US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level • Hacker News Board

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#111

Post by zanny » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 11:32 PM UTC

njarboe wrote: post #107

zanny wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that every country with any sense actually keeps track of its citizens. Consistently. Because when you say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous to be a government with no idea who your people actually are. For half a century social security cards had "not for identification" written on them because they are really bad for ID. Didn't stop everyone from using them as ID because there was no other option…

"Because when you say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous to be a government with no idea who your people actually are." In the US, one of the founding principles, different from all (almost all?) others at the time, was the people create the government to govern for them. Government was not suppose to be a system where the government (ie. the monarchy) rules and owns the people. I don't think it is such a bad idea tha…

There is a substantial difference between owning your people and having a consistent system tracking their existence.

My major issue with the thought process that gets you to "having a national is a violation of my freedom" is that you only want to be invisible if the government is an actively hostile entity to you that you want to avoid. It is also the principal justification to the right to bear arms - you arm the citizens against a tyrannical government.

The problem is that in both cases - if you have a government that you want to hide from anonymously or a government you need to arm yourself against - you have a government you need to overthrow. You don't just exist in this state of armament or anonymity without taking action to depose the king and reclaim your liberty.

In both cases there are real, persistent, continuous costs of not having a centralized record of citizenry with secure id (because social security cards are not even close to secure) as there with keeping recreational firearms ownership so permissive. The former means people fall through the cracks and need to exert tremendous effort to prove they exist while the later costs life and limb all the time.

If US history has taught me anything (in regards to the history of most nations) its that when trying to preserve liberty its a fine line between disdainful paranoia and reasonable ambivalence. And American culture definitely falls towards the extreme on that spectrum in a, in my opinion, really unhealthy way. It just breeds controversy and arguments about ideology without anyone actually doing anything to improve the world they live in for either outcome... which is a generally common thread in US politics, to be fair.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#112

Post by drb91 » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 11:36 PM UTC

ISL wrote: post #37

jcrawfordor wrote: post #20

My county of over 600k people has a Bureau of Elections staff of five, and none of them are really technical people, they just do basic work on the machines and train the temp staff hired for elections. They rely on a contractor to handle just about every aspect of the technology, including the pollbook system, and that company is a larger operation but still the kind of operation where I've heard the elections staff…

The decentralization of the United States is, in my opinion, a feature, not a bug. The upside inherent in fifty parallel and bespoke experiments in government is worth the extra complexity and cost. Ideas are tried out, and can bubble outward and upward if they work. Bad ideas directly impact only ~2% of the country. Furthermore, having state and local control over elections has a direct impact on legitimacy. I don't…

> Bad ideas directly impact only ~2% of the country.

How do you figure? It could easily be 100%.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#113

Post by erikpukinskis » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 11:36 PM UTC

fromthestart wrote: post #110

adjkant wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it should also be a requirement to show a state or federal ID before you can cast your vote. I'm always floored when people try to defend voting without requiring any kind of identity verification. In Puerto Rico you're required to register ahead of time for a voter ID and you must present it in order to vote. If Puerto Rico, which is drastically poorer than all 50 states, can pull this off without it being…

>The problem is that the state and federal ID system is so fucked up that it disenfranchises voters. Until that system is fixed, you can't use it for voting. I really think this is a giant myth. You're expecting me to believe that these minorities are living such horrid, opressed lives that they slave away every single day, and can't find a friend with a ride, or band together to make a group trip to get registered o…

No matter how you slice it, it amounts to “the poorest people can’t vote”.

Maybe you don’t even have bus fare. Maybe your car can’t make it 90 miles to the nearest DMV.

Also you’re really dismissing the fact that some people literally work all the hours the DMV is open. And when those people have their one or two days off, there’s other crap they have to get done.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t have voter ID... I’m just saying you’re being disingenuous by saying it doesn’t disenfranchise any voters.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#114

Post by drb91 » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 11:37 PM UTC

notable_user wrote: post #87

anigbrowl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The upside inherent in fifty parallel and bespoke experiments in government is worth the extra complexity and cost. Ideas are tried out, and can bubble outward and upward if they work. Bad ideas directly impact only ~2% of the country. Don't agree. Just look at the history of Alec to see how local and regional governments are easily captured by self-serving actors. These are nice sentiments but the underlying assumpt…

Gay marriage rights and now weed legalization are two recent examples of policy that I don’t think would have been possible in America (at least for a long time) without decentralized government. People got used to the idea in some more progressive states and it’s bubbling outward. Many states experiment with election law as well. California with top two primaries. It’s yet to be seen how that will play out, but we l…

This doesn’t imply that elections themselves should be run in a decentralized manner.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#115

Post by drb91 » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 11:38 PM UTC

ashleyn wrote: post #53

I was floored when I read the responses to malfunctioning equipment in Texas. "Voters are moving too quickly through the pages." That is a BUG! not user error in the slightest.

I wonder if this would count as fraud.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#116

Post by daphneokeefe » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 11:41 PM UTC

ikfmpwdsoz wrote: post #100

daphneokeefe wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a pollworker in San Francisco, and I can tell you from personal experience with thousands of voters that Ranked-Choice Voting is widely misunderstood. The common refrain is: I only want to vote for this one candidate, and not for anyone else. In a hotly-contested election, they absolutely do not want to vote for the other guy as #2.

How hard is it to explain to people that their vote only goes to #2 if #1 is already out of the running?

Well, you only get an opportunity to explain something when they ask.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#117

Post by matthewmacleod » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 11:44 PM UTC

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #60

Paper ballots are the superior method of voting. It makes it nigh impossible to cheat at a large scale and there's a paper trail verified by multiple adversarial parties. It's also way more reliable due to the sheer simplicity of the system. For a system as important as our elections we should take every precaution possible. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I don't even trust mail-in ballots. I'm perfectly content to fill out…

I think it should also be a requirement to show a state or federal ID before you can cast your vote.

I’d be interested to know why though. Is it a problem in the US? In the UK at least, no ID is required and there is virtually no voter fraud. Is it really the case that the cost (disenfranchising groups with lower rates of access to photographic ID) is worth it to solve an issue that might not even exist?

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#118

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 11:50 PM UTC

njarboe wrote: post #107

zanny wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that every country with any sense actually keeps track of its citizens. Consistently. Because when you say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous to be a government with no idea who your people actually are. For half a century social security cards had "not for identification" written on them because they are really bad for ID. Didn't stop everyone from using them as ID because there was no other option…

"Because when you say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous to be a government with no idea who your people actually are." In the US, one of the founding principles, different from all (almost all?) others at the time, was the people create the government to govern for them. Government was not suppose to be a system where the government (ie. the monarchy) rules and owns the people. I don't think it is such a bad idea tha…

[deleted]

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#119

Post by tracker1 » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 11:51 PM UTC

throwaway2048 wrote: post #98

int_19h wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wholeheartedly agree. Which is why whoever will be the first one to propose a no-cost, easy-to-get national ID (could be issued via post offices, since those already have pervasive geographic coverage) combined with voter ID, pitching it all as "a real investment into election security while protecting the right of all citizens to vote" or some such, would likely win this political fight.

Unfortunately this has a lot of opposition behind it from republican voters who believe in kooky mark of the beast theories, and concerns about federal government surveillance. You can be completely certain they would fan those flames hard if a proposal like this ever saw the light of day.

Umn, it seems to me that most of the opposition to requiring ID for voting (just a state issued ID) are liberals talking about disenfranchising the poor. Most of the poor already have ID, and beyond a few of the horror stories some seem to have getting ID, it's still not a bad idea.

In the end, you have to register to vote, and in most states you do so with the same agencies that make Identifications. Requiring an ID card to get a voter ID, or having it as part of your driver's license or state id isn't a horrible idea.

There's no reason for it to be a "federally issued id".

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#120

Post by DoreenMichele » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 11:52 PM UTC

Muromec wrote: post #77

pjc50 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, require ID; but it must be freely available and easily accessible, and states which end up with different ID takeup rates for different races should be prosecuted.

Can you please explain for non-americans what's the actual problem with havinf ID in US? Is it like most people only have driver license and ones who don't have a car (because they are poor) don't need one or it's more complicated? Where I'm from everybody is required by law to have one from the age of 14 and gets it for free for the first time. You just can't have anything done without id and tax identification code…

One aspect I'm not seeing mentioned in other comments: ID is currently handled at the state level. A lot of Americans object to having a federal ID and if you required ID for non local elections (federal elections -- ie countrywide or national elections, like voting for the President), then you will run into problems because there is no standard national ID. If you required ID at the federal level, then you have to decide what constitutes acceptable ID and this potentially serves as regulation on valid state ID that I don't believe currently exists.

If you try to move to a federal ID, you de facto need to replace a bunch of state run offices with federal offices. This would not be an easy transition at all. It would be easier to create federal regulations and require states to alter their state ID to comply by X date, but states tend to resist that kind of interference from the federal government.

The US is a little bit like a country of countries. It would be a little bit like requiring an EU ID and European countries objecting.