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posted by mrcoolbp on Friday April 24 2015, @11:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the never-trusted-those-things-anyways dept.

From the Wichita Eagle:

A Wichita State University mathematician sued the top Kansas election official Wednesday, seeking paper tapes from electronic voting machines in an effort to explain statistical anomalies favoring Republicans in counts coming from large precincts across the country.

Wichita Eagle's coverage

 
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by wisnoskij on Saturday April 25 2015, @12:42AM

    by wisnoskij (5149) <{jonathonwisnoski} {at} {gmail.com}> on Saturday April 25 2015, @12:42AM (#174902)

    And why wouldn't any malware installed on the voting machines change the paper trail as well? It seems incredibly unlikely that any fraud that could of occurred would not have changed both records simultaneously.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by SubiculumHammer on Saturday April 25 2015, @12:48AM

    by SubiculumHammer (5191) on Saturday April 25 2015, @12:48AM (#174904)

    Depends on at what stage alleged fraud would have taken place.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 25 2015, @02:30AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 25 2015, @02:30AM (#174930)

    It seems incredibly unlikely that any fraud that could of occurred

    I know what it means for an event to "have occurred", but I'm not sure what it means for an event to "of occurred".

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by deadstick on Saturday April 25 2015, @03:28AM

      by deadstick (5110) on Saturday April 25 2015, @03:28AM (#174946)

      It means fraud occurred in the poster's high school.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 25 2015, @05:03AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 25 2015, @05:03AM (#174975)

        Nope it means that they used the wrong homophone. "could of" is an incorrect spelling of the contraction "could've".

        • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday April 26 2015, @07:37AM

          by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 26 2015, @07:37AM (#175297) Journal

          whoosh.

          Had he been educated properly, perhaps he would not have made that mistake?

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by mth on Saturday April 25 2015, @10:31AM

    by mth (2848) on Saturday April 25 2015, @10:31AM (#175018) Homepage

    If the paper trail can be inspected by each voter at the time of voting, malware changing what is printed will be caught on the day of the election. I don't know if the voting machines that were used were designed to show the paper version to the voter though.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday April 25 2015, @03:03PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 25 2015, @03:03PM (#175068) Journal
    I believe the operating assumption is that the alleged vote manipulation avoids small precincts because it would be much easier to demonstrate fraud. Go to everyone who voted and get an affidavit stating for whom they voted. When that doesn't match the official vote, then you have a problem. It's not a piece of cake to do, but it's feasible for a precinct of say 300 people and a nightmare for a precinct of 50,000 people. There's also a chance that local political leaders in a small precinct might already know enough about everyone's vote to spot vote manipulation right away.

    And why wouldn't any malware installed on the voting machines change the paper trail as well?

    Because it might be installed on vote tabulation machines instead. I don't know about all the elections that this researcher has looked at, but I understand that the 2012 Republican primaries, which showed this statistical anomaly in a fair number of states (more than ten) didn't keep the paper ballots or perhaps didn't have them. Also, this anomaly doesn't show up at all in the 2008 Republican primaries, IIRC. It's either on (and in the case of the 2012 Republican primaries, always favoring Romney), or off.

    • (Score: 1, Troll) by wisnoskij on Saturday April 25 2015, @06:37PM

      by wisnoskij (5149) <{jonathonwisnoski} {at} {gmail.com}> on Saturday April 25 2015, @06:37PM (#175119)

      I bet 1-5% don't even remember who voted (a lot of them make up their minds with the ballot in front of them), and a further 1% would lie who they voted for for some reason, and there is probably another 1% who mistakenly pressed the wrong button and have no idea they voted for the wrong candidate. I really doubt that you would ever get the same recount, and if the race was close this amount of random drift would be very significant compared to any fraud trying to tweak the votes a percentage or two in someones favor.