SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Guardian has a story detailing the firing of Christopher Krebs, who served as the director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa)
President Trump made the announcement on Twitter on Tuesday, saying Krebs "has been terminated" and that his recent statement defending the security of the election was "highly inaccurate".
CISA last week released a statement refuting claims of widespread voter fraud. "The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history," the statement read. "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."
Krebs, is a former Microsoft executive, and was appointed by President Trump after allegations of Russian interference with the 2016 election.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:20PM (51 children)
IDK where you vote, where I vote the ID check at in person voting is much less rigorously verified than a mailing address.
Anyone can walk in with a fake I.D. and when they walk out, traceability is over.
Faking a mailing address is harder, easier to follow up on, riskier for perpetrators of fraud. Maybe somebody in the household orders a ballot, intercepts it, and mails it in without the knowledge of the voter - but only if the voter doesn't care about the election enough to vote.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:28PM (50 children)
You consider having a mailing address rigorous? You can register with anyone's name, by mail, and then vote, by mail, in California so long as you have the last four of their SSN and a PO box somewhere in the state. There's no requirement for any form of proof you are who you say you are, that who you say you are is a California resident, or that who you say you are is even alive.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:37PM (49 children)
How many cases of mail-in voting fraud have been actually proven, prosecuted, convicted? In a country of hundreds of millions the numbers will never be zero, but they are trivial.
Put another way: I have no doubt in my mind that IF any any non-trivial fraud happened against Trump, we would have seen the proof by now. Not allegations and affidavits that are quickly rescinded, actual proof.
This exercise by the Trump team has done more to boost my confidence in the integrity of our election processes than anything else in the last 50 years.
In 2000, I felt that Bush stole it, but it was so close as to be a virtual tie. 2020 doesn't seem to be anywhere close to tie territory.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:52PM (18 children)
How do you propose someone go about proving it? Anonymous ballots are anonymous. You can prove precisely nothing by looking at the ballots, which was probably the intent to begin with. It's absolutely proof that the vote was completely and utterly insecure though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:09PM (17 children)
IDK about your mail in ballot system. Here: I register with the elections dept. to get a mail-in ballot mailed to me - they know where they mailed the ballot and track it.
I get the ballot and sleeve which is traceable to my voter I.D. (and now my mailing address as well.)
I either mail it back in, or drop it off in person. Either way, there's a website that shows the progress of my individual ballot along the way: requested, mailed to me, received by polling authority, and counted.
If somebody "stole" my ballot, I'd definitely know because I'm trying to use it myself.
Are the voter rolls packed with dead voters? Not exactly packed, but there are tens of thousands of voters who died between the mail-out of the ballots and November 3rd 2020.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by slinches on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:00PM (8 children)
That's not the case in all states. Some mailed ballots to all registered voters, even if they didn't request one. Even where there are systems in place to check the status, how would you know to check if you never requested a ballot. On top of that, even the most secure mail-in systems still rely on each individual to check their ballot status, which isn't a reliable method of preventing widespread fraud.
Despite those other major concerns, my biggest gripe with mail-in ballots is that they don't protect against someone watching over your shoulder while you fill it in. Because you fill them in out outside of a voting booth, they open the possibility of direct vote buying and intimidation. There is absolutely no way to know how many people were paid for their vote or were intimidated by a family member into voting a certain way.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:16PM (4 children)
So, you're saying that fraudulent actors are intercepting these uncherished ballots and voting them in the names of the registered voters who do not care, on a widespread basis, and that nobody is complaining about it?
I agree that it can happen, that it does happen. What I disagree about is that it happens on a widespread basis without significant numbers of complaints and proof of it happening.
In order to swing this election to a different result, tens of thousands of fraudulent votes all in one direction would have to be counted. At least some small percentage of those would garner complaints, hundreds at a minimum. Out of 70 million stood up and counted Trump supporters, how many have come forth with anything resembling a credible complaint? Dozens, maybe, and none that felt strongly enough about their impulse to support their leader to stand up and continue with an investigation that might prove their complaints.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by slinches on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:18PM (3 children)
The problem is that it is nearly impossible to prove. At best you can compare envelope signatures (where they exist), which is not exactly definitive unless there's a really dumb mistake like signing the wrong name. On top of that, intercepting the returned ballots is undetectable to the voter. So only the ballot counters would be able to detect that, if they are even allowed to disqualify one based on a tampered envelope.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:40PM (2 children)
So, my general mistrust of the postal system led me to return my mail-in ballot in person - which is a great way to short-cut the line BTW.
Still, if I had mailed in the ballot, I'd be tracking it online the same way that I tracked it after dropping it in the ballot collection box.
If you mean the people who open that box might take my mail-in sleeve, scan it and mark it as received and counted online, and then replaced my ballot with another one which voted FOR the Republican Senators but AGAINST Trump - yeah, that might have happened here and there around the country, especially in the smaller polling locations where they might have broken protocol and let somebody scan the mail-ins alone, but certainly not widespread - and very doubtful that it happened in the bigger urban locations.
By the same token, just because your ballot is scanned by a machine in front of your eyes doesn't mean that the totals from that machine got transferred into the larger count for the precinct, happens here and there every election. What I have never heard a report of is somebody doing a replacement of large number of ballots and destroying the actual ones - certainly that's possible, but there are reasonably secure (less than perfect) measures in place that would expose that happening on a large scale.
Now, in small local elections, I did read a report of an independent journalist who questioned the local mayor's race (something like 1000 votes cast in total) and got the runaround when trying to count the ballots for himself, then got railroaded into the psychiatric health system when he persisted... if you're one of those people, bring a buddy or two and live-stream video of your endeavors to more friendly observers outside the jurisdiction at every opportunity, because small towns can do some scary shit and make it stick.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by slinches on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:47PM (1 child)
Taking a mail in ballot to the polling station in person is definitely better. It eliminates many of the points where your ballot is accessible to an unsupervised individual, but not everyone does that. A mail carrier on their route could easily note who has what political signs in their yards and grab ones he knows are for one side or the other and either deface the ballot to invalidate a vote or collect a large number from a public mailbox and do the same before sending them on. Although, the biggest problem with mail-ins is that there is no guarantee that an individual cannot be coerced into voting a certain way. No one can see how you mark your ballot in a voting booth, but there's no such assurance in your home. Anyone who has leverage on someone (employer, abusive spouse, parent, etc.) could use that to ensure that everyone in a household votes the way that person wants them to.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @09:27PM
I agree, however, mail tampering is extremely rare for a couple of reasons. One, it's just so not worth it, payoff vs penalty is virtually zero. Two, it's extremely labor intense - even sorting and pitching by probable vote is tough. There are documented cases of it happening this election to a few hundred ballots, but even those were only targeted by neighborhood, not individual.
I was saddened to learn that there are, indeed, some number of truly spineless Americans who will allow themselves to be intimidated into voting one way or another against what might be their better judgement. The first, and worst, I learned of was a poor worker for some fat cat who was belly aching about how if Obama won he was "going to have to close down his business and send all his workers home without even a severance check, the money just wasn't there and he can't pay them from nothing." So, the poor schlub told me he was voting for the other guy, because he just couldn't afford to be out of work. How that logic works I just don't know, extremely short term thinking IMO, but I believed he was sincere. Nevermind that fat cat's business thrived under Obama, he managed to convince at least this guy and his wife to vote against him.
I am sure there are thousands of forms of vote coercion, possibly millions of coerced votes nationwide. I'm not sure how mail-in ballots make it any worse if the coerced voter really believes they want to vote a certain way, they should still be able to do that - take their mail in ballot away from their influencer and fill it out in private - I haven't heard any widespread reports of spousal abuse based on voting disagreements. And, I suppose - like the electoral college itself - if you run the castle of your home as a tight political dictatorship, perhaps then you wield the mighty power of the ballot for all of the registered voters you influence. It may be illegal, but plenty of illegal things go on behind closed doors in abusive relationships. The answer isn't banning mail in voting, the answer is in providing security for people who are in abusive relationships whether domestically or working for a poverty wage.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:26PM (1 child)
I always voted in person, if I voted, until this November.
The biggest thing I like about mail-in ballots is that they give me the time to research candidates, particularly local small races, online before casting a vote - make a more informed choice rather than one that's biased mostly by the party, gender and ethnicity of the name on the paper.
Direct vote buying, like hand me your ballot and I'll fill it in and mail it for you? Or, let me watch you fill in your ballot and mail it otherwise I'll fire you from your crappy $9/hr job? I feel like that would be a huge story, and all over the press if it actually happened.
I had a company attempt to get me to sign a gag agreement after they laid me (and everybody else) off the week before Christmas 2012. I asked what would happen if I signed or didn't sign? Oh, nothing, our investors just want all "employees" to sign this - implying: sign this or you don't get re-hired. Not interested in continued abuse, I walked out and feel no compunction whatsoever about telling anybody who will listen all about it. I seriously doubt that any vote buying operation of any size (100 or more voters) would stay secret for even a day before somebody thought they'd rather trade their job for 15 minutes of fame and burn their ex boss in the process.
If you're in that kind of family, it's time to leave home. Also, looking at the kink of the two parties, which party do you think would be more inclined to tell all family members to think for themselves and vote their conscience vs. intimidation to follow suit?
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @10:42PM
"The biggest thing I like about mail-in ballots is that they give me the time to research candidates, particularly local small races, online before casting a vote - make a more informed choice rather than one that's biased mostly by the party, gender and ethnicity of the name on the paper."
Voting in person on election day gives you even more time to research the candidates.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:09PM
Except none of the states where Trump is disputing the results did that [ncsl.org].
And most of the states that did mail out ballots to registered voters have done so for years.
And the ones that did so just for this year's election aren't having their results challenged (except Nevada, which won't make a difference one way or another WRT electoral college votes) at all.
Facts are just damned inconvenient aren't they? Getting in the way of a perfectly good conspiracy theory. The nerve!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @01:36AM (7 children)
Read up on CA. You can register as anyone whose last four of their SSN you have, by mail. You can then vote as them, by mail. They don't have to be a California resident and they don't even have to be alive.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 20 2020, @01:51AM (6 children)
And how many fraudsters have they found who are willing to do this and risk getting caught? Not saying they'd catch them all, but there will be some who get nailed - what's that number?
Back in the '80s the Florida voters registration card I was issued was made on a standard manual typewriter, ink ribbon on thickish paper preprinted with a two color background. I erased my birth year and drew it back in with a mechanical pencil - got me in a fair number of bars back in the day - had to forge it back to the truth to use as a 2nd source of I.D. for a trip to the Bahamas. I'd still feel about 4x as comfortable forging that kind of card (only card you needed to vote at the time) than I would doing anything through the mail, and none of it is worth the risk. You might get away with one or two, but what difference is that really going to make? Run an operation of thousands? they're gonna find you, and again it's still not enough to really make a difference in most elections.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:28AM (5 children)
What risk? There is pretty much zero risk. The Dems in CA wrote the law how it is precisely to make double damned sure of that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:35PM (4 children)
And, yet, nobody fucks with my mail - there's financial information and checks and all kinds of other things in there they could use to steal my identity and wreak all kinds of havoc in my life for potential gain in theirs, virtually zero risk snatching mail out of a roadside box, and how often does that happen outside of fictional movies? It happens, sure, but it's 1/100,000+ rare.
Both sides need to back the fuck down, starting with gerrymandering - Pubs have lost the house for so many years running they might as well just give up and let the districting make some sense again. But concede isn't in the vocabulary, is it?
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:34PM (3 children)
I'm not talking about snatching mail. I'm talking about registering fraudulent voters at PO boxes, checking those PO boxes exactly once to get the ballots, and disappearing without a trace until the next election. It's dirt simple to do for CA, for example.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 22 2020, @04:52PM (2 children)
Are you in CA? For the good of the nation, faith in our election system, etc. I suggest you do what I outlined above: find a politically/elections oriented lawyer, engage with him and several judges to "test the system" and do just what you proposed - attempt to register 100 fraudulent voters at PO boxes and get the ballots for the 2022 congressional elections. Don't mail them in to vote them, just obtain the ballots and have the lawyer document the process and show how you have done it. See if you can avoid getting caught until January 4 2023 when the congresscritters who would have been affected by your fraudulent ballots are seated in office. Maybe an even better test of the system would be to vote for the darkest horse on the ticket, just to show you can really get away with it.
Seems to me that if it were do-able, even just in CA, with a population of 40 million there should be more than one "investigative journalist" who would have blown the lid off this thing with solid evidence BEFORE steal-gate hit Trump in the face.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 23 2020, @12:22PM (1 child)
What's an investigative journalist?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 23 2020, @06:58PM
A dying breed of people who go find out actual shit, document it to a reasonable level of proof, and publish it for fame and prizes. Much easier to listen to your audience, echo back what they want to hear and collect advertising revenue: capitalism triumphing again.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Insightful) by slinches on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:16PM (20 children)
My confidence in the election process is far lower than ever.
The way the voting system is set up it is exceptionally difficult to prove fraud. Combine that with people who are actively working to obscure any fraud that falls in their favor and how would you expect it to be found? On top of that, there are legal methods of vote manipulation like redistricting and getting 3rd parties on/off of ballots strategically. And everything that has gone on in the courts, exposing some of the count practices has shown we haven't learned anything from the 2000 debacle. Sure there are no hanging chads this time, but the lack of transparency with the electronic voting machines more than makes up for that.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:43PM (17 children)
Really? Fake people registered to vote, how is that hard to prove?
Person votes twice - how many times has that been shown? It would be very hard to refute if you have done it.
Person has their vote "stolen" by somebody else intercepting their ballot in the mail before they get it and votes under their name, how many complaints of this happening have been shown as even slightly credible?
Ballot intercepted in the mail-in process and changed - would leave physical evidence, or be costly/labor intensive to make the change indetectable, and some percentage would be detected. How many of these?
Poll workers stuffing ballot boxes, maybe in a "solid color" county - but independent observers have been unable to produce a single shred of evidence of this.
I have no doubt that small numbers of all of the above have happened, but nothing approaching even 0.01% of the total vote. If it were large scale (over 1000 votes) there would be at least 1% of cases where people slipped up enough to get caught with at least semi-credible proof.
The main type of election influence/fraud I have seen reported is mass dumping of ballots, particularly from areas where the votes are expected to be biased one way or the other. This has been reported a few times on mail carriers, and a couple of counties "accidentally" forgot to add batches of votes to their totals, though these are getting exposed (proven) in the recounts, and still don't amount to 0.01% influence of the total vote.
Voter suppression tactics, up through and including sabotage of the mail system, would seem to have more influence. Gerrymandering definitely has more influence, but I suppose those are legal and therefore should be quietly submitted to?
As I said elsewhere - in 2000 it felt like dirty pool probably made the difference and got Bush in, but the result was very close to a tie. 2020 doesn't feel anywhere near tie territory, and the small quantities of dirty pool that has been exposed so far would seem to be biased mostly in Trump's favor. I certainly have faith that they would come forth with any hard evidence they have, but so far 70 million supporters don't seem to have anything solid at all.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Insightful) by slinches on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:00PM (3 children)
Exceptionally hard to prove unless you do complete audits of the voter registration lists before every election.
People who vote more than once don't use their own name the second time.
How would you know if it's credible or not? You would have to prove a negative (having not received a ballot) to have a strong case. Either that or the voter would have to make a formal complaint and the person committing the fraud would have to simultaneously make a really dumb mistake like signing the wrong name on the envelope. If any of these cases are provable, it would imply a large number of attempts were made successfully.
Do you know the rules for observers and what they are really allowed to see? In PA, that they are in the same room where the count is happening (regardless of whether they are close enough to see anything) is sufficient to satisfy the requirements per the state supreme court. Many other states have similar issues and even when the observers observe something, it isn't acted upon.
Of course not. We should put a stop to manipulation of voting districts, but that's not the only legal way to subvert an election. There was an openly stated objective by the Democratic party to get Green party candidates off the ballots in swing states. That appears to have had a significant influence in the outcomes there and shouldn't have been legal either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @01:34AM
In my state of residence (New Mexico), voter registration lists are available at any time for a fee. Presumably you can "audit" as much as you like, any time you like.
I'm pretty sure that if I requested a ballot and did not get it, I would know in pretty short order. How many times has this actually happened?
Could you quantify "significant influence"? Do you know of any instance in which this was likely to have affected the outcome of the election?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 20 2020, @02:04AM (1 child)
Financial processing software code monkeys don't really know what an audit is, do they? Complete audit is an oxymoron. An audit is a representative sampling of a much larger population, enough to find significant problems. 2 million registered voters in Orange County, CA? A proper audit sample of 2,000 should be enough to detect any significant fraud.
Apparently that depends on which candidate they believe in: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/10/29/trump-supporter-charged-with-voting-twice-in-iowa/ [washingtonpost.com] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/us/politics/trump-people-vote-twice.html [nytimes.com] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election/georgia-voter-fraud-jail-time-mail-ballot-trump-b420755.html [independent.co.uk]
Bullshit. My ballot goes missing, then turns up in the tracker as counted when I didn't get it? Channel 10 news here I come, and a squad of auditors checks the signature, postmark, delivery address, payment method used for the P.O. Box (if the fraudster is even that bright), security footage from the post office boxes, etc. And even if the perp gets away, that shit is all over the world news.
So with the Trump brigade in the room you're suggesting that the poll workers are pulling fake ballots out of their asses to stuff the boxes with? or what exactly?
So, dirty pool is only allowed on one side of the aisle? Openly stated and illegal are very different things, and the Green party candidates - and people who influenced the balloting process - may have decided that in this particular election their own interests were best served by retiring early, you know like the gaggle of Republitard Presidential hopefuls didn't in 2016?
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Insightful) by slinches on Friday November 20 2020, @05:08AM
Who is this response targeted at? I'm not a coder at all really. I may have misused the term, but the idea was there that you need to completely purge the voter rolls of ineligible voters before the election to effectively catch voter fraud. Otherwise, their ballot goes into the pile with the rest and even if you later determine that fraud occurred, you can't take back that vote because you can't prove what the vote was. So, no a sample is not sufficient. The voter registration lists need to contain only legally eligible voters.
Nope, just another non-credible complaint. You must be another one of those Trump supporters trying to undermine confidence in the election. You'd probably even go so far as to file a provisional ballot in an attempt to vote twice.
How about just being more stringent/lenient on the signature checks based on zip code? You're fairly creative. I'm sure you could think of several other ways to influence the count that isn't easily visible from that distance if you thought about it for a minute.
Where did I say it was okay for either side?
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @01:41AM (12 children)
Go volunteer to work a poll next time. See if you can find a way to tell a fraudulent vote from a perfectly legitimate one during the counting phase or the recount phase.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 20 2020, @02:07AM (2 children)
The ballots coming out of the underwear of the observers, they smell fishy to me.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:29AM (1 child)
Man, I dunno what kind of fish you fish for but you need to pick a new species.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:58PM
It has more to do with the age and how it was stored than the species.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 20 2020, @02:22AM (8 children)
That's an excellent suggestion for every single idiot alleging fraud in this election. First: shut up until you put up and learn something about the processes of your actual election authorities. Second: if you think you can "white hat hack" the system with massive fraud, I encourage you to register your intent with a lawyer and several judges in multiple jurisdictions before trying to perpetrate your hack and see how far you get before you are caught.
With anything less than a 30% penetration of the applicable volunteer workforce, I predict exposure and arrest before you pass even 0.1% of the state vote total in any federal level elections. It's a lot like bitcoin - if the system is overwhelmed with corruption, yeah, fraud can happen and go undetected for a short time. Unlike bitcoin, the law allows for capture and arrest after the hack is done.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:34AM (7 children)
Get your reading glasses. I'm not alleging fraud. It's an absolute certainty there was fraud but I have no idea how much. I'm saying our election system is either crafted the way it is to facilitate rather than deter fraud or the motherfuckers in charge of setting it up should be neutered for extraordinary levels of incompetence and fired. Out of a cannon.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:48PM (6 children)
I agree there is fraud, I have a pretty good idea that it's in the noise, far less than 0.1% of the vote totals. The 2000 election might have been decided by the fraud noise in Florida, and that's a shame. What's more of a shame is that there is such a difference in outcome between one choice and the other, I'd much prefer a system like March madness where we downselect multiple rounds to an optimal representative, rather than a single sudden death match between opposing sides. This election is nowhere near as close as 2000. If the trumpettes can't unbunch their panties by January 20th and accept that maybe we will get some more positive motion in election trustworthiness. I do think we have made clear positive progress compared to 20 years ago.
It's not facilitating fraud, it is facilitating access. Same kind of issues as computer security. I think they should work toward increased transparency - which is impossible at some point due to secrecy of the ballot, but maybe my vote can be tallied on one side and my secret hash code can be published on a blockchain where I can check to see that my vote was tallied but nobody else can read what my vote was (except the quantum cryptography lab...) IDK, but trust in the system should be increased wherever possible. You got any brilliant suggestions?
Sure, the beatings will continue until morale improves - that always works so well. Also, jockeying for advantage like sabotage of the postal system, shutdown of polling locations, etc. is negative progress, IMO.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:51PM (5 children)
The problem is, that is entirely a faith-based opinion. There is, by design, no way at all to tell a fraudulent ballot from a real one once they're all in a pile.
No, it's not about access. There is zero excuse for not demanding proof that someone is who they say they are, entitled to vote, and alive before you allow them a vote. And yet Dem states do their dead level best to remove all of the above, ensuring that there is no possible way to verify that a registration was legitimate after the fact.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 22 2020, @04:59PM (4 children)
Taking sides now, the problem with Trump supporters is they have some kind of magical faith that following the unsubstantiated- often clearly false -spew that he Tweets is what they NEED for a better life.
It's time to get your blinders cleaned. Plenty of the actions taken leading up to November 3 2020 were all about restricting access for predominantly DEM voting areas and demographics. These were simple fact based reports of concrete actions undeniably taken, unlike the fairy tale boogeymen of fake voters and ginned up "affidavits" alleging cheating.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 23 2020, @12:29PM (3 children)
You really going to point and say how bad the other guy is when I point out an indisputable problem in your own house? That's bullshit pundit nonsense and you know it. And demanding a photo ID is hardly limiting access. Unless, do you think black folks are somehow incapable of scraping up a few bucks once every several years and standing in a line at the DMV like those fundamentally superior but oppressive white folks?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 23 2020, @07:08PM (2 children)
I don't live in Cali, dude. Florida cleaned house after 2000, we actually have the voting thing pretty well nailed now, IMO.
Having a single location [texastribune.org] for drop boxes in counties with populations in excess of 5 million people, that's limiting access.
Single polling places with long lines open for a single day is limiting access [americanprogress.org].
Demand your photo I.D. to register, verify the fuck out of it - it's not hard with the "gold star" documentation requirements for travel these days. And, then, shut the fuck up about how mail-ins are "a cheat, a steal, a lib-dem-flim-flam and we all know it" without providing any proof of the same.
What's even better than the poor us whining is the lame ass [lawandcrime.com] mockeries of proof [fastcompany.com] that are being submitted, apparently as the best available evidence of fraud in the elections. If this is what you all want to pass for legal proof going forward, let's see how businesses fare when consumers start piling bullshit lawsuits at their doorstep expecting equal treatment in the courts as politicians.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 24 2020, @02:47PM (1 child)
Drop boxes? There shouldn't be drop boxes to begin with. That's just asking for trouble. If for no other reason than you can drop things other than ballots in them. Like, say, half a gallon of black ink or a lit sparkler.
As for long lines, I guess the DMV limits access too then. Yet everyone who actually wants a driver's license or state ID seems to have no problem actually getting one. If you want more polling places, make more polling places. Our town has several when we could get by just fine with only one; they're never even slightly busy except when a family all comes up to vote at the same time. Your town is your business.
You don't need proof of misdeeds to say that misdeeds are not just possible but dead simple and completely unaccountable. By design. And that's what I've been saying. I don't give a rat's ass what Trump and co have been saying, because I don't give a rat's ass about Trump and co. I do give a rat's ass that my vote and yours don't get nullified by a dead, illegal, imaginary felon though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 24 2020, @03:19PM
So there should be no mail-in option whatsoever, because you believe the election workers are an excellent judge of false/true identity and you implicitly trust them to make that call? All the drop box does is cut out the postal service, which has shown itself to be less than 100% reliable in the recent election. Better security for the voters, also much easier to detect if somebody is trying to "stuff" 1000 ballots than if they show up in postal boxes all over town.
Have you ever even been to a polling place? Any polling place I have been to is attended, things going into the drop box are closely observed by poll workers, when there are no attendants, access to the drop box is not available.
Fuck yes it does, and having paid that price with three forms of validated I.D. to get the little gold star on the State issued photo I.D. card, that I.D. card should carry some weight.
We have wanted State IDs for our 17 & 19 year olds since they turned 16, and we don't have them yet. Life, one thing after another, COVID most recently, has conspired to take away our RoundTuits such that State IDs just haven't materialized for them yet. That's with unlimited opportunity for scheduling any day of the year. Even in Florida the voting window is only open for a few weeks per election.
That's not in the control of the people voting, that's in control of the minority elected politicians who are desperately clinging to power any way they can, including limiting access to the polls.
What system of law permits suing for theoretical damages, instead of actual damages? The one in your head?
Just like one side can't get more polling places by saying they need more polling places, the other side shouldn't be able to use imaginary problems to restrict real access.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:48PM (1 child)
What lack of transparency? Almost every state has either paper ballots (whether cast in person or by mail) or a voter-verified paper trail at the polling place.
How much more transparent can you be? Well, I guess the states that *don't* have a paper trail [ballotpedia.org] (all of which went for Trump except New Jersey) could (and should) implement a paper trail.
All this bullshit about "Dominion" software changing votes is ridiculous. Not only are all the states where fraud has been claimed (without actual evidence) all have paper trails and the software is just tabulating the *paper* ballots, which can be (and generally are) audited in pretty much every election gives the lie to this.
What's more, *widespread* voter fraud is exceedingly difficult to do, given the decentralized nature of our election systems. Note that I say systems (plural), as each *county* runs their own elections. That's tens of thousands of people from *all* parties that are on the 3000+ (3,141 to be exact -- one for each county) *different* ballots across the nation looking at the ballots while they are cast and counted -- in the counties where they are cast.
And the counting process is similarly diverse across those 3000+ counties.
Sure. There are always a few instances of voter fraud in every election. But nowhere near enough to actually affect the outcome. The Heritage Foundation's Voter Fraud database [heritage.org] bears this out too.
Over the past *20 years* there have been hundreds of documented cases of voter fraud. Which might seem like a lot, but remember there are usually ~140-160 *million* votes cast in presidential election years and ~80-100 million in non-presidential election years. That's hundreds of cases of fraud vs. more than a *billion* (with a 'b') votes.
And the Heritage Foundation isn't exactly carrying water for the Democratic Party.
So who are you going to believe? Trump and his enablers or your lying eyes?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:52PM
Rule #1
Any flimsy accusation made by a Republican is projection. They are cheating so they accuse their opponents to try and keep the focus off of themselves.
Is slinches a shill? Or just a victim of the propaganda?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:16PM (3 children)
You're brainwashed if you don't think they can switch 100's of thousands of votes with the machines, or add them with fraudulent mail in ballots. If you think the scum that support Biden and that disgusting Camel aren't perfectly willing to cheat, you're stupid. If you think blacks counting votes are to be trusted, you're retarded. Those stupid motherfuckers think their dumb, useless sons should be able to rob your house without getting in trouble or shot for it, b/c of slavery and "racism". They think stealing anything from Whitey is just reparations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:29PM (2 children)
You have become dangerously unhinged.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @07:15PM (1 child)
Go look at the Ahmaud Arbery case. They are protesting in the streets like he's an innocent. Also, i was told first hand by blacks that kick-dooring, tying and pistol whipping old, "rich" white people is OK, b/c of slavery. Of course, not all blacks think this way, but the number is much higher than gullible, brainwashed Whitey realizes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 21 2020, @08:40AM
People say a lot of stuff, now how many old rich white guys do you know that have been victims of home invasion and assault?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday November 19 2020, @10:00PM (4 children)
and if there were evidence, serious evidence of fraud, would you put Giuliani (sp?) in charge of your court cases?
Man...i'd get someone GOOD!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 19 2020, @10:12PM (1 child)
Goolyanny ain't good for you? You got someone better maybe?
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday November 19 2020, @10:55PM
Teh poo i just had. ;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @12:17PM (1 child)
He did. They got immediately doxed, threatened, and pressured away from the case courtesy of the "Lincoln Project".
This is a major problem that people are ignoring because they like the outcome. The increasingly organized nature of groups working to intimidate and harm those who do not toe their political line is what will increasingly give way to fascism. And once you reach a certain point of inertia, it becomes impossible to turn back the clock.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday November 20 2020, @01:07PM
Wait, wait, wait.... Lawyers, yeah? Lawyers who are threatened and back down instead of fighting back and SUING? They are being threatened and intimidated and THEY BACKED DOWN? Really? They don't just take people to court and sue anymore?
Are they suing? Why would they back down if Trump's case was credible? Wow. Not very good lawyers.... about as good as my poo.
AND, you can seriously look at the harm Trump is doing and condone it? Seriously... a guy who has peaceful protesters pepper-sprayed JUST FOR A PHOTO OP isn't a Fascist?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---