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White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

reuters.com

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Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#101

Post by epakai »

phs318u wrote: post #91
dawatchusay wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”.

The referenced comment has been flagged dead. You can turn on showdead to see it.

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#103

Post by mathgeek »

xethos wrote: post #50
jfengel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think just the fact that it was the first thing on offer that wasn't the thing they were already using. There are better alternatives, and if legislatures were designed to come up with optimal solutions, we'd probably have use one of them. Instead we have inertia, because the Sainted Holy Founders thought inertia was good for a country, so they optimized legislative branches to be useless.

This is entirely unrelated to your point, but as you brought up the sanctity some Americans hold their founding fathers to: How do some assume the American founding fathers thought ahead, and had it all planned out, with good solutions (instead of merely solutions), ...while also being aware of the Flynn effect?

There are numerous quotes attributed to the founding fathers regarding how future generations would need to update their solutions for the times. As far as how some will assume, some will assume anything that fits their worldview.

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#104

Post by phs318u »

epakai wrote: post #101
phs318u wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”.

The referenced comment has been flagged dead. You can turn on showdead to see it.

Ah thanks.

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#105

Post by mobrules »

I used to be in the minority and actually vote but now I have joined the majority of the population and will no longer cast my vote. Maybe I am now disenfranchised but if both parties want it to be this messy and not use "well architected frameworks" because it might disenfranchise people who aren't yet disenfranchised then they are just disenfranchising a different group of people, me. I guess I haven't done the numbers and new naive voters are more valuable. "I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you!" -grandpaSimpson

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#106

Post by preg_match »

rayiner wrote: post #99
tzs wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The undeniable reality is that these measures do, in fact, constitute barriers to voting and the barriers are not evenly applied. Less privileged Americans are less likely to have ID, and that’s just a statistical fact.

If the opposition cannot be trusted to even so much as acknowledge reality and fact, we must reject all notions of voter ID, with no exceptions. One begins to wonder why the right is so unbelievably hamstrung on ignoring the issue of ID availability.

Could it be, perhaps, because their goal is not righteous as they claim, but is rather a thinly-veiled attempt at voter suppression? Based off their actions, I would say any reasonable person would have no choice but to see it that way.

There are solutions to these problems. The people you’re championing would rather die than even consider them. Sit back and ponder why.

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#107

Post by dofm »

mobrules wrote: post #105

I used to be in the minority and actually vote but now I have joined the majority of the population and will no longer cast my vote. Maybe I am now disenfranchised but if both parties want it to be this messy and not use "well architected frameworks" because it might disenfranchise people who aren't yet disenfranchised then they are just disenfranchising a different group of people, me. I guess I haven't done the num…

Not voting tends towards causing worse outcomes than voting.

The way I recommend people vote is this:

1) think of the worst, stupidest, most revolting, irritating and consistently wrong you know in your local area

2) wouldn't you like the power to potentially cancel out the damage they could do with their vote?

3) congratulations: you have that power. It's using your vote.

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#108

Post by dofm »

ibejoeb wrote: post #57
pclowes wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not comparable. A couple groups on the far left is not the same as the leader of the party. I don’t see any major figure on the left: Bernie, Obama, AOC, Biden, Hillary, Pelosi etc claiming fraud.

> Hillary Clinton dismissed President Trump as an “illegitimate president” and suggested that “he knows” that he stole the 2016 presidential election in a CBS News interview to be aired Sunday. From https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trum... , among literally hundreds of other instances claiming the election was stolen, rigged, Russianed, whatever.

FWIW I believe Hillary actually knew in detail what Trump was doing (and what Trump Jr was doing) to funnel influence from Russia in the 2016 campaign that was obviously dubious (and Trump knew, else "Russia, if you're listening" would not have happened; that was a combination of deflection and projection).

We also know — despite what Trump says — the Mueller report indicated that Russian influence happened and that the Trump campaign welcomed it, that the Trump administration misled and blocked the investigation (including through the use of shady defence agreements).

We knew in real time, in fact, that Paul Manafort worked for free for Trump while being paid off by pro-Russian Ukrainians and in that time got the RNC to change the election platform language about providing offensive weapon capability to Ukraine (something that has proved difficult to get the subsequent administrations to do).

So there was a lot of murky stuff.

But:

My feeling is that Clinton was mostly in shock that the electorate was stupid enough to fall for an obvious huckster and con-man anyway, and so she believed the influence must have succeeded because the outcome was so wildly depressing.

I personally think Trump's second win put away the notion that overt Russian influence is necessary to get Americans to elect someone who so obviously adores Vladimir Putin in ways that are incredibly visible; they are ignorant enough to do it without help.

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#109

Post by rurban »

jmward01 wrote: post #8

The red haring is that voting is hacked or illegals are voting, etc etc etc. The -real- story is disenfranchising voters by making it hard for them or out-right steaming their votes in the courts. We don't have an election fraud issue in the us. We have an election legitimacy issue.

Well, you have all three issues. Voting is trivially hackable, illegals are voting, and voting is made too hard.

Any civilized nation made voting secure, easy and fast. Yet still the US of A's still insist on computerized voting. Because then the government in-power can easily block voting surprises.

Re: White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report

#110

Post by Timon3 »

rayiner wrote: post #99
tzs wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're omitting fundamental differences between these systems, for example that Germans are required by law to own a government ID, so only a tiny fraction of the population has to use this process. As far as I have seen this appears to be around 2-3%, and I haven't come across any studies showing that historically disadvantaged groups are more likely not to have an ID. Compare that to ~10% of Americans without proof of identification, and it just so happens that minorities make up a disproportionately big part of this group.

Second, in Germany there exist exactly 2 ID cards accepted for e.g. voting: your national ID card, and your passport. There are no per-state ID cards, there are no ID cards that are completely fine to use in all government interactions except for voting. Meanwhile the US has 50 different ID card systems, and the people who are making arbitrary decisions on which of these ID cards are acceptable are the same people who can electorally benefit from strategically banning/allowing certain kinds of IDs.

So no, rayiner, these situations aren't remotely comparable. They could be if the US government introduced a uniform national ID card, and if citizens had plenty of time to get one. For example I'd have no issues with voter ID if it were introduced only once >95% of the population owns this hypothetical national ID over a 5-year period.

The funny/sad part in all this: if conservatives actually cared about election security, all they'd have to do is listen to the arguments against voter ID and remove these roadblocks over a few years, maybe a decade. But for some reason their only approach seems to be to demand Voter ID be introduced right now, no time to prepare, no efforts made to solve any of the issues. I wonder why?

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