51–60 of 79 posts
Also, this article is a prime spot for us to have a discussion about potential improvements and tech solutions or oversight regarding the election and voting. Overall, I'd say a good topic to discuss here.
I'm not particularly bothered that it might take another day or two for all the votes to be counted. I'd much rather have the devil I know than a bunch of automation and technology that might have bigger issues. Since it's not nationally controlled, and each US state (and county) can do what it wants, a big push to use tech is almost sure to backfire. And backfire in ways that aren't immediately obvious.
Just to give you a feel of what is actually possible in a well run election: Germany (80 Million people) has a fully manual (all paper ballots, no voting machines or automatic tallying) and fully witnessed official result on election night. This count is then checked and certified as final a few days later (discrepancies are rare and small). People don't have to wait in line to vote. And voting happens on Sunday, whi…
It is really sad that any post that provides any criticism of any system that might be helping Biden in any way at all is flagged on hacker news these days. Hacker news is the new reddit.
HN is now the same as every other online community: trash.
It is really sad that any post that provides any criticism of any system that might be helping Biden in any way at all is flagged on hacker news these days. Hacker news is the new reddit.
Yup. ~8 years ago, this place used to be much more levelheaded and objective when it came to politics. Nowadays, anything critical of the Democratic party is instantly flagged, as will be every future Greenwald post, whom HN used to revere. And the moderators don't give a fuck either because they're also in the main HN demographic of SV white liberal trash. HN is now the same as every other online community: trash.
A trash community where you're posting over 10 times a day...
Seriously, if you hate this community so much, why not find somewhere else where you don't get so angry?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of his writing is FUD lately.
Concern and worry about left-leaning "journalists" censoring a newstory (a newstory that, had it happened to the other political party, would have been all over the news in an instant and would be covered for weeks on end) is FUD? Yup, keep downvoting me retards because I want a free and objective press. You've destroyed this website, hope you're happy.
The biggest issue is this ridiculous heterogeneity. Canada is no less of a federal country with devolved decision-making powers, perhaps even more so. And yet we have one system of casting and tallying votes, presided over by one federal electoral commission, which reports to the parliament and not to the government. It was set up in 1920 and worked out very well for us, delivering 100 years of bullshit-free election…
Canada doesn't have anything like a President. The Prime Minister is chosen the way the US chooses the Speaker of the House. That's far far more important than the details of the administration of voting.
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> Other developed countries have, for decades, reliably given results within hours of polls closing, without "automation or obscure technology". How do these other countries handle mail-in ballots? In most (maybe all) US states, a ballot postmarked on election day is valid as long as it is received by some specific point (usually Friday) after election day. Thus, in the US there are an undetermined number of valid vo…
Germany: Every person over the age of 18 is automatically registered to vote. The right to vote cannot be lost. Every registered voter gets a letter some time before the election and if you want to vote by mail you have to send the letter back for free and they'll send everything over. The ballots have to be received by the end of the day of election. There's a lot of time so you won't miss that date. The letter you…
The argument here is: why should someone who voted on election day, or even a day or two before have their vote thrown out because their ballot doesnt arrive to be counted until the day after the election?
I think the argument that there is plenty of time is reasonable, but many elections in the US can be very, very close, so it does matter. Throwing out valid ballots that were mailed on or before election day effectively disenfranchises people (keep in mind some people cant go to polls to vote or drop off ballots, and in some places it is illegal to have anyone besides the registered voter drop off the ballot, so it must be mailed).
Oregon has a great voting system. Works very well - supposedly the easiest in the country. Everything is by mail. Fraud rates are extremely low.
> Fraud rates are extremely low. How do you know that?
You can determine to some extent whether postal votes have been tampered with after they have been cast. Or whether more results were returned than were issued.
But you can never realistically know what happened at the time of casting. Coercion is invisible with postal voting.
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Germany: Every person over the age of 18 is automatically registered to vote. The right to vote cannot be lost. Every registered voter gets a letter some time before the election and if you want to vote by mail you have to send the letter back for free and they'll send everything over. The ballots have to be received by the end of the day of election. There's a lot of time so you won't miss that date. The letter you…
> The ballots have to be received by the end of the day of election. The argument here is: why should someone who voted on election day, or even a day or two before have their vote thrown out because their ballot doesnt arrive to be counted until the day after the election? I think the argument that there is plenty of time is reasonable, but many elections in the US can be very, very close, so it does matter. Throwin…
If you do not mail your ballot on time, there is another simple solution, you go to the (lineless) polls on election day.
When they check everyone in they confirm that they have not already received a mail-in-ballot from that individual before allowing you to the booth.
With enough time allocated for mail-in-ballots, I feel that it doesn't matter that the deadline is earlier. Deadlines are fairly arbitrary either way and at some point you need to select a winner.
If you have plenty of opportunity to vote and you do not vote by the deadline, your vote is not counted regardless of the method you have chosen.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really don't think this is about a tradeoff between time and reliability. Other developed countries have, for decades, reliably given results within hours of polls closing, without "automation or obscure technology". Time to results is a factor in the credibility of the results, just as auditability and transparency. International election observers regularly raise concerns about protracted and drawn out election c…
"Other developed countries have..." I suspect they have a way to mandate how local governments handle the voting. The US does not. That's the barrier.
There's nothing magic about holding election, that prevents Florida from doing it trustworthily and would permit the USA do achieve the same feat. A great many states do it, some federal. It requires coordination and reliability, in much the same way as delivering the mail, supplying everyone with fresh milk, handling vaccines, etc.