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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

#361

Post by icarus_drowning »

btilly wrote: post #311
icarus_drowning wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nate Silver wrote a great article in 2010 about why the notion of exit polling itself has a lot of fundamental problems[1]-- among them, the fact that it is extraordinarily difficult to get an truly random sample. [1] http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/ten-reasons-why-you-s...

None of which is news. Still the national media had faced those issues and successfully did it for decades. Then their polls stopped working in 2000. Why?

If you read the article, there are several instances of the same problems causing very large errors in elections prior to 2000, for example, several miscalled states for Clinton in previous elections. To claim that these polls "suddenly" stopped working is demonstrably false.

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

#362

Post by sixothree »

VMG wrote: post #309
JoeCortopassi wrote: post #295

I know that this will remain at the bottom of this thread, because it doesn't have enough conspiracy theory in it, but does anyone really think that this is actual vote tampering ? I mean, why on earth would you tamper with a voting machine so that it stuffs the ballot, but have it update the UI so that the user can see and report the error? This should fall to the way side of failing basic logic, but it doesn't beca…

But what is the other explanation then?

Maybe too many people voted for Obama causing that part of the screen to fail?

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

#363

Post by JoeCortopassi »

huhtenberg wrote: post #352
jpwagner wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Has no one here used a touchscreen on an airplane seat before, it's usually more than one finger width offset...

Re-read the article. The guy tested just for that and it wasn't a case.

He says a lot of things, but amazingly only shows us the one thing that can be easily debunked as a glitch/error.

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

#364

Post by brown9-2 »

cabalamat wrote: post #215
goostavos wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was not the best civics student.. What is the significance of it being secret ? Being able to verify your vote seems like a pretty simple, good thing ( I would think ).

> What is the significance of it being secret? So that people can't bribe or blackmail you into voting a particular way.

Or rather, it makes the purchase of votes much less attractive.

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

#365

Post by endersshadow »

yesbabyyes wrote: post #247
tomp wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Voter ID to discourage minorities, students, elderly Why would that discourage anyone? In slovenia, you are required by law to carry an ID when you turn 18/get voting rights. So there's really no excuse for anyone to not have an id (or driver's licence).

An example: In Texas, a student ID is not good enough to count as a voter ID -- but an NRA member card is. I kid you not. The Simpsons could not have come up with something more absurd. Minorities in the US are way less likely to carry photo ID. I could go on and on. In short, the situation is different than in Slovenia.

Also, there's a loaded history, too. Blacks were disenfranchised post-Civil War through a whole host of measures, of which IDs was just one of them. Requiring IDs or literacy for voters brings back thoughts of Jim Crow laws. These issues are steeped in history that Slovenia just doesn't have.

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

#366

Post by briandear »

genwin wrote: post #104
danielweber wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

exit polls and voting results have routinely disagreed with each other since 2000. In most countries that would be taken as proof that the election was not fair It's absolutely not proof. It's, at the least, evidence. Exit polls are statistical -- in my dozens of times voting, I've never hit an exit pollster. But if you say "the exit polls disagree with the official numbers, so let's go with the exit polls" you have…

Statistics tells you the odds that the exit poll would disagree by some degree with the actual result. If the odds show, for example, only a 1 in a 100 million chance of it happening, an investigation should take place. That you've never hit an exit pollster doesn't say much, because the odds can be computed with high confidence by polling only a tiny fraction of the voters. Statistics is highly valuable despite not…

"It's a foregone conclusion".. ?? Because of Nate Silver's statistical analysis of polls? The polls which themselves are flawed. The "statistics" are based on nothing but polls, all with margins of errors and varied methodology. A sample of 1000 people can hardly predict an entire state, because there are many factors that influence turnout that aren't captured in polls. Being the subject of a poll is generally a passive activity -- they come to you, while going to vote is an active activity. "Likely voters" is a very subjective term and thus a difficult thing to quantify.

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

#367

Post by TheAmazingIdiot »

hahainternet wrote: post #281
beatpanda wrote: post #193

This is just the tip of the iceberg, folks. If you're in the U.S. I highly reccomend being a poll worker in a contentious district in a swing state if you ever get the chance. I was in a suburb of Denver last election and saw all kinds of shenanigans, from people pulling fire alarms to clear out the polling places to people walking aaround with laptops "checking voter registration" (actually just lying to people to g…

That's just disturbing. The last time I went to vote I walked to a local school, waited politely in a queue, went and filled in my paper ballot and went home. A couple of people there were monitoring but nobody tried to influence or interrupt or anything. It was very British.

I can attest to similar actions as well in Nashville, IN. We've had a very nasty election cycle, given the (R) Governer has stepped down, and with the shenanigans with Mourlock (misspelled correctly; I am not an eloi).

At the polling place, there were quiet conversations and line chatter, yet was very professional and well, British.

Even when I was a poll worker during the 2000 election, it still was decent and honorable proceedings, even if the campaigning was not.

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

#368

Post by Symmetry »

MartinCron wrote: post #283
tokenadult wrote: post #189

The system here in Minnesota works much better. All ballots are paper ballots that are indelibly marked by voters. My wife and I voted this morning in our busy precinct in Minnesota, where there are some tight statewide contests about constitutional amendments and perhaps the most contested race for our state's House of Representatives of any electoral district in our state. As usual, we voted by marking bubble-shape…

Bringing up the Coleman/Franken election reminds me of my particular pet peeve. When the margin of victory is less than the margin of error, it's impossible to know the will of the people. One hundredth of one percent is not within any reasonable margin of error.

In the end, if one candidate got 100,000 votes and the other got 100,001 then to the extent that we randomly select between the two I'm not sure that it really makes a difference which one wins. In this case the will of the people is that the two candidates are equally good.

"The greatest value of free elections is in all of the out-of-equilibrium outcomes that, because of the regularity of free elections, never come close to happening."

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

#369

Post by joshuacc »

lps41 wrote: post #270
notatoad wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Outside of each location will be people holding signs of all candidates isn't it illegal to campaign within a certain radius of a polling place?

That would be a state-by-state law. There is no such law in Maryland as far as I know.

I voted in Maryland this morning, and there was a sign about 25 feet from the door marking the spot where electioneering becomes illegal.

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

#370

Post by cglace »

mkr-hn wrote: post #310
sinnerswing wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Votes changing From Romney to Obama in Colorado http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/11/03/Dozens-of...

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4750429

http://www.marionstar.com/article/20121031/NEWS03/310310009/...
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