EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
General => General Technical Chat => Topic started by: MT on August 21, 2018, 04:04:22 pm
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Voting machines hacked in numerous ways, easy'ist dont even need any tools. Who on state level enabled the purchase of these poorly constructed machines or machines at all? Clearly it reflects not only the political situation in USA but also the glorified US engineers and US engineering. Most provocative statement yes but utterly valid. So CIA, NSA, FBI, etc all have super secure hardware but average hillbilly Joe US citizen get's vote machines made in China or what not?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYzu4PUi3AI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYzu4PUi3AI)
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Im just curious if you looked in your own backyard before taking on worlds problems.
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Mostly that video is a pile of crap. I didn't get very far in to the conspiracy nonsense but right off the bat they talked about 'that kid'.
The kid hacked a web site but that is NOT the official results. The results are tabulated from the paper ballots. Even when votes are counted electronically, there is a paper trail.
Unless results are close, votes aren't recounted. But they can be and often are. Bush vs Florida comes to mind. One can argue with the 'chad' thing but there was a paper trail. Hint: Our main-in ballots require a signature which is manually compared with an exemplar every time I vote. Furthermore, I have the legal right to ask if my vote was counted (it might not be if I made extraneous marks on the ballot, for example).
The real problem isn't the machines or the technology, the problem is the candidates. How does somebody come up with enough money to spend tens of millions of dollars running for state office that pays $100k/year? Well, they sold out to somebody and it isn't the poor people - they can't contribute the kind of money it takes to win an election.
Most voting machines aren't networked. The votes are stored inside the machine and downloaded back at the Registrar's office. There are variations, of course, but mostly the votes are secure.
Every once in awhile, the votes from an entire district are 'lost' or 'suddenly found'. This doesn't do much for creating a warm fuzzy feeling. This crap doesn't happen in the large states where politics is serious. There are too many special interests watching every step in the process. But for the smaller states, their impact on national elections is so small that their votes are meaningless. Unless they gang up to support a candidate. Then they matter. Hillary's strategy to skip over smaller states cost her 'bigly'.
Russia hacking the voting process itself? I kind of doubt it. But, Russia producing propaganda on social media? Definitely. Nobody has come up with even 1 vote electronically changed by Russia but there are many examples of propaganda on Twitter and Facebook. This is life in the age of the Internet. Get used to it!
Then there are the conspiracy nuts that have a "Show". Like the video. The Internet provides these nuts with an outsized presence and audience. Any fool can start a YouTube channel. "Conspiracies R' Us!" Indeed, the Internet provides an 'echo chamber' so like minded folks can reinforce each other and never encounter a contradicting idea.
There is no such thing as 'Voter Suppression'. There may be a requirement for ID, why wouldn't there be? I need ID to get on an airplane, why not to vote? Remember the signature requirement above? That tracks back to my California Driver License and to the property records. They know exactly who I am and where I live (assuming I kept DMV updated which I am legally required to do). DMVs also issue non-driver ID cards.
Yes, there are examples of intimidation - like the Black Panthers suppressing white voters in the '08 election.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_intimidation_case
Perhaps it is raining and hard to get to a polling place. Maybe it is a bit out of the way. Maybe there are long lines (mail-in ballots are the way to go!). Maybe a lot of things... But when only 58% of eligible voters even bother to vote, I don't think folks should be yelling about suppression. In Singapore, voting is mandatory!
And, anyway, what's it to you? You don't live here (according to your location flag).
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This is a prime example where electronics should not be used, too easy to hack.
He is quite right, those machines have been that way since Day One.
Paper ballots counted by hand in the view of everyone is the only safe way.
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Clearly it reflects not only the political situation in USA but also the glorified US engineers and US engineering. Most provocative statement yes but utterly valid. So CIA, NSA, FBI, etc all have super secure hardware but average hillbilly Joe US citizen get's vote machines made in China or what not?!l]
Oh nice, what a wonderful topic to help foster a better forum relationship for us all! :clap:
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[/quote]Mostly that video is a pile of crap. I didn't get very far in to the conspiracy nonsense but right off the bat they talked about 'that kid'.
The kid hacked a web site but that is NOT the official results. The results are tabulated from the paper ballots. Even when votes are counted electronically, there is a paper trail.
Unless results are close, votes aren't recounted. But they can be and often are. Bush vs Florida comes to mind. One can argue with the 'chad' thing but there was a paper trail. Hint: Our main-in ballots require a signature which is manually compared with an exemplar every time I vote. Furthermore, I have the legal right to ask if my vote was counted (it might not be if I made extraneous marks on the ballot, for example).
The real problem isn't the machines or the technology, the problem is the candidates. How does somebody come up with enough money to spend tens of millions of dollars running for state office that pays $100k/year? Well, they sold out to somebody and it isn't the poor people - they can't contribute the kind of money it takes to win an election.
Most voting machines aren't networked. The votes are stored inside the machine and downloaded back at the Registrar's office. There are variations, of course, but mostly the votes are secure.
Every once in awhile, the votes from an entire district are 'lost' or 'suddenly found'. This doesn't do much for creating a warm fuzzy feeling. This crap doesn't happen in the large states where politics is serious. There are too many special interests watching every step in the process. But for the smaller states, their impact on national elections is so small that their votes are meaningless. Unless they gang up to support a candidate. Then they matter. Hillary's strategy to skip over smaller states cost her 'bigly'.
Russia hacking the voting process itself? I kind of doubt it. But, Russia producing propaganda on social media? Definitely. Nobody has come up with even 1 vote electronically changed by Russia but there are many examples of propaganda on Twitter and Facebook. This is life in the age of the Internet. Get used to it!
Then there are the conspiracy nuts that have a "Show". Like the video. The Internet provides these nuts with an outsized presence and audience. Any fool can start a YouTube channel. "Conspiracies R' Us!" Indeed, the Internet provides an 'echo chamber' so like minded folks can reinforce each other and never encounter a contradicting idea.
There is no such thing as 'Voter Suppression'. There may be a requirement for ID, why wouldn't there be? I need ID to get on an airplane, why not to vote? Remember the signature requirement above? That tracks back to my California Driver License and to the proper ta records. They know exactly who I am and where I live (assuming I kept DMV updated which I am legally required to do). Yes, there are examples of intimidation - like the Black Panthers suppressing white voters in the '08 election. DMVs also issue non-driver ID cards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_intimidation_case
Perhaps it is raining and hard to get to a polling place. Maybe it is a bit out of the way. Maybe there are long lines (mail-in ballots are the way to go!). Maybe a lot of things... But when only 58% of eligible voters even bother to vote, I don't think folks should be yelling about suppression. In Singapore, voting is mandatory!
And, anyway, what's it to you? You don't live here (according to your location flag).
Russia doesn't do anything America already does to other countries.
Truthfully Russia had no influence on the election. Seth Rich contributed the largest single factor in the election The Truth by way of Emails.
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Hacked voting machines are the least of the problems with elections in the US.
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Russia doesn't do anything America already does to other countries.
Truthfully Russia had no influence on the election. Seth Rich contributed the largest single factor in the election The Truth by way of Emails.
Of course we try to massage elections. It isn't pretty but I'm pretty sure we do it all the time.
Seth Rich? Who knows? Maybe he sent documents, maybe he's a fall guy. Maybe his killing really was 'random'. It happens in some cities dozens of times a week.
The conspiracy nuts just love counting the number of dead people in the Clinton sphere of influence. It numbers 56 according to this list. Vince Foster was just one of many.
https://scout.com/college/auburn/Board/104012/Contents/Clinton-Dead-Pool-List-112235358
The Internet is cool! We can hear anything we want!
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There is a video somewhere on youtube about flaws with the DieBold voting machines. See they are touch screen controlled, and some of the screens are so badly calibrated what you touch isn't who you vote for.
If I recall they also run Windows XP, and have no security software installed at all. Not much chance of getting this fixed, as there is no funding to fix it, obviously.
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If it makes you feel any better during the Obama romney election there was a video someone posted where anywhere you clicked on the screen romney would be selected. All the other screens worked as normal. And if that wasn't enough the voting machines in many states were supplied by Bain capital Romneys company. This to me was the biggest news story and threat to our country I had ever seen (I had no idea what 2016 was going to be like) and it got almost no media attention let alone the huge investigation that was needed and jail time handed out. trump makes up some bull shit about Hillary rigging the election and its taken seriously, Romney and Bain get caught in the act and nothing. I have never looked at this country the same since I saw that story and how it was just ignored.
Paper ballots no matter the inconvenience or cost are key to making things fair and recounts possible. If there is a 0.00001% chance electronic ballots can be altered they should not be used. Losing fair elections is the biggest threat to this country even bigger then 911 and gets less then 0.001% of the time and money spent on it.
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The conspiracy nuts just love counting the number of dead people in the Clinton sphere of influence. It numbers 56 according to this list. Vince Foster was just one of many.
Dig up the FBI's report on the investigation including their interviews concerning Vince Foster's death. No conspiracy is necessary for Hillary to be held responsible for his death even if it was not criminal. Of course, maybe such a lack of empathy would make her extra qualified to be a politician and President.
The only odd thing about the death of Seth Rich is that if it was deliberate, they did not do a better job concealing it. And that fits perfectly for a local (individual) no questions asked operation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_turbulent_priest%3F) by an amateur.
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"There is a video somewhere on youtube about flaws with the DieBold voting machines."
Have a look at this HBO documentary on voting machines and their proponents.
It is old but I would guess the situation and politics have not changed much:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZLWPleeCHE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZLWPleeCHE)
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Hacked voting machines are the least of the problems with elections in the US.
I would disagree; the future of the country depends on the vote.
Trash the machines, go back to counting the real ballots in the full view of the public.
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Russia doesn't do anything America already does to other countries.
Truthfully Russia had no influence on the election. Seth Rich contributed the largest single factor in the election The Truth by way of Emails.
Of course we try to massage elections. It isn't pretty but I'm pretty sure we do it all the time.
Seth Rich? Who knows? Maybe he sent documents, maybe he's a fall guy. Maybe his killing really was 'random'. It happens in some cities dozens of times a week.
The conspiracy nuts just love counting the number of dead people in the Clinton sphere of influence. It numbers 56 according to this list. Vince Foster was just one of many.
https://scout.com/college/auburn/Board/104012/Contents/Clinton-Dead-Pool-List-112235358
The Internet is cool! We can hear anything we want!
Just a few points...
1. The Internet will be cool when it becomes the free and open internet is was in 1994 when I got on the Internet the first time without having to go though a BBS gateway.
2. The data on the thumb drive Wikileaks received, the Pedista emails was downloaded directly from a server, not hacked piecemeal from over the net, forensics indicate.
I for one am glad Seth did it, he is a true patriot and hero.
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Hacked voting machines are the least of the problems with elections in the US.
I would disagree; the future of the country depends on the vote.
Trash the machines, go back to counting the real ballots in the full view of the public.
Why do you trust real ballots?
I helped provided election security for a couple of years where I discovered that they did not even bother counting third party ballots; they just threw them in the trash at the counting center yet somehow delivered poll results for those same parties. And every year some poll workers took the ballot boxes home for the night instead of delivering them directly to the counting center. Once I found that nobody cared, I kept my mouth shut until I moved away from the area.
Later I studied election systems. The "choices" given in US elections are an illusion even without corruption.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
Electronic voting is not going to break anything which is not already broken.
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I almost didn't post in this thread because I know dave doesn't like the politics. Maybe we can stick to the technical details which are loads more interesting.
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I almost didn't post in this thread because I know dave doesn't like the politics. Maybe we can stick to the technical details which are loads more interesting.
I almost didn't post in this thread because I know dave doesn't like the politics. Maybe we can stick to the technical details which are loads more interesting.
They broke the law; why didn't you report them?
Here is the deal.
You cannot maintain a chain of custody with a memory module, you cannot audit a memory module.
You CAN maintain a chain of custody, and preform an audit or recount if necessary.
You also have ballot serial numbers and it is much easier to demand an image of your ballot, which they have to give you here in the People's Republic of Kalifornia. (California)
What do you think a cal cert would be worth if there was no chain of custody back to NBS, that peace of test gear would be just as worthless as those electronic ballots.
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Mostly that video is a pile of crap. I didn't get very far in to the conspiracy nonsense but right off the bat they talked about 'that kid'.
The kid hacked a web site but that is NOT the official results. The results are tabulated from the paper ballots. Even when votes are counted electronically, there is a paper trail.
Unless results are close, votes aren't recounted. But they can be and often are. Bush vs Florida comes to mind. One can argue with the 'chad' thing but there was a paper trail. Hint: Our main-in ballots require a signature which is manually compared with an exemplar every time I vote. Furthermore, I have the legal right to ask if my vote was counted (it might not be if I made extraneous marks on the ballot, for example).
The real problem isn't the machines or the technology, the problem is the candidates. How does somebody come up with enough money to spend tens of millions of dollars running for state office that pays $100k/year? Well, they sold out to somebody and it isn't the poor people - they can't contribute the kind of money it takes to win an election.
Most voting machines aren't networked. The votes are stored inside the machine and downloaded back at the Registrar's office. There are variations, of course, but mostly the votes are secure.
Every once in awhile, the votes from an entire district are 'lost' or 'suddenly found'. This doesn't do much for creating a warm fuzzy feeling. This crap doesn't happen in the large states where politics is serious. There are too many special interests watching every step in the process. But for the smaller states, their impact on national elections is so small that their votes are meaningless. Unless they gang up to support a candidate. Then they matter. Hillary's strategy to skip over smaller states cost her 'bigly'.
Russia hacking the voting process itself? I kind of doubt it. But, Russia producing propaganda on social media? Definitely. Nobody has come up with even 1 vote electronically changed by Russia but there are many examples of propaganda on Twitter and Facebook. This is life in the age of the Internet. Get used to it!
Then there are the conspiracy nuts that have a "Show". Like the video. The Internet provides these nuts with an outsized presence and audience. Any fool can start a YouTube channel. "Conspiracies R' Us!" Indeed, the Internet provides an 'echo chamber' so like minded folks can reinforce each other and never encounter a contradicting idea.
There is no such thing as 'Voter Suppression'. There may be a requirement for ID, why wouldn't there be? I need ID to get on an airplane, why not to vote? Remember the signature requirement above? That tracks back to my California Driver License and to the property records. They know exactly who I am and where I live (assuming I kept DMV updated which I am legally required to do). DMVs also issue non-driver ID cards.
Yes, there are examples of intimidation - like the Black Panthers suppressing white voters in the '08 election.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_intimidation_case
Perhaps it is raining and hard to get to a polling place. Maybe it is a bit out of the way. Maybe there are long lines (mail-in ballots are the way to go!). Maybe a lot of things... But when only 58% of eligible voters even bother to vote, I don't think folks should be yelling about suppression. In Singapore, voting is mandatory!
And, anyway, what's it to you? You don't live here (according to your location flag).
Go watch the full video many of the points you brought up were countered asto why it was a problem. Things like data in plain text, the root password is "password", using certificates from 2013.Openeithenet ports. The girl just takes a ball point pen pics the lock pushes a button and she's in. Very easy todo considering you have privacy and no time limit even though you only need much less then the time I spend voting. You should be outraged. I am. Clearly they are putting profits first a time honored tradition in this country.
They also "we have vigilant poll monitors". Most are like 80 years old have no idea how computers work and could easily be bribed or be corrupt themselves/ Russian spies.. I had a friend who was blind and the poll monitor was trying to force her to vote for all the republican candidates. She literally had to get a second poll monitor who's party affiliation she asked for first, which is a problem in of itself, to watch the other poll monitor to not change her vote. I'm sure every other blind person she helped had their votes changed since there was a large community of blind people near by. Her's would have been had she not been paying attention. That lady should be in jail on felony charges.
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Whether there is a problem or not with the voting machines, the BIGGEST ISSUE is the fact that the companies who make them do so in PROPRIETARY ways that limit the security expert field from properly scrutinizing the machines. I understand they don't want any patents or trade secrets to fall into the wrong hands, but still, the best way to ensure the security is good is to PENETRATION TEST it with a bunch of hackers, offer a prize and make it available to be hacked.
Ideally, you would want an OPEN SOURCE approach if possible and not go after "hackers" who buy up the used machines to try to find the vulnerabilities in them. There were DEFCON competitions I believe a few years ago devoted to this kind of stuff, complete with lawsuits by the various manufacturers prohibiting people from buying them and trying to "Reverse engineer" the machines.
Ok, so you want to give someone a "black box", don't tell them about anything inside, keep everything proprietary and obfuscated as to how it works. OK.... But at least don't stop well-meaning hackers or threaten to sue them.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/29/us_voting_machines_hacking/ (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/29/us_voting_machines_hacking/)
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Whether there is a problem or not with the voting machines, the BIGGEST ISSUE is the fact that the companies who make them do so in PROPRIETARY ways that limit the security expert field from properly scrutinizing the machines. I understand they don't want any patents or trade secrets to fall into the wrong hands, but still, the best way to ensure the security is good is to PENETRATION TEST it with a bunch of hackers, offer a prize and make it available to be hacked.
Ideally, you would want an OPEN SOURCE approach if possible and not go after "hackers" who buy up the used machines to try to find the vulnerabilities in them. There were DEFCON competitions I believe a few years ago devoted to this kind of stuff, complete with lawsuits by the various manufacturers prohibiting people from buying them and trying to "Reverse engineer" the machines.
Ok, so you want to give someone a "black box", don't tell them about anything inside, keep everything proprietary and obfuscated as to how it works. OK.... But at least don't stop well-meaning hackers or threaten to sue them.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/29/us_voting_machines_hacking/ (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/29/us_voting_machines_hacking/)
This goes beyond them losing profits due to people seeing inside the machine. This literally is a national security issue and if you are afraid of losing profits go make a different product. Profits before democracy is a bad idea. Do we have to have someone making a profit off of literally every goddamn thing in tis country? We make profits off of prisons in this country. Who even thinks of that? Oh our democracy fell because some company had to maintain its bottom like. 320,000,000 have everything to lose so that a few hundred that directly benefit from the profits of these machines? The phrase "You got greedy and lost it all" is what we are watching. The reason why it's not an issue that it should be is that one party stands to benefit from it. Rig the voting machines so they will win and if they don't win for some reason then just say the voting machines were compromised and the election wasn't valid. It's like another matter of national security: the F35 fighter jet program that costs over a trillion dollars: We can't cancel it because it will cost 100,000 jobs. OK then lets cancel the program, take 500 billion of the 1.5 trillion and just write all the employees who lost their jobs 10 years salary (in reality they won't be paid nearly this much) . $1.5 trillion is bout 2.5% of ALL the money the entire population of the world makes in one year. The cost/profit of these machines is a very small fraction but a larger issue of national security. More examples of getting greedy. Flint Michigan's water supply was switched to save literally $100 dollars a day. Now to fix it costs thousands of times more and will probably never be fixed. I see this as a warning of things to come. Lets put partisan politics aside for once since we can all agree how important this is. END=RANT I'm going back to talking about electronics; that's a fun frustration.
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its probably good that we got hacked and effected because no one would do shit about cyber security otherwise. These things are never ever handled proactively and they did a pretty bad job at destabilizing a country all things considered.
When did you ever see someone take a proactive security measure unless some politician is scared he will be shot ? The budget wont be allocated come hell or high water unless something happens. We would probably have nuclear reactors connected to public payphones if some kind of crime did not occur. When it gets really retarded someone can do real damage.
Someone just has a playbook of politispeak/corporatetalk they open up to try to tell you why the issue you are trying to protect against is a waste of public resources/money, unless something happened. Then at least they get to look like an idiot.
You need to remember that most politicians are a bunch of Bruce Fords.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Ford
(https://assets.vice.com/content-images/contentimage/no-slug/437afecd67372f72de79323fe6bfb995.jpg)
You know what happens you bring up this kind of issue? Someone writes on a time sheet some where that they determined the issue you brought up is pointless, and they try to get billable hours and a raise for it, because they managed to save money by determining the issue is non issue. :palm:
Then you get an ulcer worrying about it and someone gets a promotion because they are an expert at not worrying and being negligent. Save your energy lol
Hell, the threat becomes greater because they determined (with an angle) that its not a threat, full steam ahead!
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Two predominately rural Wisconsin counties that neighbor each other with no large cities near by. Demographics are basically identical. One used video voting machines that then produced the paper trail, and the other used paper ballots that were then fed into a machine that counted them. I'll let you guess which one overwhelmingly voted for Trump. The other clearly voted for Clinton.
Sorry, the video voting machines that produce the paper trails themselves can't be trusted. Only way to get a trustable vote is to use paper ballots the person who is voting gets to mark themselves. Those votes can then be run through multiple different machines and hand counted and the results can be cross correlated. The ballot counting machines that work best are the ones that have no knowledge of who is in what position on the ballot. They just look at the ballot number, and count up the votes in each position and apply accept or reject rules for blocks of positions. When done with a batch of ballots, they spit out a report that says for ballot #X these were the results. Each ballot number seen is tabulated separately because the machine has no clue which candidate is in which ballot position. The only configuration the ballot counting machine needs is to be told where the ballot groups are so voting for more than Y people in a group will cause ballot rejection.
Most voting machines aren't networked. The votes are stored inside the machine and downloaded back at the Registrar's office. There are variations, of course, but mostly the votes are secure.
Every once in awhile, the votes from an entire district are 'lost' or 'suddenly found'. This doesn't do much for creating a warm fuzzy feeling. This crap doesn't happen in the large states where politics is serious. There are too many special interests watching every step in the process. But for the smaller states, their impact on national elections is so small that their votes are meaningless. Unless they gang up to support a candidate. Then they matter. Hillary's strategy to skip over smaller states cost her 'bigly'.
Russia hacking the voting process itself? I kind of doubt it. But, Russia producing propaganda on social media? Definitely. Nobody has come up with even 1 vote electronically changed by Russia but there are many examples of propaganda on Twitter and Facebook. This is life in the age of the Internet. Get used to it!
Then there are the conspiracy nuts that have a "Show". Like the video. The Internet provides these nuts with an outsized presence and audience. Any fool can start a YouTube channel. "Conspiracies R' Us!" Indeed, the Internet provides an 'echo chamber' so like minded folks can reinforce each other and never encounter a contradicting idea.
There is no such thing as 'Voter Suppression'. There may be a requirement for ID, why wouldn't there be? I need ID to get on an airplane, why not to vote? Remember the signature requirement above? That tracks back to my California Driver License and to the property records. They know exactly who I am and where I live (assuming I kept DMV updated which I am legally required to do). DMVs also issue non-driver ID cards.
Yes, there are examples of intimidation - like the Black Panthers suppressing white voters in the '08 election.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_intimidation_case
Perhaps it is raining and hard to get to a polling place. Maybe it is a bit out of the way. Maybe there are long lines (mail-in ballots are the way to go!). Maybe a lot of things... But when only 58% of eligible voters even bother to vote, I don't think folks should be yelling about suppression. In Singapore, voting is mandatory!
And, anyway, what's it to you? You don't live here (according to your location flag).
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Andrew Apfel, a CS professor at Princeton has co-authored a number of papers on the insecure voting machines. New Jersey was even warned about a particular kind of machine but purchased them anyway.
Several generations of computer science graduates have written innumerable papers about the various touch screen voting machines enabled by the Stop America from Voting Act.
https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/voting/ (https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/voting/)
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Andrew Apfel, a CS professor at Princeton has co-authored a number of papers on the insecure voting machines. New Jersey was even warned about a particular kind of machine but purchased them anyway.
Several generations of computer science graduates have written innumerable papers about the various touch screen voting machines enabled by the Stop America from Voting Act.
https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/voting/ (https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/voting/)
Seems many states are using these security warnings as a buyers guide.
I think everyone should keep in mind the sociopathic nature of the average politician tends to see a rigged voting machine as a means of job security.
Electronic voting machines are the least secure way to hold election data.
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Clearly it reflects not only the political situation in USA but also the glorified US engineers and US engineering. Most provocative statement yes but utterly valid. So CIA, NSA, FBI, etc all have super secure hardware but average hillbilly Joe US citizen get's vote machines made in China or what not?!
You will need to decide whom you want to insult with your post -- US or Chinese engineers? |O
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You CAN maintain a chain of custody, and preform an audit or recount if necessary.
Chuckle. Many a truth spoken in jest, many a typo...
You also have ballot serial numbers and it is much easier to demand an image of your ballot, which they have to give you here in the People's Republic of Kalifornia. (California)
What do you think a cal cert would be worth if there was no chain of custody back to NBS, that peace of test gear would be just as worthless as those electronic ballots.
Really? So you can demand an image of your secret ballot? Kind of blows the whole point of secret ballots if: 1) somewhere in the system is a way to record who voted how, 2) a way of coercing someone's ballot as you can get them to demand and present a copy of their ballot to prove that they voted the way that you demanded that they did.
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You CAN maintain a chain of custody, and preform an audit or recount if necessary.
Chuckle. Many a truth spoken in jest, many a typo...
You also have ballot serial numbers and it is much easier to demand an image of your ballot, which they have to give you here in the People's Republic of Kalifornia. (California)
What do you think a cal cert would be worth if there was no chain of custody back to NBS, that peace of test gear would be just as worthless as those electronic ballots.
Really? So you can demand an image of your secret ballot? Kind of blows the whole point of secret ballots if: 1) somewhere in the system is a way to record who voted how, 2) a way of coercing someone's ballot as you can get them to demand and present a copy of their ballot to prove that they voted the way that you demanded that they did.
Yes I can demand an image of my ballot, I have receipts from the last several elections.
You guys over there don't seem to understand our government is nothing like yours.
We still have a level of control over what goes on on a state and local level.
We have a constitution, and a Bill of Rights that affirms our free status from the time we are born until the time we die. Most of us would give our lives so our children would have the same or higher level of freedom we have now.
I would not live under any other system, for no amount of money.
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As for the insecure voting machines; they are built to be that way, makes fixing the results much easier.
Paper, Paper, Paper, the only way to go.
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Really? So you can demand an image of your secret ballot? Kind of blows the whole point of secret ballots if: 1) somewhere in the system is a way to record who voted how, 2) a way of coercing someone's ballot as you can get them to demand and present a copy of their ballot to prove that they voted the way that you demanded that they did.
If you want a secret ballot in California, you certainly can't use the mail-in approach. The envelope requires you to print your name and address as well as sign on the line. It's pretty easy to see who voted for what when the envelope is opened.
The reason I can get a copy or otherwise determine that my mail-in ballot was counted is pretty obvious. The mail clerk can just dump the entire basket. More realistically, votes have been delayed by the US Mail service. The votes have to be at the Registrar's office before the close of voting (with some exceptions for those stationed overseas). It has happened that the mail service did not deliver the ballots in a timely manner.
But here's the thing: None of this crap matters! A Republican vote in California is a waste of a perfectly good postage stamp. We have no realistic representation in State government and certainly play no part in national elections. California is a 'winner takes all' state in terms of the Electoral College. The Democrats have had control of Sacramento for so long that the districts are now drawn such that there will never be a Republican legislature.
Here's the other thing: If you don't vote you can't bitch!
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Paper ballots no matter the inconvenience or cost are key to making things fair and recounts possible. If there is a 0.00001% chance electronic ballots can be altered they should not be used. Losing fair elections is the biggest threat to this country even bigger then 911 and gets less then 0.001% of the time and money spent on it.
in Australia - we use paper ballots. no hacking here ....however ::)
nationalist's vs the globalists. this is the true political divide!
as liberal vs labor is the same old medication, the red pill or the blue pill is two of the same.
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XKCD sums it up nicely https://m.xkcd.com/2030/ (https://m.xkcd.com/2030/)
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/no-point-vote-in-usa!/?action=dlattach;attach=503927;image)
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As for the insecure voting machines; they are built to be that way, makes fixing the results much easier.
Paper, Paper, Paper, the only way to go.
So who exactly have a privilege to "fix" the results? Party A or Party B? Would Party A be interested in maintaining control over the machines so Party B not being able to fix the results? Or is it Party B who does that? Would not Party A make all possible efforts to protect the machines to prevent Party B to fix the results and would not Party B be doing the same?
So this claim quickly becomes silly once you apply a basic logic.
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In the US we have a Principal-Agent problem where nobody really represents that vast majority of the country. The two mainstream parties are both pretty much representing the same huge multinational corporations. The intent is to (from a foreign observers viewpoint) trick people into voting "for" things they really would never want, and dont know about. We Americans are skillfully being manipulated at home so we will be seen externally as endorsing a system (http://members.iinet.net.au/~jenks/Sanders.html) that we don't even know exists.
Since there is no accountability politicians make promises which they have no intention of keeping basically promising people what they think they want to hear. (For example, Trump promising an end to off-shoring and outsourcing of jobs, something he can't (wont ever) do, not only because he himself uses this system to get cheap labor, also because those jobs have already been put on the table for years, a whole trading system revolves around the use of all these concessions as 'balancing factors" of various kinds, its written into FTAs.
The same applies to Bernie Sanders on health care and jobs and higher education. (except the degree to which Sanders's platform is prohibited by FTAs is phenomenal, they basically block the whole New Deal in its entirety.)
There is a policy ratchet.
Did people agree to have this ratchet put there? It being, in every way, like a policy noose? No, of course not. It was done by lying to people- and politicians, about it. Who is accountable? We are, we are the ones who lose.
I recently read a pretty good paper on the lack of accountability problem, by Ruth W. Grant and Robert O. Keohane. "Accountability and Abuses of Power in World Politics". No it doesn't explain the situation I am describing. Nothing really does for Americans at this point.
Politicians, wanting to maintain 'plausible deniability' for if (when?) things blow up on us, aren't even remotely trying to explain things honestly. Did they ever? Yes, I think they did when I was a kid. Before this mess really began (I think the problems began with the changes that were begun in the 80s. A very long time ago). Long before the ratchet.
I have to stop here.
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You CAN maintain a chain of custody, and preform an audit or recount if necessary.
Chuckle. Many a truth spoken in jest, many a typo...
You also have ballot serial numbers and it is much easier to demand an image of your ballot, which they have to give you here in the People's Republic of Kalifornia. (California)
What do you think a cal cert would be worth if there was no chain of custody back to NBS, that peace of test gear would be just as worthless as those electronic ballots.
Really? So you can demand an image of your secret ballot? Kind of blows the whole point of secret ballots if: 1) somewhere in the system is a way to record who voted how, 2) a way of coercing someone's ballot as you can get them to demand and present a copy of their ballot to prove that they voted the way that you demanded that they did.
Yes I can demand an image of my ballot, I have receipts from the last several elections.
You guys over there don't seem to understand our government is nothing like yours.
We still have a level of control over what goes on on a state and local level.
We have a constitution, and a Bill of Rights that affirms our free status from the time we are born until the time we die. Most of us would give our lives so our children would have the same or higher level of freedom we have now.
I would not live under any other system, for no amount of money.
What a weird response to a factual question. No remarks were made about the type of regime you live under. For the record, you seem to fail to understand that your form of government is remarkably similar to ours - bicameral parliament (you - senate and house, us - lords and commons), an executive branch, an independent judiciary, devolved government (you - states, here - Scots, Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies, plus county and city/town councils)[Strictly speaking here central government devolves powers to others, there the states reserve powers to themselves]. By the way, we had a Bill of Rights in 1687, some 102 years before yours.
I see the ability to get a record of your vote as a security hole in a secret ballot system, secret with precisely the aim of preventing coerced voting. Here significant efforts and law go into ensuring that ballots remain secret (e.g. photography is strictly forbidden in and around polling places). Obviously here one is free to tell anyone one wants what way one voted, but there is no way one can prove to a third party what way one voted. Being able to do that in California seems to be a significant weakness in a system with secrecy as its fundamental protection from coercive corruption.
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It's true, a secret ballot is essential to prevent people being forced (or paid) into voting one way or the other.
This is why paper ballots and locked physical clear ballot boxes like they do it in Canada are the best system.
Optical scanning and counting can be done with open source software (Perl, Python or even BASIC or similar) so simple a ten year old could read or write it.
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You CAN maintain a chain of custody, and preform an audit or recount if necessary.
Chuckle. Many a truth spoken in jest, many a typo...
You also have ballot serial numbers and it is much easier to demand an image of your ballot, which they have to give you here in the People's Republic of Kalifornia. (California)
What do you think a cal cert would be worth if there was no chain of custody back to NBS, that peace of test gear would be just as worthless as those electronic ballots.
Really? So you can demand an image of your secret ballot? Kind of blows the whole point of secret ballots if: 1) somewhere in the system is a way to record who voted how, 2) a way of coercing someone's ballot as you can get them to demand and present a copy of their ballot to prove that they voted the way that you demanded that they did.
Yes I can demand an image of my ballot, I have receipts from the last several elections.
You guys over there don't seem to understand our government is nothing like yours.
We still have a level of control over what goes on on a state and local level.
We have a constitution, and a Bill of Rights that affirms our free status from the time we are born until the time we die. Most of us would give our lives so our children would have the same or higher level of freedom we have now.
I would not live under any other system, for no amount of money.
What a weird response to a factual question. No remarks were made about the type of regime you live under. For the record, you seem to fail to understand that your form of government is remarkably similar to ours - bicameral parliament (you - senate and house, us - lords and commons), an executive branch, an independent judiciary, devolved government (you - states, here - Scots, Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies, plus county and city/town councils)[Strictly speaking here central government devolves powers to others, there the states reserve powers to themselves]. By the way, we had a Bill of Rights in 1687, some 102 years before yours.
I see the ability to get a record of your vote as a security hole in a secret ballot system, secret with precisely the aim of preventing coerced voting. Here significant efforts and law go into ensuring that ballots remain secret (e.g. photography is strictly forbidden in and around polling places). Obviously here one is free to tell anyone one wants what way one voted, but there is no way one can prove to a third party what way one voted. Being able to do that in California seems to be a significant weakness in a system with secrecy as its fundamental protection from coercive corruption.
You are entitled to your opinion; however your knowledge of anything more than the most basic details of our constitutional government I fear you are sorely lacking.
As for my remarks; you can chalk them up to National Pride. Everyone should be proud of where they live.
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It's true, a secret ballot is essential to prevent people being forced (or paid) into voting one way or the other.
Whether the statement is true or not is unimportant. In the US, secret ballots went out the window with mail-in ballots and electronic voting. It's over and done with, there are no secret ballots. I wouldn't be surprised if ballots are considered public records and subject to Freedom of Information Act mining. The media publishes everything else!
Oddly, union elections do require secret ballots.
The secret ballot doesn't prevent people from getting paid to vote one way or another but it does prevent proving they did it. But all of this is nonsense! Only 58% of eligible voters even vote and even they don't generally care how it all comes out. Can you imagine such a partisan arrangement where voters vote by party affiliation only? Yet that the way it turns out...
Going back 50 years, I have never voted for a Democrat - not once! Now, under the 'top two' scheme, Republicans don't even make the ballot for the State General Election. There will be only two Democrats. So I skip that race and move to the next. Pretty soon there won't be candidates to vote for.
Democracies don't last much more than a couple of hundred years. Ours is about to go past its "Best Used By" date. The divide is so wide today that there is no point in trying to discuss things. It is strictly a zero-sum game. One side wins, one side loses.
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They need to go back to paper ballots. Obviously nobody seems to know how to do things securely or care enough to do so. Use electronic voting so that the count can be done fast but still have paper ballots that are counted manually after the fact to validate the results. None of this stuff should even be internet connected, it's ridiculous that it is.
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You are entitled to your opinion; however your knowledge of anything more than the most basic details of our constitutional government I fear you are sorely lacking.
As for my remarks; you can chalk them up to National Pride. Everyone should be proud of where they live.
I really don't get it. Someone (me) asks you a question about the mechanics of your local electoral system (thereby implying an acknowledged ignorance of the same) and you go off on a flag waving exercise that includes a phrase that starts "You folks over there ..." [know nothing]. What do you think you're gaining by being so abrasive? If I'd asked you for clarification on some remark you'd made about electronics suggesting that what I'd heard you say had some practical problems I know you wouldn't go off on one and start impugning everything I know about the kind of electronics "we have over here".
Time to mark this thread 'ignore' I think, I should have known that it's impossible to get into a rational discussion near politics - even only vaguely technically near politics - on here with out the usual knee-jerk reactions from people that otherwise normally demonstrate that they are perfectly capable of holding a rational discussion. I'm deeply tempted to deliberately invoke Godwin's Law and get the thread locked before it gets out of control, again. I dislike the "no politics, whatsoever" approach to the forum that some advocate, preferring to believe that people of good will and good intellect ought to be able to maintain a political discourse without backbiting, name calling etc. etc. However, time and again people seem determined to prove me wrong and add weight to the strict "no politics" argument.
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We haven't had democracy in more than 20 years because it conflicts with what is basically a cult-like hyper-globalization agenda.
Dani Rodrik explains the problem well, calling it a "trilemma".
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You are entitled to your opinion; however your knowledge of anything more than the most basic details of our constitutional government I fear you are sorely lacking.
As for my remarks; you can chalk them up to National Pride. Everyone should be proud of where they live.
I really don't get it. Someone (me) asks you a question about the mechanics of your local electoral system (thereby implying an acknowledged ignorance of the same) and you go off on a flag waving exercise that includes a phrase that starts "You folks over there ..." [know nothing]. What do you think you're gaining by being so abrasive? If I'd asked you for clarification on some remark you'd made about electronics suggesting that what I'd heard you say had some practical problems I know you wouldn't go off on one and start impugning everything I know about the kind of electronics "we have over here".
Time to mark this thread 'ignore' I think, I should have known that it's impossible to get into a rational discussion near politics - even only vaguely technically near politics - on here with out the usual knee-jerk reactions from people that otherwise normally demonstrate that they are perfectly capable of holding a rational discussion. I'm deeply tempted to deliberately invoke Godwin's Law and get the thread locked before it gets out of control, again. I dislike the "no politics, whatsoever" approach to the forum that some advocate, preferring to believe that people of good will and good intellect ought to be able to maintain a political discourse without backbiting, name calling etc. etc. However, time and again people seem determined to prove me wrong and add weight to the strict "no politics" argument.
Actually NO you didn't.
I told you I have access to an image of my ballot; you came up with excuses invalid ones I might add regarding a nonexistent security problem.
Truthfully I cannot explain how voting occurs here in detail without you having read our constitution and the significant legal decisions regarding the Right to vote Citizens have in this country. Among other things We don't let migrants vote here (legally) until they become Citizens.
I also mentioned that in respect to the management of The EEV Blog Forums I was going to cease discussing the subject. If you REALLY want to know how things work here you know what to do; then maybe we can talk about it.
Say what you want.. (non technical comments here on this site are in my mind are far less (*135DB below in importance) so say what you will. Later Dude.
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Wouldn't there be some way to implement block chain into voting? Like everyone's ballot is a bit coin wallet and all have to agree. This would be an overly complicated solution but still better then a machine who's password is "password" or an 11 year old that defeats the lock with a ball point pen. Of course there is no reason not to use paper but since voting machine companies have lobbyist's or influence, paper ballots are going to go away.
I don't care if its the year 2500 and paper is only made for one purpose and that is for printing ballots I can't think of another issue more important to a fee country then fair voting. (EDIT I spelled free, fee. That seems appropriate for this country: America the land of the fee home of the wage slave.
You could make the paper ballots even more secure by changing the order of the candidates on each ballot that way you can't set the counting machines so that if question number 5 is one candidate you make the machine give false results for all question number 5's, the machine would have no way of knowing which question to favor. Just having 10 variations would make it 10 times harder to alter.
This is all worthless when in some states each party decides how votes are counted. Remember there was some mid western state where they flipped a coin to pick Hillary over Bernie because it was "too close to call"? WTF so an even number of people voted for each candidate and voted 50.0000000%? The odds of that would be like 1 in 10^374868. That's just lazy and stupid. Why bother wasting peoples time off work to vote if you are just going to flip a coin? Imagine being charge with a crime and the jury was "about 50/50" and the judge flips a coin?
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I am sorry Software is not Trustworthy enough for this operation.
And it is not Just the software; what is stopping someone from building a backdoor into the hardware??
serialized Paper ballots with a tear off receipt with the matching serial number.
Here is what you people seem to be ignoring this simple fact.
If you cannot see the process in all of its stages the process suspect.
As those of us in the US have seen in other arias like switching power supplies and wall warts from China
you cannot trust hardware makers to resist calls from agencies / political parties / and governments to put back doors in voting machines allowing them to change results... The temptation is too great.
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Wouldn't there be some way to implement block chain into voting? Like everyone's ballot is a bit coin wallet and all have to agree. This would be an overly complicated solution but still better then a machine who's password is "password" or an 11 year old that defeats the lock with a ball point pen. Of course there is no reason not to use paper but since voting machine companies have lobbyist's or influence, paper ballots are going to go away.
I don't care if its the year 2500 and paper is only made for one purpose and that is for printing ballots I can't think of another issue more important to a fee country then fair voting. (EDIT I spelled free, fee. That seems appropriate for this country: America the land of the fee home of the wage slave.
You could make the paper ballots even more secure by changing the order of the candidates on each ballot that way you can't set the counting machines so that if question number 5 is one candidate you make the machine give false results for all question number 5's, the machine would have no way of knowing which question to favor. Just having 10 variations would make it 10 times harder to alter.
This is all worthless when in some states each party decides how votes are counted. Remember there was some mid western state where they flipped a coin to pick Hillary over Bernie because it was "too close to call"? WTF so an even number of people voted for each candidate and voted 50.0000000%? The odds of that would be like 1 in 10^374868. That's just lazy and stupid. Why bother wasting peoples time off work to vote if you are just going to flip a coin? Imagine being charge with a crime and the jury was "about 50/50" and the judge flips a coin?
You can always go back to paper, anything electronic can be altered or replaced with fake results. The ballots can be physically followed by members of the public from their precinct to the location where they are to be counted.
For everyone else.....
Here is why voting is such a big deal here.....
You can find some of the history on the net but I fear some of it may be altered due to changing political climates.
The states in this country get to decide some things regarding elections, this is where Article One, Section Four of the main body of the United States Constitution. Then in the Amendments; The Ninth, Tenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Seventeenth (a mistake in my opinion don't ask here send me a PM), Nineteenth (means I get to vote), Twenty Third, Twenty Fourth, and last but not least the, Twenty Sixth Amendment to the Constitution.
As you can see Voting in this country has taken it's sweet time to evolve, and we are still not done yet.
Again if you want to ask me anything or discuss any of this further Please PM me...
Thanks.
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I am sorry Software is not Trustworthy enough for this operation.
And it is not Just the software; what is stopping someone from building a backdoor into the hardware??
serialized Paper ballots with a tear off receipt with the matching serial number.
Here is what you people seem to be ignoring this simple fact.
If you cannot see the process in all of its stages the process suspect.
As those of us in the US have seen in other arias like switching power supplies and wall warts from China
you cannot trust hardware makers to resist calls from agencies / political parties / and governments to put back doors in voting machines allowing them to change results... The temptation is too great.
Exactly. There was no need for electronic voting machines. We never had some explosion of voters that made paper ballots too time consuming and expensive(even though no money should be spared) to not work.
Think of how easily china or Russia could alter them or even one of our own as we have seen. Russia just walked into the oval office with a former KGB agent and no one else was allowed in. That's what we call being "compromised". In reality Russia doesn't need to do anything to weaken us they can just wait and we will do it ourselves.
Think of how much technology you can fit inside an IC. You could make the IC do everything its supposed to but also you could have a whole computer system inside your 555 timer's DIPackage using the traces as antennas. Make a mesh network of some really popular chips and you could do a delayed operation that would spread. Decap and microscope every chip? I don't think so. That would be worse then Stuxnet.
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I am sorry Software is not Trustworthy enough for this operation.
And it is not Just the software; what is stopping someone from building a backdoor into the hardware??
serialized Paper ballots with a tear off receipt with the matching serial number.
Here is what you people seem to be ignoring this simple fact.
If you cannot see the process in all of its stages the process suspect.
As those of us in the US have seen in other arias like switching power supplies and wall warts from China
you cannot trust hardware makers to resist calls from agencies / political parties / and governments to put back doors in voting machines allowing them to change results... The temptation is too great.
Exactly. There was no need for electronic voting machines. We never had some explosion of voters that made paper ballots too time consuming and expensive(even though no money should be spared) to not work.
Think of how easily china or Russia could alter them or even one of our own as we have seen. Russia just walked into the oval office with a former KGB agent and no one else was allowed in. That's what we call being "compromised". In reality Russia doesn't need to do anything to weaken us they can just wait and we will do it ourselves.
Think of how much technology you can fit inside an IC. You could make the IC do everything its supposed to but also you could have a whole computer system inside your 555 timer's DIPackage using the traces as antennas. Make a mesh network of some really popular chips and you could do a delayed operation that would spread. Decap and microscope every chip? I don't think so. That would be worse then Stuxnet.
Paper is best regardless of your, or my political affiliations.
At the heart of this discussion is making the process as fair as possible, and to remove as much opportunity for fraud as possible.
At least in this country if things go sideways we can do something about it.
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Exactly. There was no need for electronic voting machines. We never had some explosion of voters that made paper ballots too time consuming and expensive(even though no money should be spared) to not work.
How do you count the paper ballots? Use an electronic gadget? Well, you're right back where you started. Count by hand? Then you better come up with a way to hash the ballots as well as the votes to prevent the person counting from just skipping ballots. Florida did the recount by committee. Both sides had observers.
Then there is the perceived need of the media for immediate results. Manual counting takes days, if not weeks. That time scale is incompatible with cable news. They want to declare the winner immediately after the last polling place closes. Remember the spectacle of the 2016 election as various pundits 'called' the election - and then had to backtrack?
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Exactly. There was no need for electronic voting machines. We never had some explosion of voters that made paper ballots too time consuming and expensive(even though no money should be spared) to not work.
How do you count the paper ballots? Use an electronic gadget? Well, you're right back where you started. Count by hand? Then you better come up with a way to hash the ballots as well as the votes to prevent the person counting from just skipping ballots. Florida did the recount by committee. Both sides had observers.
Then there is the perceived need of the media for immediate results. Manual counting takes days, if not weeks. That time scale is incompatible with cable news. They want to declare the winner immediately after the last polling place closes. Remember the spectacle of the 2016 election as various pundits 'called' the election - and then had to backtrack?
We don;t need any electronic BS.
The votes are counted by hand and auditors spot check the vote counters.
Basic QC practices, are all that is necessary.
It blows me away the mass ignorance regarding how insecure electronic methods of counting are.
And I am sorry just because there is no (current known) method to fake blockchain results, I am even against that. Blockchain is okay for money, because money is counterfeitable on one level or another, and it's cost to society is much less than a rigged election, in my opinion.
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:palm: I swore to myself I wasn't going to get involved in this thread, but I got suckered in now -
It blows me away the mass ignorance regarding how insecure electronic methods of counting are.
How does the entire banking system, accounting systems, and stock market systems of the country function so well then? :-//
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Really? So you can demand an image of your secret ballot? Kind of blows the whole point of secret ballots if: 1) somewhere in the system is a way to record who voted how, 2) a way of coercing someone's ballot as you can get them to demand and present a copy of their ballot to prove that they voted the way that you demanded that they did.
If you want a secret ballot in California, you certainly can't use the mail-in approach. The envelope requires you to print your name and address as well as sign on the line. It's pretty easy to see who voted for what when the envelope is opened.
In Australia, a Postal vote consists of two envelopes,
A plain one & one with your identity.
You vote, put the voting paper inside the plain envelope, seal it, & put the whole lot in the other envelope.
When it is received by the Electoral Commission, they read your details on the outer envelope, mark you off as having voted, then pass the plain envelope on to another section to be counted.
Virtually all postal voting is done this way, including for union members & for the WIA ( the Oz Ham's association).
Simples!
The reason I can get a copy or otherwise determine that my mail-in ballot was counted is pretty obvious. The mail clerk can just dump the entire basket. More realistically, votes have been delayed by the US Mail service. The votes have to be at the Registrar's office before the close of voting (with some exceptions for those stationed overseas). It has happened that the mail service did not deliver the ballots in a timely manner.
But here's the thing: None of this crap matters! A Republican vote in California is a waste of a perfectly good postage stamp. We have no realistic representation in State government and certainly play no part in national elections. California is a 'winner takes all' state in terms of the Electoral College. The Democrats have had control of Sacramento for so long that the districts are now drawn such that there will never be a Republican legislature.
Here's the other thing: If you don't vote you can't bitch!
In Oz, it is compulsory to vote in State & Federal Elections.
Voting in person, you turn up at the Polling Booth, get your name crossed off the list, are handed your voting papers, go to a (cardboard) booth, & with a provided pencil, mark your vote, fold the papers so nobody can see them, go to a box with a slot on top & drop your vote in.
If you are really bloody minded & don't want to vote for anyone, just fold the papers as soon as you get them & put them in the box.----this still legally counts as voting, & is termed an "informal vote".
If you don't try to vote at all, you will be fined, but it's only about $20.
Even so, most people do turn up & make a proper vote.
Some folks whinge about "compulsion", but with the options available it isn't a great imposition.
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Exactly. There was no need for electronic voting machines. We never had some explosion of voters that made paper ballots too time consuming and expensive(even though no money should be spared) to not work.
How do you count the paper ballots? Use an electronic gadget? Well, you're right back where you started. Count by hand? Then you better come up with a way to hash the ballots as well as the votes to prevent the person counting from just skipping ballots. Florida did the recount by committee. Both sides had observers.
Then there is the perceived need of the media for immediate results. Manual counting takes days, if not weeks. That time scale is incompatible with cable news. They want to declare the winner immediately after the last polling place closes. Remember the spectacle of the 2016 election as various pundits 'called' the election - and then had to backtrack?
Counting the ballots by hand is not that difficult. It works reasonably well in Germany at least. During voting they keep records on who has voted and how many votes. So they would notice if a significant number of votes are missing. The system has long tradition so they used essentially the same system in eastern Germany (likely because it was tradition from 19th century). In the last elections in east Germany (DDR) there were some medium scale manipulations tried - but they were detected, even under a totalitarian system. To a small part this started the protests to finally bring down the system (though the main point was economic failure).
Paper counting is done totally manually, separately for each polling station (with a few exceptions if too few ballots to ensure a reasonable secret election). It's rather difficult to get a significant effect from just a few polling places as suspicious results would get noticed and double checked. The counting takes a little longer - but not that bad: usually preliminary results (before possible complaints, but usually very accurate) are usually there some 4 hours after the end of voting. It sounds like lot of work to count some 50 million paper ballots, but it's usually only a few 1000 - 10000 in a voting place.
Some machine help to do the counting might be possible, but likely more like an additional check, not to replace manual counting.
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It sounds like Oz has it under control. I really like the double envelope idea.
Mandatory voting tends to favor the incumbent (most people are more or less satisfied with the status quo) but it is mandatory in a number of countries including Singapore. Over there, not only is there a fine, you lose your voting rights. They can be restored with some mea culpa but it's not automatic.
Voting needs to be taken a lot more serious than we do in the US. The problem is, nobody wants to wake up those who sleep through the election cycle. There's no telling how they might vote.
We can't even agree that some form of identity verification is required. Among other things, this prevents duplicate voting. But no, it would disadvantage those who can't make the trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get an Indentification Card. This goes back to the idea that there will not be a National ID system - ever! Of course, most people manage to have a Social Security card which is not supposed to be used for identity but, in reality, it is. It was your military service number for a while, it has been used as a Student ID at colleges and for a number of other things. Technically, I suppose you could get along without one if you never planned to pay taxes.
Yup! I like the Oz system.
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If you are really bloody minded & don't want to vote for anyone, just fold the papers as soon as you get them & put them in the box.----this still legally counts as voting, & is termed an "informal vote".
If you do not spoil your ballot, them someone else can take it and vote in your place.
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The existence or lack of policy space is far more important than people realize. If a government (both parties) is hamstrung by always having to have policy become more and more favorable to MNCs financial interests, and never less, democracy is in serious danger.
How could you fix some serious problem if you're limited to only pursuing the most minimal "measures of general application" - basically only the ones that are profitable to them.
The old way of compromising until you find some middle ground is not allowed, now the only way to be really safe, I hear, is to only allow measures that international investors find more profitable than those that existed before.
Different organizations, one example is the OECD's STRI- actually run databases that purport to explain to countries and legislators what kinds of laws or other measures/policies, etc. are likely to run into problems and what aren't.
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If you are really bloody minded & don't want to vote for anyone, just fold the papers as soon as you get them & put them in the box.----this still legally counts as voting, & is termed an "informal vote".
If you do not spoil your ballot, them someone else can take it and vote in your place.
No; IDs are checked and compared to voter registers in most civilized countries. ;)
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If you are really bloody minded & don't want to vote for anyone, just fold the papers as soon as you get them & put them in the box.----this still legally counts as voting, & is termed an "informal vote".
If you do not spoil your ballot, them someone else can take it and vote in your place.
No; IDs are checked and compared to voter registers in most civilized countries. ;)
Except in the US where every Voter ID law has been thrown out by the Supreme Court.
Hopefully this will change after a new Supreme Court Justice is installed.
Don't get me started.......... ;)
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It is interesting that those accused of tampering lost in all but the most recent election. The only efforts to control electronic tampering (effective or not) occurred prior to that election. Does that mean that tampering really isn't a problem, that someone finally learned how to tampering effectively or something else? I suspect most answers depend on political orientation.
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If you are really bloody minded & don't want to vote for anyone, just fold the papers as soon as you get them & put them in the box.----this still legally counts as voting, & is termed an "informal vote".
If you do not spoil your ballot, them someone else can take it and vote in your place.
No; IDs are checked and compared to voter registers in most civilized countries. ;)
You missed the point. If you turn in a blank ballot, then anybody after that point can mark whatever they want on it effectively voting in your place. If you spoil the ballot, then they would have to erase or replace it to do so.
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:palm: I swore to myself I wasn't going to get involved in this thread, but I got suckered in now -
It blows me away the mass ignorance regarding how insecure electronic methods of counting are.
How does the entire banking system, accounting systems, and stock market systems of the country function so well then? :-//
The banks have put money into this, SERIOUS money. It's their money and they don't want to loose it. This cannot be said of the voting machines and the puny companies who have created them as seen in the documentary on page one of this thread.
I am not saying electronic voting cannot be made secure, I'm saying that the states who choose these voting electronic boxes are being bamboozled by the owners of the companies who make them which don't have a cent in it to create proper security. It costs money to hire proper security specialists to work everything out from A-Z, it costs money and time and it's not as profitable that way. The A-Z security testing of these machines was never done, it was even listed in the official test report as not done when submitted to the individual states for sale, and yet the state still purchased the units. Again, watch the full 1hour, 20 minute documentary thread here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/no-point-vote-in-usa!/msg1763357/#msg1763357 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/no-point-vote-in-usa!/msg1763357/#msg1763357). Just watch at 2x speed, they show you how the system works and how they were hacked...
Your comment ' How does the entire banking system, accounting systems, and stock market systems of the country function so well then? :-// ' will change to ' How fu--en stupid is our state for buying this shit where in the supplied document from the manufacturer, in the state's form for list of approval tests performed, on the requirement for digital End-End unhackable security analysis tests question, they ticked that as 'Not Done', yet, the state still purchased the machines and used them for real elections?' This is happening in multiple states.
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Your comment ' How does the entire banking system, accounting systems, and stock market systems of the country function so well then? :-// ' will change to ' How fu--en stupid is our state for buying this shit where in the supplied document from the manufacturer, in the state's form for list of approval tests performed, on the requirement for digital End-End unhackable security analysis tests question, they ticked that as 'Not Done', yet, the state still purchased the machines and used them for real elections?' This is happening in multiple states.
Exactly.
It's not that it can't be done right. It's that we don't want to pay to have it done right.
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Your comment ' How does the entire banking system, accounting systems, and stock market systems of the country function so well then? :-// ' will change to ' How fu--en stupid is our state for buying this shit where in the supplied document from the manufacturer, in the state's form for list of approval tests performed, on the requirement for digital End-End unhackable security analysis tests question, they ticked that as 'Not Done', yet, the state still purchased the machines and used them for real elections?' This is happening in multiple states.
Exactly.
It's not that it can't be done right. It's that we don't want to pay to have it done right.
A single state's contract for the hardware was in the 20m$ region, then multiply that over multiple states, this is enough for software with the simplest encrypted security which wasn't even there. Trust me, it was just ignored, no oversight and the state was talked into buying a product where 19 out of 20 items on the checklist was Yes/Complete. It just so happens that the security was the one item on the audit list somewhere in the middle of the document ticked as not done, and no states seemed to mind.
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Faroe Islands? Seriously?
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If you are really bloody minded & don't want to vote for anyone, just fold the papers as soon as you get them & put them in the box.----this still legally counts as voting, & is termed an "informal vote".
If you do not spoil your ballot, them someone else can take it and vote in your place.
No; IDs are checked and compared to voter registers in most civilized countries. ;)
You missed the point. If you turn in a blank ballot, then anybody after that point can mark whatever they want on it effectively voting in your place. If you spoil the ballot, then they would have to erase or replace it qto do so.
They could, but the only people with access to the inside of locked ballot boxes are sworn officers of the Electoral Commission.
If they were going to risk both their jobs & their freedom*by messing with the vote, it would make more sense to steal a lot of voting papers, mark their preferred candidates/s, go through the box, throwing out an equal number of votes for their non-preferred candidates, & substituting their own fake ones.
*I'm not using "freedom" in a rhetorical sense here, they would, if caught, go to prison.
Obviously, if you don't want to vote, & don't want to be fined for not actually attending the polling place & getting your name crossed off the list, you can still vote "informal" & spoil the ballot paper by making rude drawings or vulgar comments about the candidates, or by writing in "Mickey Mouse", or "The Great Flying Spaghetti Monster" in their stead. ;D
Interestingly, there is no requirement for formal ID at Australian Polling places.
You turn up, tell the person your name & address.
They then ask the official question:-
"Have you voted anywhere else today?"
When you answer in the negative, you are crossed off the list, given your ballot papers & pointed in the direction of a booth.
You may say " EEK! Anyone could turn up & vote instead of you!"
In practice, two things make this very difficult.
(1)Everybody is required to register to vote, so are on the Electoral Roll.
(2)You are crossed off the list when you turn up & verbally identify yourself.
If someone else appears pretending to be you & gets away with it, when you turn up, the possibilities are:-
You have dementia, or have an extraordinarily bad memory for some other reason, or that you, or the other
person are trying to commit Electoral fraud.
At that point, you will have to provide formal ID.
When you prove your identity, they will call the authorities to chase up the other person.
As an organised activity, it would seem to be a lot of trouble for one vote, but if you tried to use multiple impostors, it would become immediately obvious.
If it was discovered after enough fakes had been through, there would probably be a by-election to remove any doubt.
There is no history of such fraud succeeding.
Of course, if they were really good, there wouldn't be! ;D
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You missed the point. If you turn in a blank ballot, then anybody after that point can mark whatever they want on it effectively voting in your place. If you spoil the ballot, then they would have to erase or replace it qto do so.
They could, but the only people with access to the inside of locked ballot boxes are sworn officers of the Electoral Commission.
If they were going to risk both their jobs & their freedom*by messing with the vote, it would make more sense to steal a lot of voting papers, mark their preferred candidates/s, go through the box, throwing out an equal number of votes for their non-preferred candidates, & substituting their own fake ones.
At least in the US it is a lot more informal than that.
When I worked election security, every year some of the election workers took their filled and sealed (taped and not locked) ballot boxes home for the night instead of to the vote counting center. There was always an outcry about it but nobody was ever sanctioned. And there was plenty of opportunity at the counting centers for shenanigans with individual ballots.
I do not consider vote fraud a big deal in the US because our voting system is so flawed to begin with; vote fraud is the least of its problems.
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You make it sound as if there should be an absolute vote boycott. I am losing faith, trust, and such... how to recover?
Other than low voter participation why would there be a vote boycott? The situation is stable and the two parties and the people who vote for them prefer it that way. It is what it is.
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You make it sound as if there should be an absolute vote boycott. I am losing faith, trust, and such... how to recover?
I feel a lot better since I gave up hope!
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Interestingly, there is no requirement for formal ID at Australian Polling places.
You turn up, tell the person your name & address.
They then ask the official question:-
"Have you voted anywhere else today?"
When you answer in the negative, you are crossed off the list, given your ballot papers & pointed in the direction of a booth.
You may say " EEK! Anyone could turn up & vote instead of you!"
In practice, two things make this very difficult.
(1)Everybody is required to register to vote, so are on the Electoral Roll.
(2)You are crossed off the list when you turn up & verbally identify yourself.
If someone else appears pretending to be you & gets away with it, when you turn up, the possibilities are:-
You have dementia, or have an extraordinarily bad memory for some other reason, or that you, or the other
person are trying to commit Electoral fraud.
At that point, you will have to provide formal ID.
When you prove your identity, they will call the authorities to chase up the other person.
As an organised activity, it would seem to be a lot of trouble for one vote, but if you tried to use multiple impostors, it would become immediately obvious.
If it was discovered after enough fakes had been through, there would probably be a by-election to remove any doubt.
There is no history of such fraud succeeding.
Of course, if they were really good, there wouldn't be! ;D
How? All they have is YOUR name.
-Pat
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The voter ID laws in the US aren't aimed at stopping invalid votes, they're aimed at stopping poor people from voting.
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The voter ID laws in the US aren't aimed at stopping invalid votes, they're aimed at stopping poor people from voting.
That is simply not true and I would kindly ask you keep this thread Non Political.
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The voter ID laws in the US aren't aimed at stopping invalid votes, they're aimed at stopping poor people from voting.
I find above statement to be dumb.
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The voter ID laws in the US aren't aimed at stopping invalid votes, they're aimed at stopping poor people from voting.
Yep. Poor people overwhelmingly vote for democrats. Making them have an ID is yet another $20+ hurdle for them voting. Plus to get that ID they have to take time off work, and that costs them further in lost wages. Some states make the price for IDs very cheap or nothing if you are poor, but that time off work still keeps the poor from getting a proper ID. Because of the ID standards, to get a ID you also need some documents that poor may also not have. Again it takes time off work and money to obtain them if you can. How many runaways know where they were born so they can get a copy of their birth certificate?
Every time voter fraud has been looked into it is very little, and not enough to warrant the ID measures that are being proposed.
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The voter ID laws in the US aren't aimed at stopping invalid votes, they're aimed at stopping poor people from voting.
Yep. Poor people overwhelmingly vote for democrats. Making them have an ID is yet another $20+ hurdle for them voting. Plus to get that ID they have to take time off work, and that costs them further in lost wages. Some states make the price for IDs very cheap or nothing if you are poor, but that time off work still keeps the poor from getting a proper ID. Because of the ID standards, to get a ID you also need some documents that poor may also not have. Again it takes time off work and money to obtain them if you can. How many runaways know where they were born so they can get a copy of their birth certificate?
Every time voter fraud has been looked into it is very little, and not enough to warrant the ID measures that are being proposed.
Funny thing.
Most people in US drive. Just about every place accepts driver license, that you need to drive Anyway, as an ID for voting.
I can see your point about poor living is mega cities like NYC, Chicago and a few others, where they don't drive anywhere and therefore don't have driver license. However, most of those same poor are also on government support and have time to go and get an ID.
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Funny thing.
Most people in US drive.
Citations needed... And it better be broken down by state and income.
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Interestingly, there is no requirement for formal ID at Australian Polling places.
You turn up, tell the person your name & address.
They then ask the official question:-
"Have you voted anywhere else today?"
When you answer in the negative, you are crossed off the list, given your ballot papers & pointed in the direction of a booth.
You may say " EEK! Anyone could turn up & vote instead of you!"
In practice, two things make this very difficult.
(1)Everybody is required to register to vote, so are on the Electoral Roll.
(2)You are crossed off the list when you turn up & verbally identify yourself.
If someone else appears pretending to be you & gets away with it, when you turn up, the possibilities are:-
You have dementia, or have an extraordinarily bad memory for some other reason, or that you, or the other
person are trying to commit Electoral fraud.
At that point, you will have to provide formal ID.
When you prove your identity, they will call the authorities to chase up the other person.
As an organised activity, it would seem to be a lot of trouble for one vote, but if you tried to use multiple impostors, it would become immediately obvious.
If it was discovered after enough fakes had been through, there would probably be a by-election to remove any doubt.
There is no history of such fraud succeeding.
Of course, if they were really good, there wouldn't be! ;D
How? All they have is YOUR name.
-Pat
The people who do this sort of thing usually have form, plus the Electoral officers may be able to give the investigating authority a description.
Obviously, any investigation may be unsuccessful, but the police find other criminals with as little evidence.
As for the vote, it is lost in the system, but will normally be swamped by the volume of honest votes.
If such fraud is done in a big way, it is approached by, initially, "quarantining" the ballot box from that (or those) Polling Place/s then, if the results will make the difference in who is elected, check through the ballots to see if the fakes are easily discernible, & finally to declare the results from that Electorate void & have a (or several) new by-election/s.
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The voter ID laws in the US aren't aimed at stopping invalid votes, they're aimed at stopping poor people from voting.
That is the advantage of compulsory voting----if you stop people from voting, you better get used to the idea of having "Bubba" as your new roomie & "special friend"! ;D
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You missed the point. If you turn in a blank ballot, then anybody after that point can mark whatever they want on it effectively voting in your place. If you spoil the ballot, then they would have to erase or replace it qto do so.
They could, but the only people with access to the inside of locked ballot boxes are sworn officers of the Electoral Commission.
If they were going to risk both their jobs & their freedom*by messing with the vote, it would make more sense to steal a lot of voting papers, mark their preferred candidates/s, go through the box, throwing out an equal number of votes for their non-preferred candidates, & substituting their own fake ones.
At least in the US it is a lot more informal than that.
When I worked election security, every year some of the election workers took their filled and sealed (taped and not locked) ballot boxes home for the night instead of to the vote counting center. There was always an outcry about it but nobody was ever sanctioned. And there was plenty of opportunity at the counting centers for shenanigans with individual ballots.
I do not consider vote fraud a big deal in the US because our voting system is so flawed to begin with; vote fraud is the least of its problems.
You make it sound as if there should be an absolute vote boycott. I am losing faith, trust, and such... how to recover?
Isn't that approaching it from the wrong direction?
Surely, the idea would be to increase the number of people voting to the point that any fraudulent activity either from fake votes or people being deprived of their voting rights are swamped by the pure volume of honest votes.
My theory is that the reason for the poor turnout of voters in the USA, is ironically, due to that country's
devotion to grass roots democracy, where you vote for everybody from the dog catcher up.
People get Election fatigue!
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Just wait until there will be Cell Phone voting....
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Funny thing.
Most people in US drive.
Citations needed... And it better be broken down by state and income.
This thread was started by a Dane. You are Canadian. It seems that the two of you have an issue with US voting.
I am a citizen of the United States. I don't have an issue with voting in Denmark, with voting in Canada.
You want numbers, you bring them to the discussion. You are the one with the problem.
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Funny thing.
Most people in US drive.
Citations needed... And it better be broken down by state and income.
This thread was started by a Dane. You are Canadian. It seems that the two of you have an issue with US voting.
I am a citizen of the United States. I don't have an issue with voting in Denmark, with voting in Canada.
You want numbers, you bring them to the discussion. You are the one with the problem.
No, nothing to do with voting, just the "Most people in US drive.". My guess was off by around 10%, for the actual numbers, some states are around 65% and higher ones are around 75%. It is a majority leaving out around 29% chunk of the population, but, so be it, here is an actual map by state for 2009, number of drivers per 1000:
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The voter ID laws in the US aren't aimed at stopping invalid votes, they're aimed at stopping poor people from voting.
I find above statement to be dumb.
It is also not accurate, anybody can walk into a DMV or DPS office and get an ID card.
If you want better ID save your pennies and buy a passport.
YOU DO need a Street Address to vote in this country......
For some people even citizenship is a barrier to voting in this country that needs to be brought down, along with the borders.
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The voter ID laws in the US aren't aimed at stopping invalid votes, they're aimed at stopping poor people from voting.
Yep. Poor people overwhelmingly vote for democrats. Making them have an ID is yet another $20+ hurdle for them voting. Plus to get that ID they have to take time off work, and that costs them further in lost wages. Some states make the price for IDs very cheap or nothing if you are poor, but that time off work still keeps the poor from getting a proper ID. Because of the ID standards, to get a ID you also need some documents that poor may also not have. Again it takes time off work and money to obtain them if you can. How many runaways know where they were born so they can get a copy of their birth certificate?
Every time voter fraud has been looked into it is very little, and not enough to warrant the ID measures that are being proposed.
I hate to say this but my BS meter just blew out a shunt.
Everyone should have their birth certificate
A copy of a utility bill with their address of residence on it.
And a few dollars; that is all you need.
With that said. I for one fall below the poverty line in terms of income in the US.
I have managed to not only maintain an ID for the People's Republic of Kalifornia I also maintain a Passport, the ultimate form of ID in the US that costs five times what an ID card costs to maintain.
Who would have thought that all that gear I own sits in a house where I earl less than 20K a year.
So I don't see any excuse why anybody cannot maintain the $28 dollars every five years or so to maintain legal ID.
On and I would never in my life vote democratic.
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:-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD
Just wait until there will be Cell Phone voting....
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Everyone should have their birth certificate
A copy of a utility bill with their address of residence on it.
And a few dollars; that is all you need.
With that said. I for one fall below the poverty line in terms of income in the US.
I have managed to not only maintain an ID for the People's Republic of Kalifornia I also maintain a Passport, the ultimate form of ID in the US that costs five times what an ID card costs to maintain.
Just hope that a flood or other disaster does not take your identification and birth certificate at the same time. California will not give you a copy of your birth certificate unless you have valid government ID and you cannot get your government ID without your birth certificate.
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Everyone should have their birth certificate
A copy of a utility bill with their address of residence on it.
And a few dollars; that is all you need.
With that said. I for one fall below the poverty line in terms of income in the US.
I have managed to not only maintain an ID for the People's Republic of Kalifornia I also maintain a Passport, the ultimate form of ID in the US that costs five times what an ID card costs to maintain.
Just hope that a flood or other disaster does not take your identification and birth certificate at the same time. California will not give you a copy of your birth certificate unless you have valid government ID and you cannot get your government ID without your birth certificate.
Actually there are ways around that, it is not that complicated.
In Kalifornia everyone is required to be fingerprinted for their ID, along every other state, therefore verification is not too difficult.
REAL ID
Requires all states include biometric information along with other identifying data on the ID / Driver license. Sadly The People's Republic of Kalifornia is one of the last two states to implement REAL ID.
And starting this year you won't be able to fly without a REAL ID compliant driver license or id card or a Passport, even for domestic flights.
Besides;
Responsible people keep their important papers in a safe place that is easy to access.
Sorry calling BULLSHIT on all the excuses for why someone doesn't have ID.
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No, nothing to do with voting, just the "Most people in US drive.". My guess was off by around 10%, for the actual numbers, some states are around 65% and higher ones are around 75%. It is a majority leaving out around 29% chunk of the population, but, so be it, here is an actual map by state for 2009, number of drivers per 1000:
Only 58% of eligible voters (presumably those registered to vote, having ID, etc) bothered to vote. There is a large segment of the population that aren't registered to vote - like in excess of 50 million.
In short, a huge segment of the population doesn't give a damn. Perhaps in their view, they don't have any skin in the game. Politics simply doesn't matter to them.
With such apathy, why should we worry about fraud? Perhaps it's only the fringe voters that bother to show up!
The idea that people are prevented from voting is nonsense. They never wanted to vote in the first place. If they really wanted to vote they would come up with a way.
Side question: Do any US voters know who represents them (at any level of government)? Have they ever met them? Talked with them? Have even the vaguest idea how they will vote on legislation? Do these politicians represent their positions at all?
Bottom line: I don't know these people, it is unlikely they represent my point of view and voting for them is more or less proforma.
But if you don't vote, you can't bitch!
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The voter ID laws in the US aren't aimed at stopping invalid votes, they're aimed at stopping poor people from voting.
I find above statement to be dumb.
It is also not accurate, anybody can walk into a DMV or DPS office and get an ID card.
If you want better ID save your pennies and buy a passport.
YOU DO need a Street Address to vote in this country......
For some people even citizenship is a barrier to voting in this country that needs to be brought down, along with the borders.
The whole "Voter Fraud" thing is a complete myth; with intentions to legitimize other forms of voter suppression.
The Brennan Center’s seminal report on this issue, The Truth About Voter Fraud, found that most reported incidents of voter fraud are actually traceable to other sources, such as clerical errors or bad data matching practices. The report reviewed elections that had been meticulously studied for voter fraud, and found incident rates between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent. Given this tiny incident rate for voter impersonation fraud, it is more likely, the report noted, that an American “will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls.”
[/i]https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter-fraud-myth (https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter-fraud-myth)
As for the legality of voter-id laws, it's been found on multiple occasions to specifically target black or democratic neighbourhoods, and has been struck down by the courts in multiple jurisdictions
By the end of August 2017, federal courts had struck down voter ID laws in Ohio, Texas, North Carolina and Wisconsin. All the cases are likely to be heard ultimately by the US Supreme Court.[5] The court ruled that the legislature's ending of Ohio's "Golden Week" imposed a "modest burden" on the right to vote of African Americans and said that the state's justifications for the law "fail to outweigh that burden."[5] This week had been a period of time when residents could "register to vote and cast an early ballot at the same location."[5]
The Texas law was struck down because it was found to discriminate against black and Hispanic voters.[24] A North Carolina law was overturned as "its provisions deliberately target African-Americans with almost surgical precision … in an effort to depress black turnout at the polls."[6] North Carolina appealed to the US Supreme Court, which declined to hear the appeal, allowing the prior federal court decision to stand.[25] Parts of Wisconsin's voter ID laws were ruled to be unconstitutional and it was advised to accept more forms of identification for the fall 2016 election cycle.[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_ID_laws_in_the_United_States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_ID_laws_in_the_United_States)
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With elections as tightly contested with many determined by a mere handful of votes, even very low fraud rates matter. But more important than accuracy is the perception of accuracy and fairness. Both sides of this argument have flaws. As pointed out, detected fraud is quite small, and probably real fraud is also. But actual voter suppression by the voter ID laws is actually small also. Biased against minorities and poorer segments. And even smaller among those who actually want to vote.
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This topic has drifted away from electronic voting machine fraud/vulnerabilities to general voting rights and access and individual fraud.
I believe it is interesting to seek and challenge electronic voting machine security from a technical standpoint since a few organized individuals can completely throw off an election. Everything else in this thread are political government handling of the citizens rights.
I've been told by a friend of mine that if the voting machines software/firmware was mandatory developed in the public domain, as well as the link to the mass summing stations, with standardized hardware, you would have a secure system as many with access to the source code would test and find the vulnerabilities which the current 2-3 manufacturers of the existing voting hardware will never release their code for scrutiny or test their hardware and software with hundreds of hackers trying to manipulate the system.
Relying on hidden source code as the main means of security is doomed to complete failure.
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As I've said before, you make an optical scanner system that doesn't know who the candidates and parties are. All it knows is only X number of marks are allowed in a group of positions for a specific ballot number. When done, it outputs the counts for each ballot number it saw. This allows one poling place to handle multiple different areas. Also it allows for mixing up who has first position on the ballots to negate the first position effect. The machines can have a modem to allow them to call in and report their results. I would not give them a cellular modem because all cellphones have a processor that can be code updated from the network. That's bad for a secure device.
The voter ID laws in the US aren't aimed at stopping invalid votes, they're aimed at stopping poor people from voting.
Yep. Poor people overwhelmingly vote for democrats. Making them have an ID is yet another $20+ hurdle for them voting. Plus to get that ID they have to take time off work, and that costs them further in lost wages. Some states make the price for IDs very cheap or nothing if you are poor, but that time off work still keeps the poor from getting a proper ID. Because of the ID standards, to get a ID you also need some documents that poor may also not have. Again it takes time off work and money to obtain them if you can. How many runaways know where they were born so they can get a copy of their birth certificate?
Every time voter fraud has been looked into it is very little, and not enough to warrant the ID measures that are being proposed.
I hate to say this but my BS meter just blew out a shunt.
Everyone should have their birth certificate
A copy of a utility bill with their address of residence on it.
And a few dollars; that is all you need.
With that said. I for one fall below the poverty line in terms of income in the US.
I have managed to not only maintain an ID for the People's Republic of Kalifornia I also maintain a Passport, the ultimate form of ID in the US that costs five times what an ID card costs to maintain.
Who would have thought that all that gear I own sits in a house where I earl less than 20K a year.
So I don't see any excuse why anybody cannot maintain the $28 dollars every five years or so to maintain legal ID.
On and I would never in my life vote democratic.
The costs of missing work, including lost wages, bosses not letting them take the time off to get/renew IDs, getting fired for taking any time off, etc as a primary hindrance for getting IDs and keeping IDs current was from data collected by a state agency that helps people get access to the benefits they deserve.
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As I've said before, you make an optical scanner system that doesn't know who the candidates and parties are. All it knows is only X number of marks are allowed in a group of positions for a specific ballot number. When done, it outputs the counts for each ballot number it saw. This allows one poling place to handle multiple different areas. Also it allows for mixing up who has first position on the ballots to negate the first position effect. The machines can have a modem to allow them to call in and report their results. I would not give them a cellular modem because all cellphones have a processor that can be code updated from the network. That's bad for a secure device.
The voter ID laws in the US aren't aimed at stopping invalid votes, they're aimed at stopping poor people from voting.
Yep. Poor people overwhelmingly vote for democrats. Making them have an ID is yet another $20+ hurdle for them voting. Plus to get that ID they have to take time off work, and that costs them further in lost wages. Some states make the price for IDs very cheap or nothing if you are poor, but that time off work still keeps the poor from getting a proper ID. Because of the ID standards, to get a ID you also need some documents that poor may also not have. Again it takes time off work and money to obtain them if you can. How many runaways know where they were born so they can get a copy of their birth certificate?
Every time voter fraud has been looked into it is very little, and not enough to warrant the ID measures that are being proposed.
I hate to say this but my BS meter just blew out a shunt.
Everyone should have their birth certificate
A copy of a utility bill with their address of residence on it.
And a few dollars; that is all you need.
With that said. I for one fall below the poverty line in terms of income in the US.
I have managed to not only maintain an ID for the People's Republic of Kalifornia I also maintain a Passport, the ultimate form of ID in the US that costs five times what an ID card costs to maintain.
Who would have thought that all that gear I own sits in a house where I earl less than 20K a year.
So I don't see any excuse why anybody cannot maintain the $28 dollars every five years or so to maintain legal ID.
On and I would never in my life vote democratic.
The costs of missing work, including lost wages, bosses not letting them take the time off to get/renew IDs, getting fired for taking any time off, etc as a primary hindrance for getting IDs and keeping IDs current was from data collected by a state agency that helps people get access to the benefits they deserve.
Sorry I call BS on that, show me an example.
Like someone else said this is off topic.
More on topic; I am not seeing an electronic means of counting votes that is as fool proof as a room full of human counters with auditors overseeing the process.
Many eyes from all factions will keep the process in the light of day; Electronics used to count votes serves no other purpose than to conceal the process from the public.
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More on topic; I am not seeing an electronic means of counting votes that is as fool proof as a room full of human counters with auditors overseeing the process.
You didn't directly reply to my last response to this sort of statement -
It blows me away the mass ignorance regarding how insecure electronic methods of counting are.
How does the entire banking system, accounting systems, and stock market systems of the country function so well then? :-//
so here it comes a second time -
Do banks use a "room full of human counters" to run the entire banking system of this country? It sounds like you've been reading too many Dune novels and want Mentats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentat) to oversee simple counting.
Do banks use human counters to make sure you have enough money to pay your water bill? Come on - counting votes is simple integer counting - it don't get much easier than that - I think computers have developed far enough to handle the job. I honestly don't fathom how you can make statements like this -
I am not seeing an electronic means of counting votes that is as fool proof as a room full of human counters.
I'm sorry but I'd have to disagree - human counters and human auditors would make vastly more mistakes counting hundreds of thousands of votes than computers would. That's why banks don't use human counters (human computers) anymore - because, well, they are very unreliable compared to electronic computers (unless we do develop mentats :P).
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I think someone is missing the point regarding the difference between banks and voting.
You have to be.....
Nevermind.
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I think someone is missing the point regarding the difference between banks and voting.
You have to be.....
Nevermind.
Be what?
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To be fair, human counting and machine counting are susceptible to different sorts of error. Neither is fault free.
There is little evidence for large scale exploitation of either kind of fault in the US. Unlike some countries where public protests get larger attendance than the number of nay votes in subsequent elections.
Continued attention and diligence is required for both types of counting, but I am not currently greatly concerned. In both states that I have resided in recently the method involved machine counting of paper ballots which are retained. In case of a challenge the paper ballots are recounted by hand (and also by machine I believe). I am not aware of any cases where a large change has occured. In several cases there were small differences, usually tied to ambiguous markings on the ballots. Someone intentionally trying to change an election would be foolish to take the risk without building in a larger margin of error.
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This is a prime example where electronics should not be used, too easy to hack.
He is quite right, those machines have been that way since Day One.
Paper ballots counted by hand in the view of everyone is the only safe way.
Did you forget the paper ballot fiasco on Florida. The results detirmined a Presidential election. Does the term " hanging chad ring a bell"? After the election, a local Florida newspaper did a careful recount of the paper ballots and many were inconclusive.
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
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Really? So you can demand an image of your secret ballot? Kind of blows the whole point of secret ballots if: 1) somewhere in the system is a way to record who voted how, 2) a way of coercing someone's ballot as you can get them to demand and present a copy of their ballot to prove that they voted the way that you demanded that they did.
If you want a secret ballot in California, you certainly can't use the mail-in approach. The envelope requires you to print your name and address as well as sign on the line. It's pretty easy to see who voted for what when the envelope is opened.
In Australia, a Postal vote consists of two envelopes,
A plain one & one with your identity.
You vote, put the voting paper inside the plain envelope, seal it, & put the whole lot in the other envelope.
When it is received by the Electoral Commission, they read your details on the outer envelope, mark you off as having voted, then pass the plain envelope on to another section to be counted.
Virtually all postal voting is done this way, including for union members & for the WIA ( the Oz Ham's association).
Simples!
The reason I can get a copy or otherwise determine that my mail-in ballot was counted is pretty obvious. The mail clerk can just dump the entire basket. More realistically, votes have been delayed by the US Mail service. The votes have to be at the Registrar's office before the close of voting (with some exceptions for those stationed overseas). It has happened that the mail service did not deliver the ballots in a timely manner.
But here's the thing: None of this crap matters! A Republican vote in California is a waste of a perfectly good postage stamp. We have no realistic representation in State government and certainly play no part in national elections. California is a 'winner takes all' state in terms of the Electoral College. The Democrats have had control of Sacramento for so long that the districts are now drawn such that there will never be a Republican legislature.
Here's the other thing: If you don't vote you can't bitch!
In Oz, it is compulsory to vote in State & Federal Elections.
Voting in person, you turn up at the Polling Booth, get your name crossed off the list, are handed your voting papers, go to a (cardboard) booth, & with a provided pencil, mark your vote, fold the papers so nobody can see them, go to a box with a slot on top & drop your vote in.
If you are really bloody minded & don't want to vote for anyone, just fold the papers as soon as you get them & put them in the box.----this still legally counts as voting, & is termed an "informal vote".
If you don't try to vote at all, you will be fined, but it's only about $20.
Even so, most people do turn up & make a proper vote.
Some folks whinge about "compulsion", but with the options available it isn't a great imposition.
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Really? So you can demand an image of your secret ballot? Kind of blows the whole point of secret ballots if: 1) somewhere in the system is a way to record who voted how, 2) a way of coercing someone's ballot as you can get them to demand and present a copy of their ballot to prove that they voted the way that you demanded that they did.
If you want a secret ballot in California, you certainly can't use the mail-in approach. The envelope requires you to print your name and address as well as sign on the line. It's pretty easy to see who voted for what when the envelope is opened.
In Australia, a Postal vote consists of two envelopes,
A plain one & one with your identity.
You vote, put the voting paper inside the plain envelope, seal it, & put the whole lot in the other envelope.
When it is received by the Electoral Commission, they read your details on the outer envelope, mark you off as having voted, then pass the plain envelope on to another section to be counted.
Virtually all postal voting is done this way, including for union members & for the WIA ( the Oz Ham's association).
Simples!
The reason I can get a copy or otherwise determine that my mail-in ballot was counted is pretty obvious. The mail clerk can just dump the entire basket. More realistically, votes have been delayed by the US Mail service. The votes have to be at the Registrar's office before the close of voting (with some exceptions for those stationed overseas). It has happened that the mail service did not deliver the ballots in a timely manner.
But here's the thing: None of this crap matters! A Republican vote in California is a waste of a perfectly good postage stamp. We have no realistic representation in State government and certainly play no part in national elections. California is a 'winner takes all' state in terms of the Electoral College. The Democrats have had control of Sacramento for so long that the districts are now drawn such that there will never be a Republican legislature.
Here's the other thing: If you don't vote you can't bitch!
In Oz, it is compulsory to vote in State & Federal Elections.
Voting in person, you turn up at the Polling Booth, get your name crossed off the list, are handed your voting papers, go to a (cardboard) booth, & with a provided pencil, mark your vote, fold the papers so nobody can see them, go to a box with a slot on top & drop your vote in.
If you are really bloody minded & don't want to vote for anyone, just fold the papers as soon as you get them & put them in the box.----this still legally counts as voting, & is termed an "informal vote".
If you don't try to vote at all, you will be fined, but it's only about $20.
Even so, most people do turn up & make a proper vote.
Some folks whinge about "compulsion", but with the options available it isn't a great imposition.
If we had this in America we know which party would consistently be the minority so we won't have that. Also instead of 2 hours to vote which isn't enough time, they need to make voting on a Wednesday and everyone gets it off except necessary services like police hospital etc and you get the chance for early and mail in votes. Make it a Wednesday that way people don't turn it into a long weekend and go on vacation. You can work on that weds if you can prove you voted and there won't need to be laws that insure companies force people to vote early because big companies know their least paid employees are the ones who are disenfranchised so companies will want you to take the day off and not vote vs vote early and work losing corporate influence. Same reason why DC will never become a state or puertorico
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I think someone is missing the point regarding the difference between banks and voting.
What's the difference. Let's see ...
In voting we have groups of people (Repubs and Dems or other labels) who could be extremely biased in the total count for their interest and might cheat, if given the chance, to make the outcome of the total count add up in their favor.
In banking we have groups of people (banks, investors, and customers) who could be extremely biased in the total count for their interest and might cheat, if given the chance, to make the outcome of the total count add up in their favor.
In both systems we have people with vested interests - the same essential thing - groups interested in a better outcome for themselves.
So far I don't see any difference. People are people - they cheat sometimes. Makes not a whit of difference whether it's banking or voting (or multitudes of other things).
Banks use computers to count - as far as I know they don't have little rooms of human counters figuring out if I can pay my water bill electronically when I log in and set up the payment. Any system made by humans can be abused, but to say we are going to count hundreds of thousands of votes by human counters looking at paper is just a crazy idea in the 21st century.
:-\
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In both systems we have people with vested interests - the same essential thing - groups interested in a better outcome for themselves.
And in both systems, rent seeking is rampant. Bankers buy laws favorable to them at the expense of their customers and politicians pass laws favoring their own party at the expense of other parties and representation.
The common feature here is a minority with great individual interest in the outcome versus a majority with so little individual interest that it is not even rational to spend the effort to understand it. The same rational ignorance produces low voter turnouts which are simply masked by compulsory voting. If you need compulsory voting, then your representation system has failed.
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I think someone is missing the point regarding the difference between banks and voting.
What's the difference. Let's see ...
In voting we have groups of people (Repubs and Dems or other labels) who could be extremely biased in the total count for their interest and might cheat, if given the chance, to make the outcome of the total count add up in their favor.
In banking we have groups of people (banks, investors, and customers) who could be extremely biased in the total count for their interest and might cheat, if given the chance, to make the outcome of the total count add up in their favor.
In both systems we have people with vested interests - the same essential thing - groups interested in a better outcome for themselves.
So far I don't see any difference. People are people - they cheat sometimes. Makes not a whit of difference whether it's banking or voting (or multitudes of other things).
Banks use computers to count - as far as I know they don't have little rooms of human counters figuring out if I can pay my water bill electronically when I log in and set up the payment. Any system made by humans can be abused, but to say we are going to count hundreds of thousands of votes by human counters looking at paper is just a crazy idea in the 21st century.
:-\
Again like others you ignore the count being done in the view of the public, and auditors from all parties concerned.
There is much less chance of rigging when...
Voter ID is instituted..
And when the handling of ballots conforms to rules that maintain a solid chain of evidence.
Finally counting in the eye of the public with auditors from all concerned parties present.
Ballots are saved until the election is validated, and nobody is contesting the outcome.
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In the banks, if they are counting wrong, the banks will at the end of the day / month or year will see that there balance does not work out right. So chances are that someone will complain hard and in the end the bank will be to blame. So they have a high interest to have a secure system. However banks also may not have in interest in making smaller scale fraud public, as it would be seen as there fault. So some fraud is likely no seen by the public.
For voting it is usually the government at some level that organizes things. That many be the same people that have in interest in a certain outcome. For that reason an many countries they have independent observers form the general public, e.g. selected randomly, or just allow interested observers. AFAIK in the US it's even that way that the governor to decide if the voting for some reason did not show a valid result (at least that was told in Florida, when time was to short for a good manual counting of all votes).
The problem with some of the shown electronic voting machines is, that they don't leave a reliable paper trail. So with these pure electronic voting systems there is little chance to detect a possible larger scale fraud. Criticizing this is very legit - especially with the security flaws found so far. There likely was no such larger scale fraud so far, but we don't know for sure and that is the problem. It's enough to cause doubt, and that can be enough of a problem in a close and controversial outcome. This especially bad with the short deadlines to get the result.
It's a little odd that some politicians are still a favor of such electronic systems. For me this makes me think if they have some special (e.g. personal financial) interests or maybe intention to make use of the security flaws if needed. So not taking those doubts on the voting machines serious is not a good sign.
I have little problem with those simple scanners to count paper ballots. They could run the same software over decades from a mask rom chip if needed. Bringing the results together is the easier part if there is a paper trail - as it's not that many places, there should be enough time to follow up from there.
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Mostly that video is a pile of crap. I didn't get very far in to the conspiracy nonsense but right off the bat they talked about 'that kid'.
The kid hacked a web site but that is NOT the official results. The results are tabulated from the paper ballots. Even when votes are counted electronically, there is a paper trail.
Unless results are close, votes aren't recounted. But they can be and often are. Bush vs Florida comes to mind. One can argue with the 'chad' thing but there was a paper trail. Hint: Our main-in ballots require a signature which is manually compared with an exemplar every time I vote. Furthermore, I have the legal right to ask if my vote was counted (it might not be if I made extraneous marks on the ballot, for example).
The real problem isn't the machines or the technology, the problem is the candidates. How does somebody come up with enough money to spend tens of millions of dollars running for state office that pays $100k/year? Well, they sold out to somebody and it isn't the poor people - they can't contribute the kind of money it takes to win an election.
Most voting machines aren't networked. The votes are stored inside the machine and downloaded back at the Registrar's office. There are variations, of course, but mostly the votes are secure.
Every once in awhile, the votes from an entire district are 'lost' or 'suddenly found'. This doesn't do much for creating a warm fuzzy feeling. This crap doesn't happen in the large states where politics is serious. There are too many special interests watching every step in the process. But for the smaller states, their impact on national elections is so small that their votes are meaningless. Unless they gang up to support a candidate. Then they matter. Hillary's strategy to skip over smaller states cost her 'bigly'.
Russia hacking the voting process itself? I kind of doubt it. But, Russia producing propaganda on social media? Definitely. Nobody has come up with even 1 vote electronically changed by Russia but there are many examples of propaganda on Twitter and Facebook. This is life in the age of the Internet. Get used to it!
Then there are the conspiracy nuts that have a "Show". Like the video. The Internet provides these nuts with an outsized presence and audience. Any fool can start a YouTube channel. "Conspiracies R' Us!" Indeed, the Internet provides an 'echo chamber' so like minded folks can reinforce each other and never encounter a contradicting idea.
There is no such thing as 'Voter Suppression'. There may be a requirement for ID, why wouldn't there be? I need ID to get on an airplane, why not to vote? Remember the signature requirement above? That tracks back to my California Driver License and to the property records. They know exactly who I am and where I live (assuming I kept DMV updated which I am legally required to do). DMVs also issue non-driver ID cards.
Yes, there are examples of intimidation - like the Black Panthers suppressing white voters in the '08 election.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_intimidation_case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_intimidation_case)
Perhaps it is raining and hard to get to a polling place. Maybe it is a bit out of the way. Maybe there are long lines (mail-in ballots are the way to go!). Maybe a lot of things... But when only 58% of eligible voters even bother to vote, I don't think folks should be yelling about suppression. In Singapore, voting is mandatory!
And, anyway, what's it to you? You don't live here (according to your location flag).
Reading through your various replies here its actually you who sounds like one of those echo chambers you mention and George Carlin talks about! A person that combines ignorance with arrogance and always end up buthurt whining like in this and other threads while to incompetent to produce a positive solution to a technical social problem. Easier to just ridicule , but please continue to make fool of your self all by your self. :palm:
But the world is not just your personal narrow left v.s right echo chamber there are other sensible folks in this thread who do find it a problem when bad EE are allowed to swirl around and troll representatives to buy into their crap designs for which you voted them in for and to do and now whine and bitch about! :-BROKE
Here's the other thing: If you don't vote you can't bitch!
Yet bitch is all you do in this thread. Again, you have no right to complain as George Carlin points out. In other words you get what you paid for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeMGqTwWA6U (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeMGqTwWA6U)
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Again like others you ignore the count being done in the view of the public, and auditors from all parties concerned.
There is much less chance of rigging when...
Voter ID is instituted..
And when the handling of ballots conforms to rules that maintain a solid chain of evidence.
Finally counting in the eye of the public with auditors from all concerned parties present.
Ballots are saved until the election is validated, and nobody is contesting the outcome.
You know what you're right. You've convinced me - paper is much better. I'm going to contact my banker and make the suggestion to go back to paper checks and statements, and please show me proof of people counting my money on a table (with a human auditor standing by) and a window in the room so the public can witness it all - so I can rest easy again. If paper is best for voting it's gotta be best for banking too for the same reasons.
All I ask them to do if they are going to go with it is to have plenty of fire extinguishers handy in case my records and money are in danger of catching on fire.
That reminds me, since they'll be mailing back all my checks like back in the day, and I will go ahead and keeps my own records on a tabulating sheet, I better check my fire extinguishers too. Now where did I leave those things ...
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Banking ≠ voting.
-Pat
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Banking ≠ voting.
-Pat
Counting = counting.
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This is a prime example where electronics should not be used, too easy to hack.
He is quite right, those machines have been that way since Day One.
Paper ballots counted by hand in the view of everyone is the only safe way.
Did you forget the paper ballot fiasco on Florida. The results detirmined a Presidential election. Does the term " hanging chad ring a bell"? After the election, a local Florida newspaper did a careful recount of the paper ballots and many were inconclusive.
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
That wasn't what is normally meant by a "paper ballot".
The punched hole idea is very early 1960s "high tech".
With a paper ballot, the voter manually marks their vote on the paper with a pencil.
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Gerrymandering.
The most insane concept used in a democracy that I know of. A small committee decides the borders of voting district boundaries!
Pair that with data and you can decide the outcome before voting starts.
I really hope I've misunderstood this whole thing.
Popular vote should be the vote that matters.
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Really? So you can demand an image of your secret ballot? Kind of blows the whole point of secret ballots if: 1) somewhere in the system is a way to record who voted how, 2) a way of coercing someone's ballot as you can get them to demand and present a copy of their ballot to prove that they voted the way that you demanded that they did.
If you want a secret ballot in California, you certainly can't use the mail-in approach. The envelope requires you to print your name and address as well as sign on the line. It's pretty easy to see who voted for what when the envelope is opened.
In Australia, a Postal vote consists of two envelopes,
A plain one & one with your identity.
You vote, put the voting paper inside the plain envelope, seal it, & put the whole lot in the other envelope.
When it is received by the Electoral Commission, they read your details on the outer envelope, mark you off as having voted, then pass the plain envelope on to another section to be counted.
Virtually all postal voting is done this way, including for union members & for the WIA ( the Oz Ham's association).
Simples!
The reason I can get a copy or otherwise determine that my mail-in ballot was counted is pretty obvious. The mail clerk can just dump the entire basket. More realistically, votes have been delayed by the US Mail service. The votes have to be at the Registrar's office before the close of voting (with some exceptions for those stationed overseas). It has happened that the mail service did not deliver the ballots in a timely manner.
But here's the thing: None of this crap matters! A Republican vote in California is a waste of a perfectly good postage stamp. We have no realistic representation in State government and certainly play no part in national elections. California is a 'winner takes all' state in terms of the Electoral College. The Democrats have had control of Sacramento for so long that the districts are now drawn such that there will never be a Republican legislature.
Here's the other thing: If you don't vote you can't bitch!
In Oz, it is compulsory to vote in State & Federal Elections.
Voting in person, you turn up at the Polling Booth, get your name crossed off the list, are handed your voting papers, go to a (cardboard) booth, & with a provided pencil, mark your vote, fold the papers so nobody can see them, go to a box with a slot on top & drop your vote in.
If you are really bloody minded & don't want to vote for anyone, just fold the papers as soon as you get them & put them in the box.----this still legally counts as voting, & is termed an "informal vote".
If you don't try to vote at all, you will be fined, but it's only about $20.
Even so, most people do turn up & make a proper vote.
Some folks whinge about "compulsion", but with the options available it isn't a great imposition.
If we had this in America we know which party would consistently be the minority
How do you know?
so we won't have that. Also instead of 2 hours to vote which isn't enough time, they need to make voting on a Wednesday and everyone gets it off except necessary services like police hospital etc and you get the chance for early and mail in votes. Make it a Wednesday that way people don't turn it into a long weekend and go on, vacation. You can work on that weds if you can prove you voted and there won't need to be laws that insure companies force people to vote early because big companies know their least paid employees are the ones who are disenfranchised so companies will want you to take the day off and not vote vs vote early and work losing corporate influence. Same reason why DC will never become a state or puertorico
In Australia, Elections are always on a Saturday, Polling Places open at 8am & close at 6pm.
Many people have the weekend off, but others can usually find the time to vote.
If they really have trouble making it on the day, there are postal & early voting options.
As I said earlier, it is illegal to prevent people from voting.
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More on topic; I am not seeing an electronic means of counting votes that is as fool proof as a room full of human counters with auditors overseeing the process.
You didn't directly reply to my last response to this sort of statement -
It blows me away the mass ignorance regarding how insecure electronic methods of counting are.
How does the entire banking system, accounting systems, and stock market systems of the country function so well then? :-//
so here it comes a second time -
Do banks use a "room full of human counters" to run the entire banking system of this country? It sounds like you've been reading too many Dune novels and want Mentats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentat) to oversee simple counting.
Do banks use human counters to make sure you have enough money to pay your water bill? Come on - counting votes is simple integer counting - it don't get much easier than that - I think computers have developed far enough to handle the job. I honestly don't fathom how you can make statements like this -
I am not seeing an electronic means of counting votes that is as fool proof as a room full of human counters.
I'm sorry but I'd have to disagree - human counters and human auditors would make vastly more mistakes counting hundreds of thousands of votes than computers would. That's why banks don't use human counters (human computers) anymore - because, well, they are very unreliable compared to electronic computers (unless we do develop mentats :P).
Compared to the vast number of calculations done every day (hell, every minute) in the banking system, counting votes is pretty small fry.
It only happens every few years, districts can count their own votes, & the lot will be aggregated at the electoral authority's headquarters.
Computers are used for banking, not because they don't make mistakes, but because they are fast & cheap compared to people
In Oz, we have Preferential voting, which is hard to explain to foreigners, because it freaks them out. ;D
This means you don't just have to count simple totals.
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Computers are used for banking, not because they don't make mistakes, but because they are fast & cheap compared to people.
Allow me -
Computers are used for banking because they don't make mistakes, they are fast, and they are cheap compared to people.
Ah that's much better. :phew:
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In Australia,
As I said earlier, it is illegal to prevent people from voting.
Same here in the USA. Good luck proving it and getting somebody charged.
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Whether there is a problem or not with the voting machines, the BIGGEST ISSUE is the fact that the companies who make them do so in PROPRIETARY ways that limit the security expert field from properly scrutinizing the machines. I understand they don't want any patents or trade secrets to fall into the wrong hands, but still, the best way to ensure the security is good is to PENETRATION TEST it with a bunch of hackers, offer a prize and make it available to be hacked.
Ideally, you would want an OPEN SOURCE approach if possible and not go after "hackers" who buy up the used machines to try to find the vulnerabilities in them. There were DEFCON competitions I believe a few years ago devoted to this kind of stuff, complete with lawsuits by the various manufacturers prohibiting people from buying them and trying to "Reverse engineer" the machines.
Ok, so you want to give someone a "black box", don't tell them about anything inside, keep everything proprietary and obfuscated as to how it works. OK.... But at least don't stop well-meaning hackers or threaten to sue them.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/29/us_voting_machines_hacking/ (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/29/us_voting_machines_hacking/)
You would also mandate the use of an aerospace-quality programming language such as Ada. C in particular creates far too many opportunities for security bloopers. As does SQL.
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Gerrymandering.
The most insane concept used in a democracy that I know of. A small committee decides the borders of voting district boundaries!
Pair that with data and you can decide the outcome before voting starts.
I really hope I've misunderstood this whole thing.
Popular vote should be the vote that matters.
There's a lot to be said for gerrymandering, none of it good! But the idea of a popular vote is dangerous. That's why we have the electoral college (EC) system. If it weren't for the EC, only votes in California, New York and Florida would matter. Toss in a few other large blue states and the election is over. The population centers would dominate political debate and smaller states would be totally disenfranchised. There's a reason we have that system and it's a good one. At least Wyoming gets 3 votes (vs 55 for California). FWIW, Wyoming has a population of somewhat over 560,000 while California is north of 37 million (about 66 times larger) but has only 18 times more clout. Tyranny of the minority is often suggested.
There are those that say the EC gives small states an oversized influence. That's true. The alternative would be to have no influence at all and then what's the point of being a state?
http://www.ipl.org/div/stateknow/popchart.html (http://www.ipl.org/div/stateknow/popchart.html)
https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/allocation.html (https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/allocation.html)
Either way, it is an imperfect system. It is not unusual for a president to be elected by the electoral college system while not prevailing in the overall votes. Like the last election and the Bush 2000 election. It has happened 5 times.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elections_in_which_the_winner_lost_the_popular_vote (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elections_in_which_the_winner_lost_the_popular_vote)
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Gerrymandering is widely and rightly reviled when it is purely party engineering, but suddenly becomes pure good when it is used to guarantee a safe seat for an ethnic minority, or an economic zone, or.....
Like everything political, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
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Gerrymandering is widely and rightly reviled when it is purely party engineering, but suddenly becomes pure good when it is used to guarantee a safe seat for an ethnic minority, or an economic zone, or.....
Like everything political, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Imagine trying to explain the system to an alien. They would be laughing all the way back to Rylos.
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Imagine trying to explain the system to an alien. They would be laughing all the way back to Rylos.
Or even someone in the far future -
Here let me show you. Let's time-travel 1000 years into the future ...
xrunner: "Hi THX1138 - I just got here from the year 2018! Wow you look familiar!"
THX1138: "Hello xrunner. What do you think of humanity now in the year 3018?"
xrunner: "It's wonderful! Did we ever finally stop cutting down trees and using paper?"
THX1138: "No xrunner. Sadly we still use paper for two things - wiping our behinds and voting."
xrunner: "Well that's shitty - sorry about the pun! I would have thought by now they would have gotten the paper out of the bathroom ..."
THX1138: "Not yet, and the paper voting issue became like a religion - totally irrational, so we couldn't get rid of that paper either, even with our highly developed super-quantum impenetrable encryption systems. The devotees even have entire forests specially grown just to make voting paper."
xrunner: "That's crazy. Maybe I can talk some sense into these people LOL."
THX1138: "Well, we do still have the old EEVBlog forum with that voting thread, maybe you can join in that old thread it's still going strong. It's not on the internet anymore but the Galacticnet - I'll show you how to use it"
xrunner: "That thread has been going for 1000 years? Gah ... on second thought no thank you. But weren't you in an old movie once? Wait how can that be?"
Folks - we're not going backwards to counting more votes than we already are using paper and human tabulators, unless it's a temporary laspe until the digital systems are improved here and there. Not happening.
No, we will move forward with more secure digital voting computer systems, not systems consisting of dead tree matter and human unreliability and bias. To think otherwise is ... I'm holding my tongue. But it ain't going to happen. Anyway's I'm going back to test equipment because the discussion is far more rational there.
Have fun dreaming about it though! :)
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That wasn't what is normally meant by a "paper ballot".
The punched hole idea is very early 1960s "high tech".
With a paper ballot, the voter manually marks their vote on the paper with a pencil.
Punched holes in paper were 1st used in an early 20th (late 19th) century census, and started a little company called IBM who made machines to count them.
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Imagine trying to explain the system to an alien. They would be laughing all the way back to Rylos.
Or even someone in the far future -
Here let me show you. Let's time-travel 1000 years into the future ...
xrunner: "Hi THX1138 - I just got here from the year 2018! Wow you look familiar!"
THX1138: "Hello xrunner. What do you think of humanity now in the year 3018?"
xrunner: "It's wonderful! Did we ever finally stop cutting down trees and using paper?"
THX1138: "No xrunner. Sadly we still use paper for two things - wiping our behinds and voting."
xrunner: "Well that's shitty - sorry about the pun! I would have thought by now they would have gotten the paper out of the bathroom ..."
THX1138: "Not yet, and the paper voting issue became like a religion - totally irrational, so we couldn't get rid of that paper either, even with our highly developed super-quantum impenetrable encryption systems. The devotees even have entire forests specially grown just to make voting paper."
xrunner: "That's crazy. Maybe I can talk some sense into these people LOL."
THX1138: "Well, we do still have the old EEVBlog forum with that voting thread, maybe you can join in that old thread it's still going strong. It's not on the internet anymore but the Galacticnet - I'll show you how to use it"
xrunner: "That thread has been going for 1000 years? Gah ... on second thought no thank you. But weren't you in an old movie once? Wait how can that be?"
Folks - we're not going backwards to counting more votes than we already are using paper and human tabulators, unless it's a temporary laspe until the digital systems are improved here and there. Not happening.
No, we will move forward with more secure digital voting computer systems, not systems consisting of dead tree matter and human unreliability and bias. To think otherwise is ... I'm holding my tongue. But it ain't going to happen. Anyway's I'm going back to test equipment because the discussion is far more rational there.
Have fun dreaming about it though! :)
IMO, the idea of having paper ballots (that can be read by both machine and human) is to have a hard copy backup independent of the count made by the machine. A purely touch screen vote disappears into the electronic æther, never to be seen again. If someone 'accidentally' unplugs the machine or 'oops - I cleared the memory - you HADN'T downloaded the votes from this one yet? Oh, crap!', there is no independent record. I'd not put such shenanigans past EITHER party, given how often uncounted boxes of ballots are 'found' in the trunks of cars in close elections. They should be read by machines (that are air gapped, not networked) on the spot, then saved for possible reference later. The machines should also keep an independent raw count of the number of ballots passed though them, to help deter the 'found' uncounted boxes as well.
-Pat
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A purely touch screen vote disappears into the electronic æther, never to be seen again.
A purely touch screen bill payment disappears into the electronic æther, never to be seen again.
.. given how often uncounted boxes of ballots are 'found' in the trunks of cars in close elections.
::)
Like I said - back to test equipment where it's more rational (hopefully). :palm:
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A purely touch screen vote disappears into the electronic æther, never to be seen again.
A purely touch screen bill payment disappears into the electronic æther, never to be seen again.
.. given how often uncounted boxes of ballots are 'found' in the trunks of cars in close elections.
::)
Like I said - back to test equipment where it's more rational (hopefully). :palm:
There is a chain of custody in the bill payment system and a means of appealing the payment if it is flawed in some way or an outright forgery.
You have none of that with a touch screen voting system.
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its probably good that we got hacked and effected because no one would do shit about cyber security otherwise.
Did we? Are you sure? I have yet to see a definitive statement saying that even a single vote was mangled by hackers. Now, it may have happened, but it hasn't been proven (good hackers?). Maybe you have a better source than I do. I just read the top few online news sites (CNN, Washington Post, NYTimes, LATimes, Sacramento Bee) and I haven't seen any such claim. Lots of teeth gnashing but not a shred of proof. Those sites would have banner headlines if they could prove it. Especially since their "anointed one" lost. They would love to prove fraud. Instead they call the voters "deplorables" and idiots.
It seems a tremendous waste of time to try to solve a problem that doesn't exist and if it did exist, wouldn't affect the outcome. Maybe it would if it was massive enough but even the dumbest Registrar will notice if they get back substantially more ballots than they have registered voters. There have been audits of this in some seemingly problematic districts and, at most, they turned up a few fraudulent ballots.
Remember all the candidates worrying about the illegal aliens voting? How'd that work out? Did they find more than a dozen in the entire country? I don't think so...
Electronic voting will never be considered correct simply because any fool can claim fraud and hacking - without a shred of proof. "We lost, there must be fraud!". Nobody in their right mind would ever trust the machines because, among other things, encryption will be difficult to prove and easy to criticize. And, no, I don't think they will be 'open source' any time soon.
On the subject of recounts: I am only aware of a very few and the recount did not change the outcome. This is a manual count with observers from both candidates. There are always a few errors but not enough to affect the outcome. It all kind of balances out. I think the Registrars do a terrific job.
I just don't see this as a big issue. BREXIT is a big issue, maybe NAFTA is a big issue, certainly tariffs are something to think about and, of course, Social Security and my private pension are right at the top of my concerns. That and the stock market of course. Really, the only things I care about are the last 3 items. None of the rest really affects me. Certainly not something like an election. We might get change but we are unlikely to get improvement.
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If it weren't for the EC, only votes in California, New York and Florida would matter. Toss in a few other large blue states and the election is over.
That would only be true if all voters in blue states voted blue, and all voters in red states voted red, and that's not how it goes. Look at the 2016 Presidential election. California had 7.3M votes for Clinton and 3.9M for Trump; Texas had 4.7M Trump and 3.9M Clinton; Florida had 4.6M Trump and 4.5M Clinton.
To win the popular vote a candidate would need some sort of widespread support. I'd much rather that every voter have an equal vote in the presidential election. Currently the millions of red voters in "safe" blue states, and the millions of blue voters in "safe" red states are disenfranchised.
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A purely touch screen bill payment disappears into the electronic æther, never to be seen again.
There is still an audit trail. Every time I pay my credit card bill online, I get a transaction number that I can use as a reference. By the next day I can see the payment applied to my balance. Nothing really disappears. Customer service has always been able to track things down.
I have never seen or used a touch screen voting machine but I would want a paper copy of what the machine thinks I did. With a transaction number that I can use when I talk to the Registrar.
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Again like others you ignore the count being done in the view of the public, and auditors from all parties concerned.
This!
The process is transparent, simple and most importantly very easy to understand: The use of a paper ballot to be marked with a government issued pencil attached to a government issued piece of string is very simple. So is the counting process - which by the way doesn't really suffer from scaling problems as the votes are counted at the individual polling stations, so it all happens in parallel. The votes are counted by citizens (a lot like jury duty).
With electronic voting, it is not possible for the electorate to verify that the voting machines are doing only what they are supposed to and that alone is a very serious trust problem.
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If it weren't for the EC, only votes in California, New York and Florida would matter. Toss in a few other large blue states and the election is over.
That would only be true if all voters in blue states voted blue, and all voters in red states voted red, and that's not how it goes. Look at the 2016 Presidential election. California had 7.3M votes for Clinton and 3.9M for Trump; Texas had 4.7M Trump and 3.9M Clinton; Florida had 4.6M Trump and 4.5M Clinton.
To win the popular vote a candidate would need some sort of widespread support. I'd much rather that every voter have an equal vote in the presidential election. Currently the millions of red voters in "safe" blue states, and the millions of blue voters in "safe" red states are disenfranchised.
I understand exactly how this 'red voter in blue state' thing works out. I AM a red voter in a blue state. Overwhelming blue! And I see the effects every day. Letting felons out of prison, pardoning 1186 felons (the most in history), downgrading felonies to misdemeanors and releasing the perpetrators back into society, scrapping the cash bail system, attempting to change 'reasonable' force to 'necessary' force and on and on. Shielding illegal immigrant criminals seems popular. Yes, I have an idea how it works.
Hillary won by 3 million in the popular vote but she won by nearly 4 million in California. One could argue then that California made up her deficit of 1 million votes in the other 49 states and would have handed her the win even though the other 49 states, in aggregate, didn't want her. I don't think California Rule would be popular in Wyoming.
I think the Electroral College system created in 1787 is pretty reasonable and as a voting scheme, it reflects our Senate and House of Representatives arrangement for representation. But the system certainly has quirks.
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Hillary won by 3 million in the popular vote but she won by nearly 4 million in California. One could argue then that California made up her deficit of 1 million votes in the other 49 states and would have handed her the win even though the other 49 states, in aggregate, didn't want her. I don't think California Rule would be popular in Wyoming.
Huh?! But it shouldn't be "the states" voting, it should be "the people", I think! If 1 million more Americans voted for Clinton than voted for Trump, why the heck did Trump become president?! Why should it matter in which states the various voters live?
I think the Electroral College system created in 1787 is pretty reasonable and as a voting scheme, it reflects our Senate and House of Representatives arrangement for representation. But the system certainly has quirks.
I couldn't help but grin when I read up on the history of the US electoral system at https://www.historycentral.com/elections/Electoralcollgewhy.html: (https://www.historycentral.com/elections/Electoralcollgewhy.html:)
The first reason that the founders created the Electoral College is hard to understand today. The founding fathers were afraid of direct election to the Presidency. They feared a tyrant could manipulate public opinion and come to power. Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers:
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations. It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief.
They should have kept the original system in place. One doesn't have to be a tyrant to manipulate public opinion...
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Hillary won by 3 million in the popular vote but she won by nearly 4 million in California. One could argue then that California made up her deficit of 1 million votes in the other 49 states and would have handed her the win even though the other 49 states, in aggregate, didn't want her. I don't think California Rule would be popular in Wyoming.
Huh?! But it shouldn't be "the states" voting, it should be "the people", I think! If 1 million more Americans voted for Clinton than voted for Trump, why the heck did Trump become president?! Why should it matter in which states the various voters live?
The discussion re: the Electoral College comes up after every election. Further, there are variations on how the electoral representative are required to vote. Some have to vote for the winner in their state, others are free to vote however they want. Some are required to vote for the winner on only the first vote if multiple votes are required. The individual states make the rules. It's truly a mess!
BUT...
If we went to direct election, the high population states would dominate the election much as 'blue' voters do in California elections. California is a classic example of direct election and if you are a 'red' voter there is no point in voting. You might as well save the stamp. Worse, we are now a 'top two' state so it is very likely that both candidates on the ballot are from the same party. So not only is a 'red' vote meaningless, there isn't even a 'red' candidate to vote for.
It is the states voting! That's the whole point! Each state gets as many votes as they have senators (2) plus representatives (varying by population). Even Wyoming with 1 representative (versus 53 for California) gets the extra two votes for senators (same as every other state). So, they get 3 votes. It's clear that whatever Wyoming wants is meaningless in a direct vote (based on population) but they get outsized representation due to the extra 2 votes. In effect, the smaller states punch above their weight even though they still don't have much of an influence. But put a bunch of them together and they make a difference. It was just 3 rust-belt states that threw the election to Trump. Every single pundit said Trump couldn't possibly win right up until the counts started adding up and 3 states threw the election.
States are only loosely related. If you ask the people of Wyoming what they have in common with the people of California, I'm pretty certain they will say "absolutely nothing!". The US is not a homogeneous amalgamation of like minded individuals.
But, you're right, there is a lot of teeth gnashing after every election over the Electoral College. In spite of it all, nobody has gotten a Constitutional Convention together to change it. It can be changed but it isn't easy and it takes a lot of states to agree. Guess what? The MANY small states aren't going to agree. Their influence, small as it is, would be even less.
US politics are strange, the voting system is abysmal and there are any number of issues. Personally, as long as the stock market climbs, I don't care about any of it. It's about the money!
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US politics are strange, the voting system is abysmal and there are any number of issues. Personally, as long as the stock market climbs, I don't care about any of it. It's about the money!
:-DD Then I'd suggest not looking to closely at the stock market and what is really driving the current valuations. >:D It will be interesting to see what happens to the market when more retired people are selling than employed are buying. With salaries not keeping up it should be even more fun. :popcorn:
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That wasn't what is normally meant by a "paper ballot".
The punched hole idea is very early 1960s "high tech".
With a paper ballot, the voter manually marks their vote on the paper with a pencil.
Punched holes in paper were 1st used in an early 20th (late 19th) century census, and started a little company called IBM who made machines to count them.
Indeed, & were used by early Morse code telegraph systems (before it was realised that decoding it by simply listening to the "clack" sound was much faster & just as accurate) & later, for tape reperforators with teleprinter machines.
My point was that the "hanging chad" type of balloting system was an early electronic system introduced in the 1950s/1960s.
The 19th century ones were either counted by fully mechanical or electromechanical equipment.
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Gerrymandering is widely and rightly reviled when it is purely party engineering, but suddenly becomes pure good when it is used to guarantee a safe seat for an ethnic minority, or an economic zone, or.....
Like everything political, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I might counter that with "Politics is the art of the possible."
Federal systems, like Australia, Canada, the USA & others all have "trade offs" inherent in the whole idea of Federation.
States which had a small population were afraid that they would be "steam rollered" by the more populous (& usually wealthier) States, so some inducements were necessary to get them to "sign up" to what must have been a bit of a scary prospect.
In the case of Western Australia, it was the provision of a railway line from the Eastern States to WA plus the fact that all States would elect the same number of Senators, which got us across the line.
New Zealand was also involved in the early Australian Federation discussions, but the trade offs weren't good enough, so they went their own way.
If things had gone a bit differently, Australia would have included NZ, but would had to share a continent with the independent country of Western Australia!
Even within countries which are not federations, but have single member electorates, any increase in a Party's vote may be concentrated in "safe seats", so that the other party may have more members elected, & will form government with a smaller "popular vote" overall.
The USA's founding fathers could not foresee a time when the Monarch would have been stripped of almost all executive power, with that power being wielded by the Legislature, which is what happened in the "Westminster system".
They therefore included an elected "King" in the person of the President. ;D
Maybe part of the rationale was that the President would, as he was separately elected be "above" the hurly burly of party politics, but that hasn't happened.
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The USA's founding fathers could not foresee a time when the Monarch would have been stripped of almost all executive power, with that power being wielded by the Legislature, which is what happened in the "Westminster system".
They therefore included an elected "King" in the person of the President. ;D
Maybe part of the rationale was that the President would, as he was separately elected be "above" the hurly burly of party politics, but that hasn't happened.
Their private writings reveal that some were aware of this problem but they had no remedy because the science to objectively describe the problem and evaluate solutions did not exist. Maybe it still does not but we know a lot more now. So they did the best that they could within what was considered possible, or at least made different mistakes.
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US politics are strange, the voting system is abysmal and there are any number of issues. Personally, as long as the stock market climbs, I don't care about any of it. It's about the money!
:-DD Then I'd suggest not looking to closely at the stock market and what is really driving the current valuations. >:D It will be interesting to see what happens to the market when more retired people are selling than employed are buying. With salaries not keeping up it should be even more fun. :popcorn:
I once saw a chart that projected the market heading south due to withdrawals and it suggested the downturn would start in 2002. Today, the early post WW-II baby boomers (born, say, '45-'46) are in their 70s and presumably retired. I am... The thing is, with pensions and Social Security, dipping into 401(k) isn't necessarily required. I'm not using mine and don't plan to. I have a real issue with the mandatory withdrawals and I'm counting on 4% growth to cover up the withdrawals.
BTW, I'm pretty happy with the dividend rate of British Petroleum (BP) - 5.69%. The stock I bought has done well the last couple of years but it's the dividends that keep me interested.
http://www.dividend.com/dividend-stocks/basic-materials/major-integrated-oil-and-gas/bp-bp-plc/ (http://www.dividend.com/dividend-stocks/basic-materials/major-integrated-oil-and-gas/bp-bp-plc/)
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I understand exactly how this 'red voter in blue state' thing works out. I AM a red voter in a blue state. Overwhelming blue!
I'm also in a state where I'm in a fairly small minority; because of that the electoral college renders my vote (and yours) to be practically meaningless. I don't like that. The electoral college gives a highly disproportionate amount of power to the voters in the swing states. The power of a person's vote should not depend on where they live. We would be far better off if you, me, and everyone in the swing/purple states had equal votes in the presidential election.
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The House electors could be tied to the House districts instead of the state which would produce or almost product the same result as the two states which divide their electors. Offhand I do not remember why this was not done originally.
The state controls how the electors are selected but of course that will never change now that the two parties control the process because the current system benefits only them.
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I'm also in a state where I'm in a fairly small minority; because of that the electoral college renders my vote (and yours) to be practically meaningless. I don't like that. The electoral college gives a highly disproportionate amount of power to the voters in the swing states. The power of a person's vote should not depend on where they live. We would be far better off if you, me, and everyone in the swing/purple states had equal votes in the presidential election.
It's not just electoral colleges that do this. British Parliamentary systems like the UK and Canada have a similar issue on a smaller scale. The leader of the government is chosen by the number of seats won in the house that each party wins, so you can be a blue (conservative) voter in a red (liberal) riding (district), and also have little influence; it's just on a smaller scale (338 seats in Canada).
Also, it always amuses me that the US uses Red for Republican (conservative) and Blue for Democrat (Liberal), whereas it's pretty much the opposite every where else.
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Also, it always amuses me that the US uses Red for Republican (conservative) and Blue for Democrat (Liberal), whereas it's pretty much the opposite every where else.
That was largely true in the US with red representing the left and blue representing the right until the 1980s but the media managed to reverse the colors after 2000.
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Also, it always amuses me that the US uses Red for Republican (conservative) and Blue for Democrat (Liberal), whereas it's pretty much the opposite every where else.
That was largely true in the US with red representing the left and blue representing the right until the 1980s but the media managed to reverse the colors after 2000.
It had to be dumbed down so the media could follow Red = Republican, Blue = <anything else>
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It's not just electoral colleges that do this. British Parliamentary systems like the UK and Canada have a similar issue on a smaller scale. The leader of the government is chosen by the number of seats won in the house that each party wins, so you can be a blue (conservative) voter in a red (liberal) riding (district), and also have little influence; it's just on a smaller scale (338 seats in Canada).
It's the number of parties in Parliament that confuses me. In order to form a government, some large party has to form a coalition with some smaller party in order to gain a majority. This allows the small parties (DUP, SNP) to punch above their weight. Watching UK Parliament and Brexit is like watching a train wreck. You know you should look away but you just can't. We have minority parties in the US but they aren't really a factor in anything.
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It's the number of parties in Parliament that confuses me. In order to form a government, some large party has to form a coalition with some smaller party in order to gain a majority.
That generally results in a situation where different parties can actually talk to each other, strike compromises etc.. Do you really prefer the state of affairs in the US, with its extreme polarization between the two major parties? Too strongly polarized "enemy camps" don't lead to good, constructive politics in my opinion.
That being said, the current situation in the UK seems a mess indeed. Might have something to do with the Brexit vote?
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It's the number of parties in Parliament that confuses me. In order to form a government, some large party has to form a coalition with some smaller party in order to gain a majority. This allows the small parties (DUP, SNP) to punch above their weight. Watching UK Parliament and Brexit is like watching a train wreck. You know you should look away but you just can't. We have minority parties in the US but they aren't really a factor in anything.
If third parties in the US had any influence, then they would be made illegal. As it is, various election laws help to keep them marginalized.
It is always fun to watch when the Republicans or Democrats complain about them throwing an election though.
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I'm also in a state where I'm in a fairly small minority; because of that the electoral college renders my vote (and yours) to be practically meaningless. I don't like that. The electoral college gives a highly disproportionate amount of power to the voters in the swing states. The power of a person's vote should not depend on where they live. We would be far better off if you, me, and everyone in the swing/purple states had equal votes in the presidential election.
It's not just electoral colleges that do this. British Parliamentary systems like the UK and Canada have a similar issue on a smaller scale. The leader of the government is chosen by the number of seats won in the house that each party wins, so you can be a blue (conservative) voter in a red (liberal) riding (district), and also have little influence; it's just on a smaller scale (338 seats in Canada).
Also, it always amuses me that the US uses Red for Republican (conservative) and Blue for Democrat (Liberal), whereas it's pretty much the opposite every where else.
I think you mean "the party which can form a government"---as far as I know, the leader is elected by the Parliamentary Party, or by a combination of that & the lay Party, in some Parties.
Certainly that is the case in Australia.
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I'm also in a state where I'm in a fairly small minority; because of that the electoral college renders my vote (and yours) to be practically meaningless. I don't like that. The electoral college gives a highly disproportionate amount of power to the voters in the swing states. The power of a person's vote should not depend on where they live. We would be far better off if you, me, and everyone in the swing/purple states had equal votes in the presidential election.
It's not just electoral colleges that do this. British Parliamentary systems like the UK and Canada have a similar issue on a smaller scale. The leader of the government is chosen by the number of seats won in the house that each party wins, so you can be a blue (conservative) voter in a red (liberal) riding (district), and also have little influence; it's just on a smaller scale (338 seats in Canada).
Also, it always amuses me that the US uses Red for Republican (conservative) and Blue for Democrat (Liberal), whereas it's pretty much the opposite every where else.
I think you mean "the party which can form a government"---as far as I know, the leader is elected by the Parliamentary Party, or by a combination of that & the lay Party, in some Parties.
Certainly that is the case in Australia.
I was trying to simplify for our American friends, who aren't used to our type of Parliamentary system.
The party with the most seats is asked by the crown to attempt to form government, either alone (if they have a majority of seats), or by forming a coalition. In very rare cases (such as the provincial legislature of BC where I live), the #2 party and the #3 party can join to form government; Quite unusual though.
But back to the original point, that riding based systems also have the same problem as the electoral college in that there are really only a few 'battleground' ridings, (or states in the US case). I read somewhere that election spending in Ohio is 30x what it is in most states (per capita), because Ohio is a swing state. https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2012/11/01/163632378/a-campaign-map-morphed-by-money (https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2012/11/01/163632378/a-campaign-map-morphed-by-money)
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Did you forget the paper ballot fiasco on Florida. The results detirmined a Presidential election. Does the term " hanging chad ring a bell"? After the election, a local Florida newspaper did a careful recount of the paper ballots and many were inconclusive.
I'm calling Bull ShITE on this one. I was a resident of Florida during that election and after the election the ballots were turned over to the Florida Secretary of State where they still remain. NO newspaper had access to them then or now so no such newspaper recount was possible.
Nice try though.
Q: would you really be stupid enough to believe a newspaper's count of the results of an election? Not just Florida or in the US but anywhere. If you are, George Soros wants to hire you!