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Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

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Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#221

Post by MisterMower »

Capricorn2481 wrote: post #197
somenameforme wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you genuinely don't understand what's happening - it's the same reason that political discussion on Reddit became completely detached from reality. On these sort of topics you have a relatively small number of hyper partisans that aim to censor discussion through the abuse of flagging, and they're mostly successful. So all that's left is a circle jerk which has no meaningful connection to views in the actual world…

Everything you're saying can be true and co-exist with the reality, which is the current administration has been so vindictive, short-sighted, and nakedly serving the billionaire class, that its own supporters have had to completely disengage with everything The Executive Branch is doing. If you talk to Trump supporters in real life, they are not having nuanced discussions about the state of our country, they are com…

I think GP is right: this place has become an echo chamber. Even if someone posted a thoughtful rebuttal, it would not be seriously considered, or worse, flagged. And why would anyone waste their time when they know their efforts will be immediately dismissed and memory holed?

Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#223

Post by somenameforme »

Capricorn2481 wrote: post #197
somenameforme wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you genuinely don't understand what's happening - it's the same reason that political discussion on Reddit became completely detached from reality. On these sort of topics you have a relatively small number of hyper partisans that aim to censor discussion through the abuse of flagging, and they're mostly successful. So all that's left is a circle jerk which has no meaningful connection to views in the actual world…

Everything you're saying can be true and co-exist with the reality, which is the current administration has been so vindictive, short-sighted, and nakedly serving the billionaire class, that its own supporters have had to completely disengage with everything The Executive Branch is doing. If you talk to Trump supporters in real life, they are not having nuanced discussions about the state of our country, they are com…

There are currently 20 root level comments. 8 have been flagged. Which is again starting to look a lot like Reddit.

Some of those flags are quite reasonable, but some are not. And this happens every single time you have a thread that brings out the partisan flaggers, which will discourage future conversation from those that did bother to try to discuss and got hit by them. Absent the flaggers existence, you'd have a ratio of discussion that would much more closely resemble what we see in things like support polls.

But with it, you end up with an echo chamber that is not only uninformative, but malinformative because you now have absolutely no clue what people are thinking, why they're thinking that, what their relative numbers may be, or any opportunity to try to change their mind. So you just end up with polarization and both sides radicalizing themselves as they end up in echo chambers where a partisan view is taken as the baseline for normal.

Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#224

Post by Hobadee »

hackyhacky wrote: post #149
Hobadee wrote: post #147

[flagged]

> Our elections are beyond broken and untrustworthy. You assert this without evidence. People have spent years looking for evidence of widespread voter fraud without success [1]. > voting should have a barrier to entry. Your freedoms are important - people died for them. That's not how rights work. Would you say that there should be a "barrier to entry" for freedom of speech or gun rights? They added a "barrier to en…

> You assert this without evidence.

I mean, there are plenty of instances if you are willing to look... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cases_of_electoral_fra...

Hackers rather trivially were able to hack optical scan machines back in the 90s or early 2000s. Defcon famously has its voting village, where hackers hack voting machines via numerous means. If you think this isn't happening (or at least being attempted) in reality (by either party, and/or outside countries) you are naive.

> That's not how rights work. Would you say that there should be a "barrier to entry" for freedom of speech or gun rights?

Yes, there is a barrier of entry for freedom of speech and gun rights; it's called holding on to freedom itself, and it is a VERY difficult and bloody ordeal that can be lost extremely quickly if not protected. (See all non-free countries, or even parts of Europe where you can now be jailed for making certain comments online.)

I never said the barrier for entry should be a test, like the "literacy tests" we implemented during Jim Crow, but if you aren't willing to give up something for your freedom, you probably don't deserve it. (Not saying you must necessarily give something up, just that you must be willing to give something up.)

Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#225

Post by tancop »

impossiblefork wrote: post #211
bojan wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do all that with a driving license, but a driving license is not a proof of citizenship and thus of your eligibility to vote. In Europe, you can't get a regular ID without being a citizen. So having an ID automatically means you're eligible to vote.

Yes, but a driver's license can be accepted as ID. Just because a driver's license isn't proof of citizenship doesn't mean that it isn't sufficient, since it will have some identifier connected to the identity of the voter. You would show the driver's license, then the registrars would find your name on the list, strike it out, give your voting envelopes, and then you go wait for a private booth to become free and th…

Some of the Republican proposals would require a proof of citizenship at registration time. You would still be able to register without a passport but you need to take your birth or naturalization certificate. Not everyone has them at home so you might need to go to your parents place in another state or risk getting it mailed. Good luck.

The point is not making registration impossible, just harder and more complicated. When you combine it with voter roll purges the play is clear.

Get a biased commission to remove everyone named Jackson or Hernandez a couple months before the election because "there's too many people with that last name and officials might confuse them" or purge a whole district that just happens to be an opposing party stronghold based on a single voter fraud conviction.Do it silently without informing voters, and when they realize they need to register again they have to go through a complicated process designed to make them give up.

Rejecting IDs at the poll booth is actually pretty rare because it's so obvious. Real schemes are a bit more creative.

Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#226

Post by repeekad »

dboreham wrote: post #190
skybrian wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But suppose there are states that don't cooperate with that?

The postal service is run by the federal government.

And elections are supposed to be run by states...

Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#227

Post by hackyhacky »

MisterMower wrote: post #216
gorbypark wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadian here, so take with a grain of salt. Both Canada and the US don't have a national ID system, at all (short of a passport). A state/province issued driver's license is the default form of ID. If you don't have a driver's license it is very possible you don't have an ID. Most (if not all?) states and provinces will have some form of "non driving" ID available if needed. However, it is optional, costs money and…

> It’s not that uncommon for an adult to not have an ID It’s extremely uncommon. You need an ID to buy beer, open a bank account, prove you are eligible for employment, pick up a prescription at the pharmacy, book a hotel room, the list is very long. You cannot function in society without some form of ID. The idea that a large number of Americans are being disenfranchised because they don’t have ID is farcical.

> It’s extremely uncommon.

34 million people [1] or about 10 percent of the US population lack a form of ID that would be required under a voter ID law.

The fact that you assert otherwise, without evide, shows that you live in a privilege bubble. None of your friends lack an ID, so you conclude it's rare.

[1] https://voteriders.org/article/who-doesnt-have-an-id-in-amer...

Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#228

Post by holgerschurig »

The very sad state of the US democracy, especially how they do elections, was even fodder to a german language book "König von Deutschland" (King of Germany) by Andreas Eschbach.

In the fictive story, it is the year 2000. Some get the job to write a software to manipulate vote computers. Later, the same programmer was asked to manipulate also voting computers in Germany. This time, he tries to resist. They create a joke-party for the re-erification of the Monarchy and manipulate the vote computers so that this joke-party gets the majority. And that works. But no one believes him that the computers were manipulated and he really gets to be the new king of Germany.

That's all very fictive ... it's just that in the text you have lots of footnotes giving reference to ACTUAL problem with US voting devices ...

Also: in Germany the Chaos Computer Club once demonstrated that they could run chess on an already "certified to be safe for election" voting computer. That brought the end to these devices ... so now Germany is back to a state where your Aunt Mary can sit down with the paper ballot sheets, can recount and can inform herself that everything was right. Without the need of a CS degree, without knowledge about IT security, hacking, etc. Which is IMHO a general win to the democracy. Lay people must be able to verify results!

Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#229

Post by hackyhacky »

xienze wrote: post #208
hackyhacky wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> imagine if in The Netherlands you can waltz in and say you are this person or that person That's not at all how it works. Typically, you do need to present ID to register. You also need to verify your address on the day of voting. If someone does commit fraud, it's easy to detect: as soon as the real voter tries to vote, the system will detect a "double vote." The fact that this almost never happens suggests that t…

> as soon as the real voter tries to vote, the system will detect a "double vote." And which of the two people are lying? Would you have to... verify ID to figure that out?

I'm assuming that your question is not offered in good faith, but just in case I'm wrong: no, you could just see where they live.

Re: Whistleblower warns Postal Service mail ballot system has catastrophic problems

#230

Post by tancop »

kulahan wrote: post #185
ycombinete wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a global thing. Postal services are very expensive public services . Low hanging fruit for cost savings.

That's the crazy thing about the US. Our postal service is, for some reason, not funded by taxpayer dollars, but also not allowed to run a profit, they are not allowed to change prices without congressional approval, and they must fund their pension for 75 years - well beyond any requirement anyone else in the US faces, to include both federal agencies and private orgs. If they didn't have that last requirement, they…

No tax funding, no profit and price controls are normal for a state owned company. In other countries the postal service is not expected to pay for itself all the way but subsidies are limited by law. The prices are supposed to be lower than market as a public service.
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