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White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

reuters.com

91–100 of 161 posts

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#91
post #44

Faith in elections and election integrity is incredibly important. Unsubstantiated claims of election fraud should be punished severely. Politicians who baselessly erode confidence in elections without providing timely evidence should be ineligible for political office at least and potentially tried for treason.

This and a comment under it start with the exact same sentence. “Faith in elections and election integrity is incredibly important.” There’s something wrong here and it makes me doubt HN

That’s not what I’m seeing.

pclowes starts off the comment you quoted (“Faith in elections and election integrity is incredibly important”), then rayiner responds with “Faith in elections is a two-way street” and engages with pclowes point by providing a broader perspective. They are not “the exact same sentence”.

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never heard that suggestion... if you can document it, the wiki entry would need an update[1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring#History

I can’t tell if you’re serious, but my definition was certainly not, lol. My claim was that correcting “red haring” to “red herring” distracts from a bigger misunderstanding (thus making the correction itself a red herring! Please laugh.) I completely made up my claim about the true meaning. For better or worse, my brain finds that humorous. Edit: i am honored that you found my origin story believable enough for seri…

where am i?

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#93
post #49
post #44

Faith in elections and election integrity is incredibly important. Unsubstantiated claims of election fraud should be punished severely. Politicians who baselessly erode confidence in elections without providing timely evidence should be ineligible for political office at least and potentially tried for treason.

Faith in elections is a two-way street. The election system must also be fully transparent, minimize the degree to which voters must trust election administrators, and keep records that would allow evidence of voter fraud to be detected. You can’t punish people for not providing evidence if you’ve designed an election system that fails to keep the information that would allow anomalies to be detected.

You want to campaign on improving election security and transparency (hopefully without being misleading about all of the systems already in place and the security, statistical analysis, and auditing already done)? Go for it.

That is very different than claiming fraud without evidence.

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#94
post #65
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Florida was using a punch-card system, thus the infamous hanging chads. Fill-in-the-bubble scantron systems are much faster and less error prone; not as fast as purely electronic voting, but you get a reliable paper trail that is more transparent and much easier to audit.

> Fill-in-the-bubble scantron systems are much faster and less error prone; not as fast as purely electronic voting, but you get a reliable paper trail that is more transparent and much easier to audit. An even bigger advantage of scantrol systems is with two simple changes to how ballots are produced and marked you can greatly increase the security and audibility of them. The two simple changes are: 1. When the ball…

Votehere / Dategrity was basically this (for mail in ballots). We worked hard on these problems.

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#95
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was actually thinking of a much later CNN retrospective looking at various studies: https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/31/politics/bush-gore-2000-elect... (“Taken as a whole, the recount studies show Bush would have most likely won the Florida statewide hand recount of all undervotes. Undervotes are ballots that did not register a vote in the presidential race.”). The studies showed that Gore only would have won if counti…

Maybe you're right about your theory, but based on the above investigations, he won the vote anyways.

CNN says exactly the opposite! “Taken as a whole, the recount studies show Bush would have most likely won the Florida statewide hand recount of all undervotes. Undervotes are ballots that did not register a vote in the presidential race.”

Counting undervotes isn't my theory. It was Gore's theory of which votes should be counted. Gore never argued overvotes--where a voter had marked multiple candidates--should be counted. The recount studies show that Gore would have lost under the only recount approach the Gore campaign actually pursued.

Of course, the whole thing was completely stupid. They should have stopped with the second machine recount. It was completely insane to entertain the idea that you should try and guess what voters meant when they didn't completely punch a ballot, or punched more than one candidate. The proper thing to do is exclude all ballots where the voter failed to fill out the ballot properly.

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#96
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I say “errors” I mean votes the punchcard machines couldn’t read due to the chad not being punched out all the way. Those were the ballots that were at issue in the litigation (“undercounts”). The butterfly ballot would have resulted in votes for Buchanan or double votes (ones for Buchanan + Gore if the person tried to go back and correct). Gore never actually tried to get those counted in his favor. And how cou…

> Gore never actually tried to get those counted in his favor. And how could you know? Whereas of course the Bush campaign was absolutely eager to ensure every vote, including those for Gore, were verified, right? > The correct outcome then would have been re-voting, not a recount. I do agree with you on this, entirely. Although even if that was the plan, the state of Florida is not exactly known for making poll acce…

> Whereas of course the Bush campaign

We're not talking about what the Bush campaign wanted. The point is that not even the Gore campaign argued that the double votes should be counted. So they're irrelevant.

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#97
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t tell if you’re serious, but my definition was certainly not, lol. My claim was that correcting “red haring” to “red herring” distracts from a bigger misunderstanding (thus making the correction itself a red herring! Please laugh.) I completely made up my claim about the true meaning. For better or worse, my brain finds that humorous. Edit: i am honored that you found my origin story believable enough for seri…

where am i?

In Internet Misinformation 101, as am I.

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#98
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> both sides https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot Gore probably won that election. I can't help but wonder about an alternate history where he became president and there was no 9/11 due to smoother handoff between administrations.

Gore did win that election, but SCOTUS illegally decided it instead of a fair ruling requiring Florida to recount ballots using the same methods in all districts. Americans should have done general strikes and rioting. I don't know about 9/11, but I doubt Gore's SCOTUS appointees would have made the incorrect decision on Citizens United. America would be in a better place today.

The Supreme Court did require Florida recounts of ballots using the same methods in all districts, and remanded the case to Florida Courts to figure out if there was a legal way to extended the deadline for recounts, to get it done, but they never heard the case, because Gore conceded soon after.

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#99
post #54
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do you only secure your computer networks after they’ve been hacked? We should have transparent, verifiable election infrastructure, like Taiwan: https://youtu.be/DUZa7qIGAdo .

The problem is implementing that in a way that doesn't disenfranchise a lot of people. Most or all countries that have the kind of robust national ID system for such a system also make sure it is easy for every citizen to get the necessary ID. Such a system could be added to the US without too much disruption if we did it gradually, say making it only apply to people born after 2030 so there is time to get all the su…

It's not any easier to get a national ID in say Germany if you don't already have one. E.g. https://www.personalausweisportal.de/SharedDocs/faqs/Webs/PA...

"In order to be issued a national ID card, you need to be able to establish your identity and your German citizenship. If at the time of your application you are not able to provide any documentation of your identity, such as an expired national ID card or a birth certificate or other identity-establishing document, the issuing authority will check your identity by other suitable means (see no. 6.3.1 of the Administrative Regulation on Passports (Passverwaltungsvorschrift, PassVwV))."

If you read through administrative regulation 6.3.1, it provides for the issuing authority to look at various documents to establish identity and citizenship. If all else fails, affidavits from witnesses can be used.

U.S. states operate the same way. I'll use Georgia as an example since I've lived there: https://sos.ga.gov/page/proof-citizenship. There's twenty different ways to prove citizenship, including affidavits from third parties if all else fails.

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#100
post #70
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwan’s system is like voter ID on steroids. The key part of your quote is that voter lists are compiled by “Household Registration Offices.” In Taiwan, everyone has to register with a household registration office within 30 days of moving. You have to show up to the office in person with your national ID card, household certificate, and proof of address. So it’s actually more stringent than voting registration in t…

It is also worth noting that these mandatory registration schemes are free of cost or I guess free of cost at the point of service. I think if we require a voter ID / national ID card scheme, it has to be free of cost at the point of service as well. These services should be at least AT MINIMUM as ubiquitous as a post office and / or at least TWO full time locations with extended hours for every county / parish / etc…

Taiwan's isn't free. Conversely, voter ID cards in the U.S. are free for people that don't have other ID. Texas and Georgia have offered free voter ID cards for more than a decade. All this infrastructure already exists.
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