Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

thenextweb.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 659 posts

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

#501

Post by grecy »

petitmiam wrote: post #485
jlgreco wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the particular case of roads, the issue is actually that America does not have enough people for it's size. The population density in many states is too poor to support, at tax rates that americans are willing to tolerate, the amount of road that is necessary. See: the disparity between road quality in Maryland (good density) and Pennsylvania (poor density). (or, to correct for climate, compare Pennsylvania with N…

Your comment caught my eye, because I usually hear population density being used to explain why Australia's internet isn't as good as elsewhere. I'm certainly no expert on the topic, but I haven't heard any news about any major problems with Australia's roads. I'm curious to know how they compare with roads in the US. USA density: 33.7/km2 87.4/sq mi population: ~ 314 mil AUS density: 2.8/km2 7.3/sq mi population: ~…

I'm an Australian that's lived and worked all over the US for 3 years, and have been in Canada for 7 now.

The roads in America are horrible by Australian standards. When I bring friends to the US they are shocked and say things like "it just doesn't look finished". This is more-or-less true for the majority of social services in America.

Of course, the climate in Australia lends itself to much better roads, but in comparison to Canada's roads, America's still suck, so there is no excuse.

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

#502

Post by rickmb »

ars wrote: post #40
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…

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 they didn't tolerate it, they wouldn't have voting machines in the first place.

In many other countries these things are banned because people care.

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

#503

Post by bhassel »

tjoff wrote: post #303
Qworg wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote manipulation? Yes. Just what we need? Definitely. I cannot think of a scenario where having more people in a representative sample would be worse than having less.

I can. If you can't be bothered to vote your vote isn't needed. You have no clue what you are voting for and you can not, in any conceivable way, make a reasonable judgment of who to vote. I cannot think of a scenario where having more people, who have no clue about why or who they are voting on (and this is sadly the vast majority of people), will be better than having less. It looks good if have there are a lot of…

I agree that people without a clue have no business voting. But be careful making the assumption that someone who "can't be bothered to vote" is less informed.

Even the well-informed can end up thinking "my vote doesn't matter anyway, so why bother." And rationally, they are not exactly wrong. Yet, the system would break down if everyone took that view. People need to be encouraged to vote, even though they may see it as a waste of time, because in aggregate their votes are important.

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

#504

Post by gordonguthrie »

erichocean wrote: post #484
gordonguthrie wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote buying is not about a voluntary market in a tradeable commodity - it is about your boss not being able to say 'prove you vote my way or I will sack you' or your landlord saying 'prove you vote may way or I will evict you'.

Nonsense. Existing laws protecting employees from employer retribution (e.g. for sexual orientation, or religion, or...) are still enforceable (and the judgments for plaintiffs are large, too). There is no reason to prevent someone from verifying that their vote was counted -- not vote buying (or the presumed ease thereof), not vote tampering or stuffing (really?), not potential outside coercion of any kind. Laws exi…

Simply not true.

Coercive voting has disappeared because it is impossible for the coercee to prove to the coercer that they complied.

My granny used to tell of tying red ribbons (red being for the left) on the goats in the country and her mother getting a lift to the polls from the Tories (when women first got the vote) and voting Labour.

Verifying your vote cannot relate to ballot stuffing at all - so you can prove to yourself that you voted X, but I have 1,000,000 made-up votes for Y.

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

#505

Post by Xcelerate »

I'm not trying to be snarky: could someone explain to me why this is HN-worthy (or at least worth 609 points)? In an election with thousands of voting machines, the probability is high enough that at least a few of them will be defective in some way; it should be expected as far as I can tell.

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

#506

Post by jlgreco »

grecy wrote: post #481
jlgreco wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is true. The amount that the population is willing to be taxed is also an important factor however. I'm not saying that states with bad roads don't have themselves to blame, just that density is a factor.

I said it's funny how Americans always use the big population excuse for having sub-par services. You're saying that it's got more to do with how much the population is willing to be taxed, which I believe is the real reason.

Yes, I agree with that.

I guess what I'm saying is that while dodging the real cause of this issue, Americans are going to point to large geography rather than large population as the 'root cause'. In this case that isn't entirely without merit, since for a lot of Americans (those in Maryland for example) the '(tax rate * population) / area' equation works out alright.

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

#507

Post by pacomerh »

ditoa wrote: post #8

Looks like a calibration issue. They should have included selecting other candidates in the list. While not good enough (voting machines should be "perfect") calling it "altering votes" is a little much. It shows you that it has registered the wrong candidate, I would call this incorrectly registering input.

Said the republican.

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

#508

Post by streptomycin »

zero_intp wrote: post #478
streptomycin wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1 The best educational demographic for Democrats is "No High School". The best for Republicans is "College Graduate".

You have presented what is nearly the most asinine counter-intellectual analysis I have ever read. The linked facts do not support you. Only 4% of the population is in that category and of that category 63% voted D, 35% voted R. In no world does this equate to D are represented in the majority by those without High School educations. Further-more, (from your own source) of the 28% of the population who are college gr…

In no world does this equate to D are represented in the majority by those without High School educations.

I never said that. If you want to criticize my post like an asshole, at least read it first.

Are you by any chance a Democrat without a high school degree? If so, I forgive your lack of reading comprehension skills. In that case, let me give you an example:

If I said, "The best racial demographic for Democrats is blacks" (which is just as true as my statement about education), that would not imply that I think most Democrats are black.

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

#509

Post by damncabbage »

Potential voter purging in Pennsylvania: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/11/watchdog-evidence-un...

Oregon worker altering ballots in the GOP's favor: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/11/06/oregon-election-worker...

At least one worker taking votes and putting them under the voting box: https://twitter.com/danicamckellar/status/265907196372594688 https://twitter.com/danicamckellar/status/26590774867435110

... What the hell is going on over there?

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

#510

Post by trhtrsh »

juiceandjuice wrote: post #431
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.

You're right. But for 3,000,000 votes cast, the margin of error is about 6 hundredths of one percent. At the 99% confidence level, it's .074% variance.

What are you defining as "the" margin of error?
Post reply on HN