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Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

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

#121

Post by simonsarris »

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…

Well to inject a bit of optimism here let me tell how of how it "just works" in the second largest city in New Hampshire.

There are several "wards" in the city, and each contains a school that is the voting location. Outside of each location will be people holding signs of all candidates, but all they said this morning are things like "Happy voting" and "Thank you for voting."

Inside the location there will be about 8 lines with last name letters. A-D and E-H, I-M, etc. If your last name was Dorette you would get into the A-D line. This is one bottleneck, but it resolves very quickly. You say your name, they find your name and cross it off, and you are handed a paper ballot.

With the paper ballot you then wait in a second line until a booth (containing nothing but a marker pen and writing surface) is free. There are about 16 of these booths, with privacy screens behind them.

If all the booths are filled you will have to wait, BUT if you do not mind people being able to possibly see your vote you are welcome to go to a temporary booth, that is just a series of lunch tables with cardboard dividers. Less privacy, far more seats. Maybe 30-40 people can fill out ballots at once at the ward I was in.

You fill out your ballot with a black marker and bring it to the end of the room where there is a single machine. This machine does nothing but take your ballot and scan it, so the line here processes near instantly. The ballots are kept to be recounted by hand if need be, and most importantly, the machine portion of voting is not a bottleneck.

It went very smoothly today.

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

#122

Post by jusben1369 »

skrause wrote: post #82
pnathan wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(1) We have > 300 M people. That's a huge population. (2) We are OK publicizing it. (3) Probability would indicate that we'll have a certain error, and it'll be shouted about. --- But it's very strange that it was "miscalibrated" to not select one particular candidate, no? :)

I never understand the population argument. Counting votes is perfectly scalable, if one in a thousand people volunteers to count votes it doesn't matter if your population is 1000 or one billion. In Germany voting machines have been banned completely with good reasons, because they're unsafe and easy to to hack. And still we can pull off a purely paper-based votes with 82 million people completely without any lines…

You are correct good Sir. Your error is to assume the US is a single country the way Germany is a single country. The US has some characteristics that best resemble Europe and some characteristics that resemble a single country. You'll get into trouble every time you try and put it into one bucket or the other.

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

#124

Post by marshallp »

baltimore wrote: post #105
marshallp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The republicans are the party of liars. Who is more likely to actually commit these crimes? Republicans. Even the 4 votes thing you came up with is probably republicans spreading lies.

Seriously? Why are you even here (HN)? This place does not suffer trolls lightly.

What? Are you denying Romnesia, or the lies that led to the Iraq war. Or Nixon's party. Or that the military-industrial xomplex and big oil is allied with republicans. Or Peter Norvig's analysis of who you should vote for http://norvig.com/election-faq-2012.html

It's easy to call "troll" and try to sneakily shout out the other person. You should try some self-reflection if you're a republican. If you've got enough inquisitiveness to be on HN, apply that to deciphering what the republican party actually stands for.

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

#125

Post by michaelhoffman »

ars wrote: post #86
jarek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you never hear about these things in your own country that means that apparently no one there cares. Or that they don't happen...

> Or that they don't happen... Yah, somehow I doubt that, unless you managed to hire god to run your elections. Humans make mistakes, and machines and systems that humans build mess up. If you never hear about problems that's quite worrying - that means no one is even checking.

Other countries rely less on machines where this sort of thing is even possible. The fact that human-built systems are likely to contain errors is an argument for making these system as simple as possible. The fact that we use touchscreen voting machines in the U.S., with all the hidden errors (honest or malicious) they can introduce into the canvass, is insane.

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

#126

Post by felipeko »

pnathan wrote: post #75
mindstab wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have > 300 M people. That's a huge population Um, unless you're talking to India which manages to pull off votes with 1.2 Billion People. You are like 25% their population.

> http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=countries%20by%20popula... this is a lot of people. I am sure that if we investigate the details of elections in India, Indonesia, and Brazil, we will find an array of fudged votes and issues. In other words, I am pretty sure that the error rate for the mix of remote/paper/electronic voting will hold pretty constant regardless of population size.

Brazil actually has a very organized election. Aside from bad politicians we have to chose from, the election does not have many problems. We have a judicial system just for election (with judges and clear laws) ready to take actions (and they do take) when something goes wrong. All election occurs in one day, a sunday so everyone can vote, and the results usually come in less than 4 hours, because all vote is electronic.

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

#127

Post by danielrhodes »

grecy wrote: post #106
pnathan wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(1) We have > 300 M people. That's a huge population. (2) We are OK publicizing it. (3) Probability would indicate that we'll have a certain error, and it'll be shouted about. --- But it's very strange that it was "miscalibrated" to not select one particular candidate, no? :)

> (1) We have > 300 M people. That's a huge population. It's hilarious when Americans use that as an excuse for things being sub-par in their country. I see it all the time for health care, roads, schools etc. Yes, your country has lots of people in it, but it also takes in an enormous amount of tax, and has enormous government agencies to organize this kind of thing. Everything should scale up appropriately, but you…

You are right. Countries scale up linearly just like websites do. How stupid of us to think otherwise.

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

#128

Post by morsch »

MartinCron wrote: post #73
eumenides1 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why isn't there a national council responsible for maintaining consistent and well run elections. To me it would seem like an easy win to push for it and push it through. "We need to preserve our democracy!" "Any one who doesn't vote for this bill, is unamerican!" "We cannot let our ability to vote be assaulted!" etc.

Our government is structured in such a way that elections are run at the local level, which can be seen as a strength. Imagine how dangerous it could be if one company manufactured every single voting machine used in every single polling place.

How many companies does it take to cover 90% of the electronic vote? Five companies are more difficult, but hardly impossible to manipulate. One company may be easier to audit, on the other hand.

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

#129

Post by danielweber »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #101
danielweber wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used this machine in another state, and it absolutely generates a paper trail. There is a rolling receipt going on the left-hand side of the machine behind glass that records every single button press you do, and scrolls out of view when you complete voting so the next guy can't see it. It's not perfect, and not my preferred system, but it's pretty decent.

I'd prefer to keep a receipt for myself, with a randomly generated serial number on it, so at some point I could verify that the digital record of my vote #158FA134 matches the paper receipt and who I voted for.

As others have said, this is exactly how you can start buying votes. Pull any book about cryptographic voting off the shelf and this is treated as a design flaw.

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

#130

Post by binaryorganic »

bradmccarty wrote: post #11
binaryorganic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll give you obviously edited, but why so sure about the other two?

I can't even give obviously edited. Ever used a lower-end Android phone? I have, and this looks like a video directly from one. Jittery, frame skipping mess. Edit: Also, it's been verified and taken offline. http://tv.msnbc.com/2012/11/06/machine-turns-vote-for-obama-...

Obviously edited b/c of the distinct scene cut between the candidate selection that takes up the first half of the video, and the cast vote button which takes up the second half.

All the commenter was saying was that whoever shot the video didn't share it before first splicing two different shots together.

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