of a touch being shifted up/down by X everyone. Sometimes individual areas are screwed up. (as a simple experiment, I can put some water droplets on my nexus S and things go haywire unpredictably).

I'm doubtful this is malicious not so much because I'm some idealist that believes voter fraud doesn't happen, but because of all ways to commit fraud, this is a but ridiculous - it's obvious to everyone the machine is recording wrong and it will be noticed.

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