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from the confusing-cost-with-effectiveness dept.
Picked via Bruce Schneier's Cryptogram, the story of a massive electronic vote miscount, luckily paper ballots were available
Vote totals in a Northampton County judge's race showed one candidate, Abe Kassis, a Democrat, had just 164 votes out of 55,000 ballots across more than 100 precincts. Some machines reported zero votes for him. In a county with the ability to vote for a straight-party ticket, one candidate's zero votes was a near statistical impossibility. Something had gone quite wrong.
The worse news:
The machines that broke in Northampton County are called the ExpressVoteXL and are made by Election Systems & Software, a major manufacturer of election machines used across the country. The ExpressVoteXL is among their newest and most high-end machines, a luxury "one-stop" voting system that combines a 32-inch touch screen and a paper ballot printer.
The good news was that the chairwoman of the county Republicans realized the numbers made no sense and promptly initiated an investigation. When officials counted the paper backup ballots generated by the same machines, they realized Kassis had narrowly won.
How many trees still need to die until humans learn how to do voting properly?
Note: the original story ran on nytimes, but I respect their choice to not let me read their stories with 'Do not track' activated
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 16 2019, @10:36PM (7 children)
There is the obvious comment about the flaws of electronic voting, which we all know. However, the thing which caught my eye was:
This actually made me feel good, like some members of the Republican party actually have integrity. In an era of, "I think Ukraine should investigate Biden, I think China should investigate Biden... but this isn't a quid pro quo, and even if it was it's okay," some members of the former "party of morals" actually do do the right thing.
(Score: 2, Informative) by c0lo on Monday December 16 2019, @10:52PM
FTFY. Try not to make the same mistake next time.
Oh sorry, I don't mean the typo; just don't be fooled twice by the same tricks (large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @12:03AM (4 children)
As all good Libtards know, getting foreigners to investigate your corrupt political enemies is only acceptable when WE do it, like with the Steele Dossier. Oh, and then we have to lie about it and cover up evidence in 17 egregious situations, but it's all okay because our MSM propaganda squad will call it "total vindication" anyways.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @01:15AM (2 children)
Just so I have this straight. You are saying that the secretive activities of a private American company [wikipedia.org] hired (initially by one of Trump's Republican primary opponents) to do opposition research, and paid with campaign funds to do so, is *exactly* the same thing as a sitting public official using the power of his *public* office to pressure a *foreign government* to *publicly announce* investigations into his political opponent.
Is that correct?
To simplify, in case you aren't clear, your claim is that:
American Private citizens (on both sides of the aisle), using private funds to pay private, American, entities to do opposition research is *exactly* the same as a sitting government official using the powers of his office (and the public purse) to induce a foreign government to smear a political opponent with an *announcement* (the evidence is clear about this, the announcement was the important thing, not any investigation) that it was investigating political opponents.
Do I have that about right?
That you don't see the difference (regardless as to whether or not you think "opposition research" is appropriate) says more about you than anything else.
I feel pity for you.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday December 17 2019, @05:33AM (1 child)
The situations are nothing at all alike, because whether someone in Ukraine decides to investigate something that happened in Ukraine is their own goddamn business and they don't need permission from the DNC.
Pressuring foreign governments is SOP here. Hate to break it to you.
Christopher Steele is not an American. And he claimed his sources were Russian (not American).
What smear? Dems and their MSM friends say that Biden didn't do anything (hah!). So what's he got to worry about? Are politically-motivated investigations only OK if they are DNC approved? Or should politicians just never be investigated at all, because it might "influence an election"?
Actually it seems to be even simpler than that. The 2016 email leaks and the hypothetical Burisma investigation are both denounced as "election interference" so the criteria must be that anything that makes Dems look bad is "interference."
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @03:34PM
Pressuring foreign governments to do private political bidding by exercising the power of the Presidency is not SOP anywhere. Hate to break that to you. (Kinda the big difference between what Biden did in Ukraine and what Trumpiani was trying for. One was statecraft. The other was partisan politics.)
And you're childishly naive if you think that a lie from a foreign government about a candidate (Biden) would carry no weight. In fact, doesn't even have to be a lie... can just be an "investigation" about something that has been objectively proven to be debunked by anyone not drinking the Republican Kool-Aid which can cause damage.
Now... if Ukraine just came out of the blue, no Giuliani or Trump involved, and said, "Yeah, we're reopening the investigation into the dead horse..." Perfectly legal. If Trump had been smart enough to keep his big nose out of it and not use official communications to pressure the Ukrainian government to take calls and meetings with private individuals (Giuliani, etc.) fused with government officials (Barr, Sondland) there would likely be no issue. Especially so if Trump were smart enough to not fuck with the Congressional mandated Ukrainian aid in a way Congress knew nothing about, whether coincidental or intentional. If Trump were smart enough to not conflate his political activities with his duties as President, no trouble. But the reality is that Trump isn't that smart. King Trump thinks anything he does is legal, and doesn't stop to think how it might look to mention needing favors in context of whether or not Ukraine can purchase weaponry they need to defend from Russia.
TL/DR: Trump's not smart enough to be President.
Oh, and if Steele were actually employed by MI6... yeah, same problem. But he wasn't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @01:28AM
Please restrict such banter to the #schiflords IRC channel
(Score: 2) by Username on Tuesday December 17 2019, @01:03AM
lmao, "I think you should investigate this suspicious vote count." vs "I think you should investigate this suspicious money trail." Which one is bribery?