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Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

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Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#31

Unpopular opinion: Paper ballots with in person voting (with an ID) is the only 100% fool proof and verifiable voting system. Everything else could be manipulated or hacked. And when there's trillions of dollars and world power on the line, it's just a matter of time when the "could be" turns to "would be".

Paper ballots can be faked. Or lost. Or stuffed. Anyways, haven’t most/all districts gone to paper ballots, the electronic part is just auto tabulation. They can be counted manually if necessary.

What is the point then? Why introduce a machine where none is needed. In most countries all votes are counted twice by his d and the initial voubt finishes in a few hours.

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#32
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counterargument is that mail in ballots help increase voter turnouts and that requiring id will turn people away. It's a weak argument because you shouldn't try to increase turnout by making voting less secure. Any other solution should be found instead.

If we really want to increase turnout, we can just make voting mandatory like other countries have. Requiring ID is a problem given that a lot of people don't have easy access (or access at all) to legal ID, for various reasons, some as simple as cost. Having a license costs money on an ongoing basis and you need to have access to documents to prove your identity like a birth certificate, and some citizens don't have…

I feel that forcing people to vote is more authoritarian than democratic. Places like North Korea have something like 99.5% turnouts for elections. One of the advantages of living in a democratic society is the freedom to choose not to participate in it, so long as this doesn't affect others.

The idea just rubs me the wrong way.

I understand America is somewhat unusual among most Western nations that lots of people don't have passports. A driving license should serve as a good ID card but lots of people don't have one of those either. As a Brit the idea of an ID card also feels undemocratic to me. In the UK we have inexpensive passports and a national voter registration database, with signatures and adresses recorded, why would that not work in the US?

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#33

~1/3 of their annual revenue. Not nothing, but likely small enough that it’s just a cost of doing business and not a real deterrent. IMO.

Agree that it should be more, but what sort of margins do you realize that 1/3 of _revenue_ seems small?

“Small enough” not “small”. Likely not enough to force a major change in the “morals” of the company.

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The arguments pro and con are purely motivated by partisan concerns. its believed that more democratic voters are less likely to have an id, therefore voter id laws supposedly favors republicans. that supposed fact is at the heart of the entire debate and as far as i know there is nothing more to it.

> its believed that more democratic voters are less likely to have an id This notion that Democrats keep pushing - that a sizable portion of their voting base is too dumb to get an ID - when massive developing countries like India that are still struggling with basic things like sanitation have long ago solved this problem - is nothing short of embarrassing. There are people in rural India that live in straw huts tha…

We've been trusting our voters' word for centuries and it hasn't been a problem yet. Why all the distrust all of a sudden? What changed?

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#35

Unpopular opinion: Paper ballots with in person voting (with an ID) is the only 100% fool proof and verifiable voting system. Everything else could be manipulated or hacked. And when there's trillions of dollars and world power on the line, it's just a matter of time when the "could be" turns to "would be".

Im so old I can remember when this used to be a common left-wing opinion.

BTW, Dominion is actually diebold amalgamated with a couple other "voting" machine vendors into a single corporation.

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#36

~1/3 of their annual revenue. Not nothing, but likely small enough that it’s just a cost of doing business and not a real deterrent. IMO.

They've never turned a profit though, so this only adds to their financial problems.

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#37

Unpopular opinion: Paper ballots with in person voting (with an ID) is the only 100% fool proof and verifiable voting system. Everything else could be manipulated or hacked. And when there's trillions of dollars and world power on the line, it's just a matter of time when the "could be" turns to "would be".

Human marked, human and machine readable both is good practice. Risk limiting audits after elections is good practice. CA, WA and CO at least do all this.

What does in person (with an ID) add to election security? That practice most certainly restricts voting unless there's a holiday for election day.

What keeps in person voting from being manipulated less than other good practice elections?

Why did in person voting become a big issue only just before and after 2020 election?

Why didn't anybody pay attention to what some states did after 2000 election?

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#38

Unpopular opinion: Paper ballots with in person voting (with an ID) is the only 100% fool proof and verifiable voting system. Everything else could be manipulated or hacked. And when there's trillions of dollars and world power on the line, it's just a matter of time when the "could be" turns to "would be".

How on Earth are we able to have a global digital financial system that is able to keep track of trillions in transactions per year but running a seasonal election with < 100 million participants through a digital system seems too hard?

Listing a few: Market incentives, general competency of the organizations running the systems, government procurement using the same set of bigcos who only care about getting the contract not about delivering quality after. Not that I have an opinion on paper ballots but I understand the concern for such a sensitive system.

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The arguments pro and con are purely motivated by partisan concerns. its believed that more democratic voters are less likely to have an id, therefore voter id laws supposedly favors republicans. that supposed fact is at the heart of the entire debate and as far as i know there is nothing more to it.

> its believed that more democratic voters are less likely to have an id This notion that Democrats keep pushing - that a sizable portion of their voting base is too dumb to get an ID - when massive developing countries like India that are still struggling with basic things like sanitation have long ago solved this problem - is nothing short of embarrassing. There are people in rural India that live in straw huts tha…

This goes to show neither party is interested in a working society. I find republicans a lot worse but as you say of the democrats actually cared they would have done like most of the rest of the world and made sure IDs are easy to get.

Re: Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

#40

Unpopular opinion: Paper ballots with in person voting (with an ID) is the only 100% fool proof and verifiable voting system. Everything else could be manipulated or hacked. And when there's trillions of dollars and world power on the line, it's just a matter of time when the "could be" turns to "would be".

How on Earth are we able to have a global digital financial system that is able to keep track of trillions in transactions per year but running a seasonal election with < 100 million participants through a digital system seems too hard?

1. There is no requirement to make it impossible to determine which transactions someone has made, in fact, quite the opposite.

2. Transactions get rolled back all the time for various reasons.

3. The global digital financial system is a result of decades of evolution and millions of man-years of work.

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