I'm not a fan of Trump, and I think most of the election claims are frivolous, but I do think the closed-source nature of the voting systems and centralized nature used to collect vote counts is alarming. I think it is a case of one side that had the power to bring transparency to the voting process is crying foul, while the other side is using every opportunity to say look... this non-transparent voting process is totally secure. In either case, the people end up being fools for allowing democracy to be ran by crooks on both sides always pointing fingers in the opposite direction.
The pandemic is an exercise in trading rights for lives. More rights leads to more deaths and vice versa. You can make a case that society should choose any particular point on that spectrum but the spectrum exists regardless.
Because voter ids were used in the past for discriminatory reasons. Requiring vaccines to not wear a mask in a store is a huge false equivalency and typical of right wing rhetoric.
the same way we mandate almost anything. by trusting that the vast majority of people are sane and rational and will follow the law. most petty laws have a very, very minimal chance of getting caught if broken.
Why does that matter? There are lots of stores that require ids to enter. Comparing stores wanting to see your id or vaccination card to the government not letting you vote is a false equivalency as has been said.
It's also discriminatory to require vaccinations to be a free member of society. Just like minorities are more likely to not have access to IDs to vote, minorities are also less likely to be vaccinated, statistically.
Here’s just one way: One inconvenience is designed to solve a statistically-proven massively widespread problem (community spread of COVID) whereas the other inconvenience is promised to solve a problem the statistics show is nearly non-existent.
AND statistically targets voters which happen to vote more often a specific party. Not surprisingly, it's not the party that wants to make it harder to vote.
Except total votes don't matter much in our presidential system. Trump got the 2nd most and he lost...
It comes down to a few ten thousands (or less) in critical swing states.
There's a compelling statistical argument to be made that states like Georgia, or maybe perhaps even bigger margin in FL, might have gone another way without laws & regulations to make it harder to vote and cast a ballot by mail.
You have to register to vote and link your vote to your registration.
The vaccine-card equivalent of Republican Voter ID requirements would be mandating that everyone present a vaccine card before being allowed to vote with the intent of discouraging eligible Republican voters.
The equivalent of present-day pollbooth security in vaccine-card form would be requiring people to associate themselves with an official vaccine record before shopping / working / etc. You wouldn't have to present an ID on the spot, but the records would be checked to look for two people claiming the same vaccination record, someone trying to claim a record that didn't exist, etc. Discrepancies would be investigated and if you were found to have fraudulently represented your vaccination status you'd be in trouble.
Well, in one case, we work very hard to try to get everyone vaccinated driving vans around with shots and doing everything we can to get shots in arms (and is free). In another case we have no problem telling people that the ID office within 100 miles is open the 5th Wednesday of months that have a 5th Wednesday (and is a "nominal" fee). Because in one case society benefits from everyone getting shots and in the other case the decision makers benefit from not everyone getting an ID.
That is to say, one major difference is the availability of the papers.
"Precisely - "whataboutism" is a word used by people who want to impose standards on others that they themselves refuse to abide by. That word is invoked the minute someone points out that they do exactly that which they want to condemn others for doing:
Put another way, the word "whataboutism" is the shield which hypocrites use against anyone who points out that they themselves do that which they pretend to oppose.
The word is intended to render hypocrisy irrelevant and inquiries about consistently inherently illegitimate."
Requiring proof of immunization, no less, which requires an ID to receive... but there is very little pushback against that requirement and the majority want to eagerly enforce this requirement.
I'll have to wait till the next election cycle to see how this is tortured. You need a proof of immunization [for work, for benefits, etc.,] but you don't need an ID to vote because... asking for IDs disenfranchises. but denying people work is not disenfranchisement.
>Requiring proof of immunization, no less, which requires an ID to receive
I don't think this is true? The mass vaccination center that I went to didn't ask for any form of ID at all.
>You need a proof of immunization, but you don't need an ID to vote. (though in reality, the immunization requirement would likely be illegal given we don't require proof of any other immunization prior to voting.)
I'm confused, no one is proposing proof of immunization for voting.
I had to present proof of who I was when I received my shot. My immunization card has my name corresponding to my ID.
>"I'm confused, no one is proposing proof of immunization for voting."
My point is that on the one hand requiring an immunization card which requires an ID is okay, but requiring an ID for voting is not okay. Proof of immunization is being required for more and more things which potentially would disenfranchise lots of people.
People are having their private and public sector jobs jeopardized when they hesitate to immunize. At present, though not historically, the most hesitant are the highly educated class...
"Those with professional degrees (e.g., JD, MBA) and PhDs were the only education groups without a decrease in hesitancy, and by May, those with PhDs had the highest hesitancy. To our knowledge, no other study has evaluated education with this level of granularity, which was possible due to our unusually large sample size (>10,000 participants
with PhDs). Further investigation into hesitancy among those with a PhD is warranted."
It feels like a stretch to say that study shows "the most hesitant are the highly educated class." In the table, people with a college degree, masters, or JD are all less vaccine-hesitant than the population average. Only PhDs are the outlier.
Would be nice if we had privacy secure digital passports. Just like the film contagion.
If a private bakery can refuse to bake a cake for a gay marriage than Carnival Cruises or whoever should be able to deny access to those actively endangering the lives of their customers.
> If a private bakery can refuse to bake a cake for a gay marriage
The latest is that the refusal means a fine.
"On June 15, 2021, Denver District Judge A. Bruce Jones ruled that Phillips had violated Colorado's anti-discrimination law by refusing to bake a cake for Scardina and ordered him to pay a fine of $500"
Thanks interesting!! I'm sure it's getting appealed we'll see where it lands.
Seems like that's the standard way to get outcomes especially the Fed Govt in particular gets a lot of their power from the purse. Get health insurance tax deduction or fine.
Example of upcoming reconciliation we can't pass actual clean energy regulations with the (arbitrary 50+1 can overturn) rules & because Republicans won't support it. it has to be fines and incentives.
Who cares who you are. I care that you’ve only voted once. Dipping your finger in ink solves that and prevents any gamesmanship around “qualifying ID”.
In my state, you go to the circuit clerk, fill out a paper with your name and address, then receive your card in the mail. The receiving the card in the mail is the verification. No ID was necessary for me to register or vote. Seems like this could be gamed fairly easily.
How do non-citizens vote? Have you ever voted in your life? Because it sounds like you haven't. You know, when you go to the polling station and identify yourself on the electoral roll, they check off your name, and you get given exactly 1 ballot to cast?
What would you do if you turned up, your name was already checked off, but you hadn't voted? What do you think happens then?
The same illegal immigrants that don't report getting raped because of being afraid of the cops and getting deported are going to risk felony voting to change one vote? BS.
I think this is the exact opposite point to make for these believers above.
BUT I think it's a worthy policy debate. I could see myself being in favor of allowing long term residents the vote given how impossible it is to get citizenship (or hell even permanent status).
maybe then the point should be fixing our immigration system and naturalizing the huge backlog we have.
as is, millions are already being taxed but not represented and they are subject to the laws they don't get a voice in crafting.
While it’s an interesting conversation, it’s not my argument. My point is that merely asking for some verification of residency (name, address) plus a verification that you have not yet voted (dip your finger in the ink pot) reduces a lot of attacks on our election integrity (including voter suppression and disenfranchisement). I am also in favor of holding all elections on weekend and making them federal holidays.
My general gut instinct on this stuff is that we could have simple, safe elections, but we would need to be patient in receiving results, commit to competitive redistricting, and reduce political party influence over the details as they will always attempt to game them towards their preferred status quo.
We do already verify residency (voter registration) and check you haven't voted twice.
There are usually a few double voting cases. I think I remember a case of TX going after maybe i remember a young college student hard. it was on Vice News but I can't find it.
They verify the person with that name/address hasn’t voted twice, the ink assures the person standing in front of them hasn’t voted twice. Is it necessary? Probably not, but it would be an extra layer of security (and reinforce public trust in the process).
“Privileges” aren’t a legal concept. You have the right to bear arms in the US, but that doesn’t mean the government will send everyone a gun in the mail.
Working, commerce, and social behaviors are all protected in US law to varying degrees.
>“Privileges” aren’t a legal concept. You have the right to bear arms in the US, but that doesn’t mean the government will send everyone a gun in the mail.
"A privilege is a certain entitlement to immunity granted by the state or another authority to a restricted group, either by birth or on a conditional basis. Land-titles and taxi medallions are pronounced examples of transferable privilege. These can be revoked in certain circumstances. In modern democratic states, a privilege is conditional and granted only after birth.
By contrast, a right is an inherent, irrevocable entitlement held by all citizens or all human beings from the moment of birth."
>Working, commerce, and social behaviors are all protected in US law to varying degrees.
But you said "rights under the constitution."
The constitution guarantees you the right to own and carry a gun. Not to employment, food, clothing, shelter, or the ability to participate in society. The latter are all conditional, dependent upon the market or the will of the state.
The constitution doesn't even guarantee a right to vote (obviously the framers didn't believe such a right should be universal) which is why felons can lose their voting rights. There are amendments like the 15th and 19th amendments which prevent voting discrimination, but an inalienable right to vote doesn't exist in the constitution.
> Not to employment, food, clothing, shelter, or the ability to participate in society.
The Supreme Court doesn’t agree with you.
Rights need not be provided to you for free. You have the right to buy a gun, or an abortion, or a political ad, or a wedding cake - but you’ll have to buy them.
There are dozens. Right to privacy is one example. It’s not in the constitution but supported by the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the law. These decisions build on each other. For example, the right to an abortion is built on the right to privacy.
And it's also been upheld that private businesses have a lot of power in deciding how/who they allow shopping, hiring or workers, and participating in society.
Religious and 1st amendment leeway to discriminate goes both ways.
What good is a paper audit when the ballots can be mixed with boxes of “mail-in votes” that ultimately get separated from their envelopes, breaking their chain of provenance? You can keep counting them, and the count will match each time, but can you verify that each ballot you’re counting originated from exactly one registered voter?
If you think this is evidence of a secure election, I have an unpickable lock to sell you. Anyone repeating the talking point that this was “the most secure election ever” sounds like a partisan hypocrite, especially when you can find videos of Democratic Congress members warning about the security of elections as recently as in 2017.
Or, maybe it’s a coincidence that polls asking questions about election security – an objectively non-partisan topic – find a distribution of opinions weirdly aligned with support for the red or blue team.
Mail-in ballots must be separated from their envelopes. This is the only accepted way to achieve a secret ballot, which is required by constitution or law in most US elections. That is, losing the provenance of the ballot is the point of the voting process.
Zero-knowledge proofs and Monero have so far proven effective. It is odd how on a tech forum, when you bring up utilizing technology for voting that you are suddenly downvoted.
Let’s say your state makes you vote in person. You’re handed a ballot and fraudulently vote multiple times, undetected by the busy poll workers. But, your multiple votes are detected later when the roll is scanned. The box containing your ballot is numbered, and workers need to manually find and remove your fraud.
Mail-in ballots are no different. A limited, known number are printed. The system prioritizes in-person ballots in case the mailed one is filled out under pressure. Some states forbid unique ballot tracking, using theoretically non-unique identifiers.
Unfortunately there are currently ten states using voting machines without a voter verifiable paper trail (VVPT/VVPAT) in at least some jurisdictions. These numbers are dwindling over time as machines without VVPT are no longer being purchased on a meaningful scale, but most states can afford to replace their equipment only very infrequently. Over the next decade or so most of the non-VVPT machines should hopefully go out of service, this is a policy requirement in some of these states.
Note that the map colors DRE w/ voter verifiable paper audit trail as (lightish) red. That's consistent with the prevailing opinion today that DRE w/ VVPAT is inferior to paper ballots with precinct tabulation (because voters do not necessarily actually examine the VVPAT), but does tend to make the current situation look worse than it is due to Nevada.
> After the canvass has been completed, the officer in charge of elections shall deposit the package or envelope containing the ballots in a secure facility managed by the county treasurer, who shall keep it unopened and unaltered for twenty-four months for elections for a federal office or for six months for all other elections, at which time he shall destroy it without opening or examining the contents.
> The officer in charge of elections shall ensure that electronic data from and electronic or digital images of ballots are protected from physical and electronic access, including unauthorized copying or transfer, and that all security measures are at least as protective as those prescribed for paper ballots.
> Aren't the ballots all counted by hand and then cross checked with the machines anyways?
I believe some states completely hand recounted the entire millions of receipts from the machines this year (in response to the allegations of voter fraud). However, it shouldn't be necessary to exhaustively recount the entire race. We should be able to use random sampling to statistically verify that the race is not fixed.
Sure. I mean, a clever enough fix is unavoidable. Like, suppose I swapped out all the machinery with duplicates that had different vote counts but matching ballots. If a back room was cranking them out in parallel, the total votes cast and even timestamps (if there are any) would match.
But we can set the confidence we want and test enough ballots to get there. In this past election, some states decided it was "100% sure to this kind of detectable attack" and they hand counted every ballot.
I was with you until this somehow turned into "both sides are equally bad". We should absolutely push for greater transparency and verifiability into the internals of such critical infrastructure.
The fact that one side has not prioritized this isn't similar to the other side's repeated attempts to overthrow our government.
Wait, which side are you talking about? Is it the same side that’s been pushing election security bills with the most basic attempts to improve security of elections?
We don’t even need security – we need confidence. And this recent idea that it takes weeks to count votes, that we might not know the results for weeks – is completely unacceptable and is already doing irreparable damage to people’s faith in elections.
It's recent because of the huge amount of write in ballots. Usually the winner is called the night of because they* just ignore the mail in numbers, even in battleground states. This year, there were too many (and they were too different a population from the in person ballots) to do that.
* "They" meaning the news media. The official vote took longer and counted the mail in ballots
> this recent idea that it takes weeks to count votes, that we might not know the results for weeks – is completely unacceptable
Why on earth would that be? The "counting period" was originally set at 5 weeks. Between laws saying that you cannot start counting mail in ballots before the close of polls on election day, laws that (rightly) limit how many hours that can be spent counting ballots, etc. I'm not sure how to square that with instant results.
Maybe we just be patient counting the scores in a contest that takes 18 months to run?
You want to trust democracy to OCR? Heck, there are lawsuits where humans disagree.
But, even if you ignore that two individuals (or three) representing all the candidates each count by hand a stack of ten, have to agree, sign off that they agree, etc. I think you underestimate other problems. You're focused on the counting.
Just consider how long it takes to open the outer envelope, check the signature on the inner envelope (again, by multiple people who represent different campaigns), and physically remove and unfold that sheet of paper. Now multiply by several million. Add in some extra time for managing stack of ten ballots.
Or, to put it another way, we don't vote with a phone app. We are willing to pay extra for security.
Addition is fast. Opening ballots, verifying signatures, checking voter is legit, and then marking it all down takes time. Especially when bound by law to not open envelopes until 7pm eday.
On another thread here, someone was explaining to me that mail-in ballots are separated from their provenance by design. So what exactly are these election workers spending hours doing to “verify signatures” and “check voter is legit?”
That information is on the outside of the envelope and is verified before the envelope is opened. In some states, the ballot is inside another envelope that is opened after the voter info is separated from the ballot.
Well, you have to physically open up the envelope to pull ballots out. You have to look up the purported voter in the registration database. Check--does it exist? Does the signature match? Did the voter already cast a ballot? Get second opinions on this data for auditability purposes. And when all that's done, now you can put it in the machine. Except maybe the machine doesn't like the ballot because the ballot had to be folded to go through the postal system, so now you have to spend time flattening out the paper to get the machine to accept it.
Let's say it takes a minute to process a single ballot. That means a single poll worker can go through a couple hundred ballots--500 is a nice round number-- a day. And all of this is going to be processed generally at a centralized facility at county level, and because of the pandemic, you might have 500,000 of those to get through. Even with 100 workers working those ballots, that's still going to take 10 days to get through everything.
Is this a joke? The side that was chasing after nonsense like Italian satellites, bamboo fibers, etc and firing AGs that wouldn't play ball is the side that is seeking to instill confidence?! Its a good thing that side has now been busy changing laws to allow themselves to overrule election results, I know that instills confidence in me.
I can point to examples of clowns on the blue team too. This logical fallacy of “crazy by association” seems to be an increasingly popular trend in online political discussion. I wonder how many people simply choose not to engage.
Trump is the leader of your party. He is the one that had Meadows send Italian satellites to DOJ and all the other nonsense. He is the one that axed Barr after Barr said there was no evidence to support the crazy that Trump was spewing. He's the one purging people from your party that speak out against this insanity.
Your other whataboutisms are weak sauce compared with this. In particular the Cuomo one is not good for you, he's out, while your party continues to embrace the p**y grabber that has a higher harassment allegation count.
As do the parade of GOP officials and wannabes that have made the trek to Mar-a-lago to kiss the ring. As do the many state GOP parties that are expelling anyone not sufficiently loyal and conducting crazy "audits" to show fealty to Trump's election lies.
> the other side's repeated attempts to overthrow our government.
Are you talking about Russia or the Federalist Society SCOTUS picks or the rioters who were let in by the few security guards remaining after the Capitol security was lowered or the Big Tech services that should be declared as political donations but aren't?
* USPS sabotage and state-level voter suppression measures in urban areas leading up to the 2020 election
* Post-election soft coup attempt via the courts (including having broken precedent to rush a SCOTUS appointment during the election, which could have changed the outcome of the coup attempt in a different timeline)
> * USPS sabotage and state-level voter suppression measures in urban areas leading up to the 2020 election
This is implying that default mail-in voting was a way to get Democrats elected in the first place. (which it was given how mail-in voting was the source of the Democrats advance when they arrived)
> Post-election soft coup attempt via the courts
Challenging elections integrity in the courts are what insure the process is transparent and followed in the first place. This makes no sense by definition. Just because a SCOTUS nominee was nominated just before doesn't change anything and is still entirely within the Constitution. Because Democrats got unlucky on the retirement / death draw during this presidency doesn't mean a "coup". And by the way, it happened before.
> 1/6
Not a coup by any stretch of the imagination (no weapons) and barely a riot given the lack of destruction and violence. Also why leave out how security was reduced, that the FBI had informants and that Trump even proposed to increase security?
> Ongoing propagation of the "big lie"
I get it that you are not familiar with Bush v. Gore and how it was the big rig for years?
It's easy to pick a random clown in a camp and then zoom 1000x to paint a bad picture:
"The cards, featuring a seven-point plan, appear to have been made by a group called Patriots Soar, which is not connected to the organisers of CPAC"
> alongside continuing implementation of state-level voter suppression measures and gerrymandering
Gerrymandering happens in blue districts too by the way, can can only do so much (elections results still mostly 50/50 percentage wise). And the "voter suppression" are a joke when you read the details of them since the measures being implemented are the same that are found in Canada (showing ID with proof of your address, registering to vote, having a reason to vote by mail, which used to be a Democrat talking point during the Bush/Obama years by the way).
I get it that you are not familiar with Bush v. Gore
Yup, this is the first I've heard of George Bush and Al Gore. Thanks for letting me know about them.
It's easy to pick a random clown in a camp and then zoom 1000x to paint a bad picture
Sure. I agree with that. I'm not claiming that this is the official platform of the GOP, simply that it's a radical and dangerous element of society that Trump and his wing of the party are actively cultivating by continuing to promote lies.
And the "voter suppression" are a joke
Sure. They didn't work in the end, but they made it a lot closer than it would have been. The new ones may work or they may not, but we shouldn't tolerate any voter suppression in America.
showing ID with proof of your address
No one is opposed to requiring an ID to vote. The For the People Act included a voter ID provision, with alternative documents such as utility bills allowable as a fallback.
If you want to require IDs without that fallback, how about we make federal voting IDs available to everyone in the country at no cost and with minimal hassle or time investment? If the intent isn't voter suppression, this should be perfectly agreeable.
> This is implying that default mail-in voting was a way to get Democrats elected in the first place.
> No it isn't. Don't be obtuse.
Do you have more to say than "don't be obtuse"? Because it was well known that Democrats were more likely to use mail-in voting from the beginning as various polls showed and how the vote turned out Democrats as more and more mail-in votes were counted.
> Filing dozens of frivolous lawsuits and aggressively pressuring state government officials to help overturn election results isn't normal.
"Frivolous" is your opinion, not the one of the courts. And by the way multiple cases have been thrown out during Bush v. Gore, were they "frivolous" too?
> Democrats got unlucky on the retirement / death draw
"Many of the weapons allegedly used in the riot are considered "less lethal" but are dangerous and can even be fatal, according to experts."
Again, nothing lethal enough to start an "insurrection" against armed guards.
> I get it that you are not familiar with Bush v. Gore
> Yup, this is the first I've heard of George Bush and Al Gore. Thanks for letting me know about them.
So you you know that challenging elections results and irregularities in the courts are part of the electoral process then.
> It's easy to pick a random clown in a camp and then zoom 1000x to paint a bad picture
> Sure. I agree with that. I'm not claiming that this is the official platform of the GOP, simply that it's a radical and dangerous element of society that Trump and his wing of the party are actively cultivating by continuing to promote lies.
Trump never said things that are outside of what are heard at political rallies. Things like "fighting" for a cause and "walking on X building" are fairly common.
> No one is opposed to requiring an ID to vote.
This is not true. Democrats and various pressure group have opposed it for decades now:
> The For the People Act included a voter ID provision, with alternative documents such as utility bills allowable as a fallback.
Bills are not id, they're proof of address. In Canada for example (and in most other liberal democracies), we have to show an id with a picture and a proof of address (the election card or a hydro bill if it's missing).
> No one is opposed to requiring an ID to vote. The For the People Act included a voter ID provision, with alternative documents such as utility bills allowable as a fallback.
> If you want to require IDs without that fallback, how about we make federal voting IDs available to everyone in the country at no cost and with minimal hassle or time investment? If the intent isn't voter suppression, this should be perfectly agreeable.
I'm sure this would get bi-partisan support, especially amongst the moderates. Social securi...
You do realize, both sides are claiming the other is trying to overthrow the government, right?
Both have, in my view, reasonable arguments on why they feel that way.
Try to zoom out and look at your comment from the 3rd person view. The right believes the left stole an election (coup), they believe they have evidence to prove it. The left saw Jan 6 on the corporate news and believes they have the evidence to prove Trump attempted to seize government.
Note, none of the people charged for Jan 6 was for sedition. So the evidence really isn't there either.
If you take a step back and try to see both perspectives, perhaps it's possible to relate again.
Sure both sides are claiming it, but only one side is correct.
On the right, we have:
* USPS sabotage and state-level voter suppression measures in urban areas leading up to the 2020 election
* Post-election soft coup attempt via the courts (including having broken precedent to rush a SCOTUS appointment during the election, which could have changed the outcome of the coup attempt in a different timeline)
* Failed to advocate for open source voting systems (which isn't a widely known or politically relevant issue on either side at present)
* Pushed for stronger voting rights and increased voter participation — both uncontroversially positive properties of a democracy, but also happen to benefit the Democratic Party at the current moment
* Proposed measures in the For the People Act that were arguably overly ambitious or aggressive in the current political environment, such as stricter campaign finance regulations, which were promptly renegotiated within their own party ranks
To frame these as comparable is borderline gaslighting.
It’s frankly exhausting to have discussions when both sides live in their own worlds. You sound arrogant, “only one side is correct and it’s my side”
Every day I switch between msnbc, nbc, warroom.org, breaking points, Ben Shapiro and Tim pool. Probably ~6-8hrs a day I listen to content at double speed (while doing other stuff).
Every single one has their own take, but just to get you up-to-date with what the right believes:
* BLM and Antifa caused billions in damages. Harassing or attacking everyone who disagreed with ideology (they were coming to senators homes)
It’s frankly exhausting to have discussions when both sides live in their own worlds.
It is indeed.
You sound arrogant, “only one side is correct and it’s my side”
I have very little patience for dishonesty. If that makes me seem "arrogant" to peddlers of disinformation, so be it.
BLM and Antifa caused billions in damages
Sure. That was terrible and uncalled for. Lots of bad ideas and movements come from the grassroots left, like "Defund the Police" and "All Cops are Bastards". I don't recall this being sanctioned or incited by Joe Biden or the Democratic Party, and it wasn't a coup d'etat.
in some places this is leading to the reintroduction of segregation
I didn't see where your source made a connection between these events. Either way, if you think that a racist principal imposing segregation in their school somehow vindicates right-wing insurrectionists, I don't know what to tell you.
FBI spied on trump on Clinton and Obama’s behalf. Utilizing a known fabricated document
This is an article about two British citizens independently making a decision to attempt to influence our election in a small way. I find that objectionable for the same reason as Russia's larger-scale election interference, but I don't see how it relates to the conspiracy theory of Obama spying on Trump.
election laws were changed last minute, broken among other things to effect a coup and they brag about it
Can you be more specific? All I'm seeing from an initial pass is that an effort was made to respond to right-wing voter suppression efforts and disinformation leading up to the election.
more people voted in 2020 than were registered in 2016 or 2018. With a 93% then out rate.
That was pretty cool. I'm not sure what you're suggesting it has to do with right-wing beliefs.
here’s a couple video explaining some of their concerns about the election
Sure, I'm aware that Trump and his allies claim to have concerns. That's what we're discussing here. Do you have more specific points and sources that aren't videos?
Timely reminder that voting machines are largely manufactured by entities that aren't very well known for their security practices and that these machines have had exploits pointed out in them many times, including at Defcon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsLgWinw3Fs
It boggles my mind as to why there is no, at least that I am aware of, FOSS solution that tackles this problem. Closed source non audited voting software makes no sense to anyone not getting income from selling "election solutions".
I worked on blockchain based voting system way back in 2013 for a year before coming to the same conclusion.
Blockchain considers secure private key management outside of its threat model which is crazy when you think about it.
The best argument I think I could make in favour of using paper over any electronic voting system is the scalability of an attack.
Generally speaking changing one vote in an electronic system is just as easy as changing a million. Scaling a physical attack against paper ballots is much harder and actually increases the likelihood of getting caught.
Also for blockchain in particular. It solves no problem existing mixed trust voting systems already solve more efficiently.
The revised version of Ron Rivest's ThreeBallot[0][1][2] has always felt like a decent, albeit complex, solution to me.
It's clear, relatively secure, auditable, verifiable, and somewhat anonymous.
For those unfamiliar:
> The idea is that you xor together 3 ballots when you vote, but one of the three ballots is published.[3]
> The trick to the 3-ballot voting protocol is that not everyone can validate their vote. However, when a group of voters band together, they should be able to validate that a subset of their votes (1/3) were registered with high probability.
> ...
> With a sufficiently large group of voters checking results, the law of large numbers comes into play and they can statistically detect the presence of voting fraud.[4]
You would still need to trust that the poll worker is tabulating correctly and working randomly, though that's an assumption that we're already making as it is.
Scantegrity[5], Prêt à Voter[6], Helios[7], and Punchscan[8] also seem promising, though I'm not as familiar with them.
There is now: https://www.voting.works/ Their system has been used in real elections in Mississippi, and they’re actively working to expand to other states.
This seems maybe relevant, it's from DefCon this year, streamed just a few days ago. On the other hand, it's not until ~8:15 that he starts talking about voting system vendors. Everything before that is general background on vulnerability disclosure programs, etc.
At 11:30 he starts to actually talk about which vendors have VDPs.
Eventually makes it to ES&S and Dominion having good policies, and also being the bulk of voting systems in use.
And reaching the end, this is a focused video about disclosure programs, with no content about whether or what vulnerabilities have been found, how the companies responded, etc. So maybe not all that relevant.
As an Australian, it's mind blowing that there's no nation-wide agency to run elections. Yes, I know about Federalism, but with states like Texas and Florida around, it's probably best to leave elections the adults in the room.
Sort of an aside to your point, but Australia is actually a bit of a leader in the rigorous consideration of election practices. Today we mostly think of this in terms of Australia having pioneered large-scale use of STV, but it goes well before that... the predominant voting method used in the United States is often called the Australian Ballot, for example. Australia has a history of unusual voting policies which have proven successful, although certainly some that have proven unsuccessful as well.
As an Australian, I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. So beyond your pissant deflection, do you have an actual, contributory response to the discussion?
That's a funny comment considering how Texas and Florida didn't make last minute changes to elections laws and had their Rally's and counts done in a very timely fashion.
I agree with the thrust of your argument, but for exactly the opposite of the state's you mentioned.
1. According to the clerk, these passwords are only held by the Secretary of State (or Dominion techs) (not sure how legit that is).
2. The Secretary of State then raided the office of the clerk (with dominion techs, supposedly) while they traveled to the Cyber Symposium.
2. At the Cyber Symposium claim to have imaged the machines with someone on the ground in IT and the clerks help. These images were brought to the Cyber Symposium today.
3. Ron Watkins and others spent today reviewing the image by VPNing into a machine where the read-only image was hosted.
Personally, I have no idea what to make of any of it, but it does appear like some weird stuff was on there. Particularly 3:29:00 - 3:35:00 they discuss a batch file which seems to do something ominous sounding, but without seeing the image no idea.
Only thing I take away from this, we need to just count paper ballots. Potentially, keep images as backups.
Not nearly the same, but back in school, we were able to real havoc with some rouge batch files that were included in the image used in every machine. In our case though, one happened to contained credentials for an AD account with admin privileges.
They do actually pull that up, though the resolution here is too poor. In the live stream on lindelltv.com it was clear. They actually discuss what it does as well
Arizona Maricopa county for whatever reason, refused to produce the network routers, when Subpoenaed
for the 3rd party Audit by the Arizona senate. They responded with this letter.
I know my cheap home router stores logs. I'm pretty sure a commercial grade router would store logs for sure. Though this is not my background. So maybe someone that's a network admin knows more on what kind of routers they might use and how long the logs are typically stored.
My assumption is that they want to have an outside expert examine the configuration of the routers, which could provide some indication whether or not there was access to the internet, for example. Of course it would be difficult to establish whether or not that configuration had been changed in the meantime, and in my experience a lot of election administrators set up their EMS only on a temporary basis, so I would be unsurprised if supporting equipment like network appliances had been repurposed or returned to a lease provider.
That said, the EMS is usually a small half-rack setup and I'd be surprised for there to be a router at all. Often it's a single machine. The vendors usually tell you to either never connect it to outside networks, or to do so only for setup and disconnect it before you start election preparation. Most, usually all, in-election connectivity to the machines is via sneakernet.
Any kind of detailed network logging becomes a big undertaking at organizational scale, so it's very unlikely that there are any kind of useful persistent traffic logs on the routers. Any such logs would have been kept on a dedicated system like a netflow collector or SIEM, the routers don't have the storage (or storage write endurance). The fact the senate didn't subpoena for such a system suggests it doesn't exist, which is unsurprising. Mass-retention of network traffic logs is a sufficiently expensive and complex thing that not a lot of organizations do it.
I expect the EMS rack have a network port and not a wifi port. Back when I was using windows, connecting to the internet through the network port required a setup step, for things like DHCP server for the dynamic ip.
I'm curious, does windows remember the configurations it has used in the past?
And does windows keep a log file of the network connections it makes, and how often are those logs rotated typically?
I see, they do some scanning and adjudication on the EMS which means it's a bigger setup - not necessarily the EMS itself, but it needs workstations hooked up to it for the tabulators and adjudicators to use. Based on some research, the way Maricopa County runs things ballots rejected by the precinct tabulators (due to ambiguous markings usually) are sent in to the central office for adjudication, which is what the scanners and workstations connected to the EMS are for. Probably this is done using the sorter bin feature of the ImageCast tabulator but I'm not sure. I have never used the Dominion adjudication system, it depends on the election administrator and state law how they handle rejected ballots and the two states I have familiarity with have made a decision to return them to the voter instead of sending them in (usually asking the voter to complete a new ballot). There are pros and cons either way.
But you can see they use a Netgear switch, so we don't even know if it's managed but I'd guess it's not because Netgear's managed line just isn't that popular. There's probably nothing of interest that could be extracted from that switch.
Yes, as far as I know all of Dominion's management software is Windows-based. There's a potentially huge amount of forensic data available from the Windows machines but whether or not you could demonstrate internet access just depends. It's the kind of thing you could probably only prove in the positive. Windows does not keep network logs per se, just there are lots of other logs that can be used to infer certain network activity. The reality is that network traffic is so high volume and low value that it's unusual for anything to record it in much detail, it'd just eat a lot of storage and I/O to never get looked at.
The subpoena requested "all routers used in connection with the November 3, 2020 general election"; so I guess it could arguably cover routers outside of the EMS.
That said:
#1 It's unlikely that the AZ senate has the votes to hold the county in contempt at this point (the audit has only gotten less popular over time).
#2 They want to avoid handing them over for security / privacy reasons (they've mentioned a few times the sheriff's department has concerns -- nothing concrete but c'mon who among us would be happy to hand over a ton of info about an intranet we're in charge of).
To put this all in context: the county took a much more aggressive position against the audit after the audit twitter account accused them of deleting a DB file to hide evidence and the AZ senate was about to drag them into a hearing they planned to broadcast on OAN. In particular the county has done an incredible job of countering misinformation with facts on their twitter account.
Since the key fact in dispute is whether the machines were connected to the internet, wouldn't it follow for an auditor to check all routers through which they could have connected to the internet. Seems like the exact thing a forensic audit should check. Since this is going through the courts, and in front of the judge. The judge will ultimately decide if the county is ignoring orders and impose sanctions. Ultimately, the judge could order a bailiff to seize the routers if they find the county non complaint.
Also since the states run their own elections and the Senate had broad oversight rights, the judge so far has ruled against the county at every step. The county is just delaying things really.
The subpoena is not a judicial subpoena at this point but a senate subpoena, that's why the senate would need enough votes to enforce it.
This is a bit confusing because there was a judge who decided the senate's first subpoena was valid [1], but that too was still a senate subpoena.
They certainly could try to go to court to get an enforceable subpoena, if they do I'll make some popcorn.
As for the routers my current position towards the AZ auditors is "put up or shut up". If the EMS really was connected to an external network then they must have some event logs somewhere showing an unexplainable MAC address or something; if they don't then asking for unrelated routers just feels like a fishing expedition.
The "for whatever reason" is those routers have never been part of any electoral certification process, aren't part of Trump's own election cybersecurity guidance, aren't considered attack vectors, and of course are completely irrelevant since you can just hand count the paper ballots which is what the county already did.
That's answered in the 5th item in the list, nearly a full page long in response. Basically amounts to:
a) the election-tabulating machines were never connected to the internet
b) we've already given you (well, the cybersecurity experts you hired) enough information to prove it
c) we have had two other audits that agree with us that they were never connected
d) actually complying with your order presents severe privacy and security risks
e) it also is a very severe operational router, since the senate was essentially asking for physical custody of all county routers, which would presumably include things like the routing to the county website to cross-reference real estate deeds or the like
But sure, let's ignore their actual claims as to why they didn't do it and imply that they didn't do it because they're afraid of producing culpability of criminal actions.
Paper, electronic, whatever: if you don't trust whoever is responsible for holding elections and counting votes, you won't trust the results regardless of how they were achieved - specially if your candidate has lost.
However, I like two simple arguments for paper ballots: low skilled people theoretically could still verify, so it seems more democratic. And changing / replacing millions of papers doesn't seem to scale as well as a hacker changing codes.
This is the problem though: seeming significant % of our country do actually believe that millions of paper ballots were changed, replaced, flown in from China, and more.
I don't know how we begin to restore confidence and protect our Democracy when each of us live in radically different <i>un</i>realities.
I haven’t done any research on this so feel free not to respond, but how would that work with the Internet? Both practical and regulatory issues seem impossible to resolve.
I think the system works as designed. If a country has 30 to 40 percent of its population being crazed qanon loonies, just what do we think this country deserves?
Would that work though? Some issues should not give 'balance' to both sides and that's a lot of the problem. Giving dangerous cooks extreme amounts of air time. the election was not stolen, climate change exists and is caused by humans, those are not worthy of multiple hours of 'news' each and every single day.
I agree, give everyone paper. Count by hand. Then scan into machine. Every ballot should have a secret code they can then use to see their ballot online.
On your first photo, there's literally a press photographer in the room taking the photo. There were other press and witnesses too, but people had been told to get down and make their way down and put pressure on counters.
Really don't see why they wouldn't keep out a mass of protesters mid count? If they were doing it in a completely unmonitored room you might have a point.
They weren’t protesters, look at their badges, they were press and poll watchers being taken out. There’s video of this, with them cheering inside the room.
If you read the article on “fortifying the election for the proper outcome” they straight up say why they do this.
The general point isn’t what you or I know or believe. That image doesn’t spread any confidence. In a democracy, all citizens need to trust an election to allow for a peaceful transition of power. Basically, everyone has to be like, “okay, fine my guy lost”
To accomplish that anyone should be able to observe and inspect or its not a democracy. One party doesn’t feel they can observe and knows they can’t inspect the results
Anyone who is for electronic only voting should be forced to watch few def con videos. Nothing is secure give enough resources and determination.
Paper ballots are extremely hard to hack given the scale of the operation. Because it would involve people. The more people involved to more chances one gets discovered or comes out with the truth.
I have no issues using both simultaneously for near instant results as long as paper count is there to verify the results.
> Paper, electronic, whatever: if you don't trust whoever is responsible for holding elections and counting votes, you won't trust the results regardless of how they were achieved - specially if your candidate has lost.
I wouldn't trust anyone who subscribes to the QAnon lunacy to tie their own shoes.
It's a potentially important clarification that this discussion is about the Election Management System (EMS). The EMS is essentially the backend that generates the configuration for ballot markers and precinct tabulators, and then totalizes the results from the precinct tabulators post-election. Because the EMS is not directly involved in the handling of ballots (its totalization function can be repeated for audit or verified independently against voting machine audit tapes, voting machine audit memory cards if used, or the original ballots), it is not necessarily considered an election-critical system. Basically, it does nothing that cannot be audited after the fact.
However, there is a definite potential of adverse impacts on election integrity either if the machine configuration is tampered with prior to the election or the totalized results are tampered with and the state lacks a sufficiently rigorous auditing program (which unfortunately many do). For that reason it's considered a best practice to keep the EMS under strict control. Disconnected from the internet in a locked area under Sheriff's guard is a common approach. Of course there are almost certainly counties out there that do not take any precautions.
The EMS is basically just a Windows application that runs on servers in the county clerk's office, but the servers are provided on a lease basis by Dominion. So it's no surprise that Dominion sends out this basic documentation on post-installation configuration of the servers. These passwords and documents are not related to the actual "voting machines," markers and tabulators, which run on more bespoke hardware with a much more unusual security model.
Why you wouldn't demand all voting software in use be openly auditable I don't know.
While I'm sceptical of claims that there was widespread fraud, the fact that there's so much pushback against just counting and verifying the integrity of the ballots is pretty insane. There's zero stakes if everything was fair, and even if it wasn't there's no legal mechanism to remove Biden from office.
I shriveled up a little bit when I saw that electronic machines were becoming commonplace for voting. The more complicated you make a machine, the more it can be manipulated and the less resistance it has to public trust erosion.
All of that being said, I would love to know what the end goal was here. This (along with other things connected to the symposium) could be linked to massive security breaches if they're legitimate. I hope this was worth it to them.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 212 ms ] threadBiden is the most popular president ever, millions of votes more than Obama.
It comes down to a few ten thousands (or less) in critical swing states.
There's a compelling statistical argument to be made that states like Georgia, or maybe perhaps even bigger margin in FL, might have gone another way without laws & regulations to make it harder to vote and cast a ballot by mail.
My point wasn't about "who won", only pointing out the statistics of popularity, considering that an election is basically a popularity contest.
The most unpopular president (and vice-president) got more historical more votes than the last most popular president of the past 50-100 years.
You need to show papers to go grocery shopping: that's OK. You need to show papers to vote: that's not OK.
Do you see the inconsistency?
The vaccine-card equivalent of Republican Voter ID requirements would be mandating that everyone present a vaccine card before being allowed to vote with the intent of discouraging eligible Republican voters.
The equivalent of present-day pollbooth security in vaccine-card form would be requiring people to associate themselves with an official vaccine record before shopping / working / etc. You wouldn't have to present an ID on the spot, but the records would be checked to look for two people claiming the same vaccination record, someone trying to claim a record that didn't exist, etc. Discrepancies would be investigated and if you were found to have fraudulently represented your vaccination status you'd be in trouble.
That is to say, one major difference is the availability of the papers.
Put another way, the word "whataboutism" is the shield which hypocrites use against anyone who points out that they themselves do that which they pretend to oppose.
The word is intended to render hypocrisy irrelevant and inquiries about consistently inherently illegitimate."
https://mobile.twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/139694616535522...
I'll have to wait till the next election cycle to see how this is tortured. You need a proof of immunization [for work, for benefits, etc.,] but you don't need an ID to vote because... asking for IDs disenfranchises. but denying people work is not disenfranchisement.
I don't think this is true? The mass vaccination center that I went to didn't ask for any form of ID at all.
>You need a proof of immunization, but you don't need an ID to vote. (though in reality, the immunization requirement would likely be illegal given we don't require proof of any other immunization prior to voting.)
I'm confused, no one is proposing proof of immunization for voting.
>"I'm confused, no one is proposing proof of immunization for voting."
My point is that on the one hand requiring an immunization card which requires an ID is okay, but requiring an ID for voting is not okay. Proof of immunization is being required for more and more things which potentially would disenfranchise lots of people.
People are having their private and public sector jobs jeopardized when they hesitate to immunize. At present, though not historically, the most hesitant are the highly educated class...
Citation?
"Those with professional degrees (e.g., JD, MBA) and PhDs were the only education groups without a decrease in hesitancy, and by May, those with PhDs had the highest hesitancy. To our knowledge, no other study has evaluated education with this level of granularity, which was possible due to our unusually large sample size (>10,000 participants with PhDs). Further investigation into hesitancy among those with a PhD is warranted."
If a private bakery can refuse to bake a cake for a gay marriage than Carnival Cruises or whoever should be able to deny access to those actively endangering the lives of their customers.
The latest is that the refusal means a fine.
"On June 15, 2021, Denver District Judge A. Bruce Jones ruled that Phillips had violated Colorado's anti-discrimination law by refusing to bake a cake for Scardina and ordered him to pay a fine of $500"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
Seems like that's the standard way to get outcomes especially the Fed Govt in particular gets a lot of their power from the purse. Get health insurance tax deduction or fine.
Example of upcoming reconciliation we can't pass actual clean energy regulations with the (arbitrary 50+1 can overturn) rules & because Republicans won't support it. it has to be fines and incentives.
You don't care that non-citizens can vote?
Is there something about holding a green card for 5 years that makes you suddenly start to engage in politics?
>How do they even register to vote?
Presumably they take someone else's identity.
What would you do if you turned up, your name was already checked off, but you hadn't voted? What do you think happens then?
Seems like an entirely plausible attack. Why don't you tell me what happens then?
BUT I think it's a worthy policy debate. I could see myself being in favor of allowing long term residents the vote given how impossible it is to get citizenship (or hell even permanent status).
maybe then the point should be fixing our immigration system and naturalizing the huge backlog we have.
as is, millions are already being taxed but not represented and they are subject to the laws they don't get a voice in crafting.
My general gut instinct on this stuff is that we could have simple, safe elections, but we would need to be patient in receiving results, commit to competitive redistricting, and reduce political party influence over the details as they will always attempt to game them towards their preferred status quo.
There are usually a few double voting cases. I think I remember a case of TX going after maybe i remember a young college student hard. it was on Vice News but I can't find it.
Okay cool, but what's the point of this? Did the parent poster claim otherwise?
Shopping is a privilege granted to those who have money, which isn't a right.
Working is a privilege granted to those who have skills the market is willing to pay for, which isn't a right.
Participation in society is preconditioned on obeying the law, and can be taken away through arrest and imprisonment.
Working, commerce, and social behaviors are all protected in US law to varying degrees.
"A privilege is a certain entitlement to immunity granted by the state or another authority to a restricted group, either by birth or on a conditional basis. Land-titles and taxi medallions are pronounced examples of transferable privilege. These can be revoked in certain circumstances. In modern democratic states, a privilege is conditional and granted only after birth.
By contrast, a right is an inherent, irrevocable entitlement held by all citizens or all human beings from the moment of birth."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_(law)
>Working, commerce, and social behaviors are all protected in US law to varying degrees.
But you said "rights under the constitution."
The constitution guarantees you the right to own and carry a gun. Not to employment, food, clothing, shelter, or the ability to participate in society. The latter are all conditional, dependent upon the market or the will of the state.
The constitution doesn't even guarantee a right to vote (obviously the framers didn't believe such a right should be universal) which is why felons can lose their voting rights. There are amendments like the 15th and 19th amendments which prevent voting discrimination, but an inalienable right to vote doesn't exist in the constitution.
The Supreme Court doesn’t agree with you.
Rights need not be provided to you for free. You have the right to buy a gun, or an abortion, or a political ad, or a wedding cake - but you’ll have to buy them.
Religious and 1st amendment leeway to discriminate goes both ways.
If you think this is evidence of a secure election, I have an unpickable lock to sell you. Anyone repeating the talking point that this was “the most secure election ever” sounds like a partisan hypocrite, especially when you can find videos of Democratic Congress members warning about the security of elections as recently as in 2017.
Or, maybe it’s a coincidence that polls asking questions about election security – an objectively non-partisan topic – find a distribution of opinions weirdly aligned with support for the red or blue team.
Alas, anonymous verifiable signatures must be impossible.
Mail-in ballots are no different. A limited, known number are printed. The system prioritizes in-person ballots in case the mailed one is filled out under pressure. Some states forbid unique ballot tracking, using theoretically non-unique identifiers.
Note that the map colors DRE w/ voter verifiable paper audit trail as (lightish) red. That's consistent with the prevailing opinion today that DRE w/ VVPAT is inferior to paper ballots with precinct tabulation (because voters do not necessarily actually examine the VVPAT), but does tend to make the current situation look worse than it is due to Nevada.
If you mean Arizona, see Title 16:
> After the canvass has been completed, the officer in charge of elections shall deposit the package or envelope containing the ballots in a secure facility managed by the county treasurer, who shall keep it unopened and unaltered for twenty-four months for elections for a federal office or for six months for all other elections, at which time he shall destroy it without opening or examining the contents.
> The officer in charge of elections shall ensure that electronic data from and electronic or digital images of ballots are protected from physical and electronic access, including unauthorized copying or transfer, and that all security measures are at least as protective as those prescribed for paper ballots.
I believe some states completely hand recounted the entire millions of receipts from the machines this year (in response to the allegations of voter fraud). However, it shouldn't be necessary to exhaustively recount the entire race. We should be able to use random sampling to statistically verify that the race is not fixed.
But we can set the confidence we want and test enough ballots to get there. In this past election, some states decided it was "100% sure to this kind of detectable attack" and they hand counted every ballot.
The fact that one side has not prioritized this isn't similar to the other side's repeated attempts to overthrow our government.
We don’t even need security – we need confidence. And this recent idea that it takes weeks to count votes, that we might not know the results for weeks – is completely unacceptable and is already doing irreparable damage to people’s faith in elections.
* "They" meaning the news media. The official vote took longer and counted the mail in ballots
Why on earth would that be? The "counting period" was originally set at 5 weeks. Between laws saying that you cannot start counting mail in ballots before the close of polls on election day, laws that (rightly) limit how many hours that can be spent counting ballots, etc. I'm not sure how to square that with instant results.
Maybe we just be patient counting the scores in a contest that takes 18 months to run?
But, even if you ignore that two individuals (or three) representing all the candidates each count by hand a stack of ten, have to agree, sign off that they agree, etc. I think you underestimate other problems. You're focused on the counting.
Just consider how long it takes to open the outer envelope, check the signature on the inner envelope (again, by multiple people who represent different campaigns), and physically remove and unfold that sheet of paper. Now multiply by several million. Add in some extra time for managing stack of ten ballots.
Or, to put it another way, we don't vote with a phone app. We are willing to pay extra for security.
Let's say it takes a minute to process a single ballot. That means a single poll worker can go through a couple hundred ballots--500 is a nice round number-- a day. And all of this is going to be processed generally at a centralized facility at county level, and because of the pandemic, you might have 500,000 of those to get through. Even with 100 workers working those ballots, that's still going to take 10 days to get through everything.
I really suspect you’re being intentionally difficult here, this is not such a simple problem as you suggest.
And I honestly don’t even know who you’re talking about but I assume it’s the pillow/pcap guy.
Have you heard about the president’s son, or the New York governor, or the speaker of the house who moonlights as a prolific stock trader?
Good people are not leading us.
Your other whataboutisms are weak sauce compared with this. In particular the Cuomo one is not good for you, he's out, while your party continues to embrace the p**y grabber that has a higher harassment allegation count.
Just want to point out that Trump doesn't lead the GOP.
https://gop.com/about-our-party/rnc-leaders/
https://www.businessinsider.com/rnc-chair-ronna-mcdaniel-tru...
As do the parade of GOP officials and wannabes that have made the trek to Mar-a-lago to kiss the ring. As do the many state GOP parties that are expelling anyone not sufficiently loyal and conducting crazy "audits" to show fealty to Trump's election lies.
Are you talking about Russia or the Federalist Society SCOTUS picks or the rioters who were let in by the few security guards remaining after the Capitol security was lowered or the Big Tech services that should be declared as political donations but aren't?
* USPS sabotage and state-level voter suppression measures in urban areas leading up to the 2020 election
* Post-election soft coup attempt via the courts (including having broken precedent to rush a SCOTUS appointment during the election, which could have changed the outcome of the coup attempt in a different timeline)
* 1/6
* Ongoing propagation of the "big lie" and scheming to overturn the election (https://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-seven-point-plan-reinstate-14...), alongside continuing implementation of state-level voter suppression measures and gerrymandering
This is implying that default mail-in voting was a way to get Democrats elected in the first place. (which it was given how mail-in voting was the source of the Democrats advance when they arrived)
> Post-election soft coup attempt via the courts
Challenging elections integrity in the courts are what insure the process is transparent and followed in the first place. This makes no sense by definition. Just because a SCOTUS nominee was nominated just before doesn't change anything and is still entirely within the Constitution. Because Democrats got unlucky on the retirement / death draw during this presidency doesn't mean a "coup". And by the way, it happened before.
> 1/6
Not a coup by any stretch of the imagination (no weapons) and barely a riot given the lack of destruction and violence. Also why leave out how security was reduced, that the FBI had informants and that Trump even proposed to increase security?
> Ongoing propagation of the "big lie"
I get it that you are not familiar with Bush v. Gore and how it was the big rig for years?
> and scheming to overturn the election (https://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-seven-point-plan-reinstate-14...)
It's easy to pick a random clown in a camp and then zoom 1000x to paint a bad picture:
"The cards, featuring a seven-point plan, appear to have been made by a group called Patriots Soar, which is not connected to the organisers of CPAC"
> alongside continuing implementation of state-level voter suppression measures and gerrymandering
Gerrymandering happens in blue districts too by the way, can can only do so much (elections results still mostly 50/50 percentage wise). And the "voter suppression" are a joke when you read the details of them since the measures being implemented are the same that are found in Canada (showing ID with proof of your address, registering to vote, having a reason to vote by mail, which used to be a Democrat talking point during the Bush/Obama years by the way).
No it isn't. Don't be obtuse.
Challenging elections integrity in the courts are what insure the process is transparent and followed in the first place.
Filing dozens of frivolous lawsuits and aggressively pressuring state government officials to help overturn election results isn't normal.
Democrats got unlucky on the retirement / death draw
https://www.npr.org/sections/death-of-ruth-bader-ginsburg/20...
[1/6 was] not a coup by any stretch of the imagination (no weapons)
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/19/977879589/yes-capitol-rioters...
I get it that you are not familiar with Bush v. Gore
Yup, this is the first I've heard of George Bush and Al Gore. Thanks for letting me know about them.
It's easy to pick a random clown in a camp and then zoom 1000x to paint a bad picture
Sure. I agree with that. I'm not claiming that this is the official platform of the GOP, simply that it's a radical and dangerous element of society that Trump and his wing of the party are actively cultivating by continuing to promote lies.
And the "voter suppression" are a joke
Sure. They didn't work in the end, but they made it a lot closer than it would have been. The new ones may work or they may not, but we shouldn't tolerate any voter suppression in America.
showing ID with proof of your address
No one is opposed to requiring an ID to vote. The For the People Act included a voter ID provision, with alternative documents such as utility bills allowable as a fallback.
If you want to require IDs without that fallback, how about we make federal voting IDs available to everyone in the country at no cost and with minimal hassle or time investment? If the intent isn't voter suppression, this should be perfectly agreeable.
> No it isn't. Don't be obtuse.
Do you have more to say than "don't be obtuse"? Because it was well known that Democrats were more likely to use mail-in voting from the beginning as various polls showed and how the vote turned out Democrats as more and more mail-in votes were counted.
> Filing dozens of frivolous lawsuits and aggressively pressuring state government officials to help overturn election results isn't normal.
"Frivolous" is your opinion, not the one of the courts. And by the way multiple cases have been thrown out during Bush v. Gore, were they "frivolous" too?
> Democrats got unlucky on the retirement / death draw
> https://www.npr.org/sections/death-of-ruth-bader-ginsburg/20...
Can you actually verbalize the point you're trying to make without simply linking an opinion piece from NPR?
> [1/6 was] not a coup by any stretch of the imagination (no weapons)
> https://www.npr.org/2021/03/19/977879589/yes-capitol-rioters...
"Many of the weapons allegedly used in the riot are considered "less lethal" but are dangerous and can even be fatal, according to experts."
Again, nothing lethal enough to start an "insurrection" against armed guards.
> I get it that you are not familiar with Bush v. Gore
> Yup, this is the first I've heard of George Bush and Al Gore. Thanks for letting me know about them.
So you you know that challenging elections results and irregularities in the courts are part of the electoral process then.
> It's easy to pick a random clown in a camp and then zoom 1000x to paint a bad picture
> Sure. I agree with that. I'm not claiming that this is the official platform of the GOP, simply that it's a radical and dangerous element of society that Trump and his wing of the party are actively cultivating by continuing to promote lies.
Trump never said things that are outside of what are heard at political rallies. Things like "fighting" for a cause and "walking on X building" are fairly common.
> No one is opposed to requiring an ID to vote.
This is not true. Democrats and various pressure group have opposed it for decades now:
https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-...
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/12/873878423/voting-and-election...
> The For the People Act included a voter ID provision, with alternative documents such as utility bills allowable as a fallback.
Bills are not id, they're proof of address. In Canada for example (and in most other liberal democracies), we have to show an id with a picture and a proof of address (the election card or a hydro bill if it's missing).
> No one is opposed to requiring an ID to vote. The For the People Act included a voter ID provision, with alternative documents such as utility bills allowable as a fallback.
> If you want to require IDs without that fallback, how about we make federal voting IDs available to everyone in the country at no cost and with minimal hassle or time investment? If the intent isn't voter suppression, this should be perfectly agreeable.
I'm sure this would get bi-partisan support, especially amongst the moderates. Social securi...
Both have, in my view, reasonable arguments on why they feel that way.
Try to zoom out and look at your comment from the 3rd person view. The right believes the left stole an election (coup), they believe they have evidence to prove it. The left saw Jan 6 on the corporate news and believes they have the evidence to prove Trump attempted to seize government.
Note, none of the people charged for Jan 6 was for sedition. So the evidence really isn't there either.
If you take a step back and try to see both perspectives, perhaps it's possible to relate again.
On the right, we have:
* USPS sabotage and state-level voter suppression measures in urban areas leading up to the 2020 election
* Post-election soft coup attempt via the courts (including having broken precedent to rush a SCOTUS appointment during the election, which could have changed the outcome of the coup attempt in a different timeline)
* 1/6
* Ongoing propagation of the "big lie" and scheming to overturn the election (https://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-seven-point-plan-reinstate-14...), alongside continuing implementation of state-level voter suppression measures and gerrymandering
And the left has:
* Failed to advocate for open source voting systems (which isn't a widely known or politically relevant issue on either side at present)
* Pushed for stronger voting rights and increased voter participation — both uncontroversially positive properties of a democracy, but also happen to benefit the Democratic Party at the current moment
* Proposed measures in the For the People Act that were arguably overly ambitious or aggressive in the current political environment, such as stricter campaign finance regulations, which were promptly renegotiated within their own party ranks
To frame these as comparable is borderline gaslighting.
Every day I switch between msnbc, nbc, warroom.org, breaking points, Ben Shapiro and Tim pool. Probably ~6-8hrs a day I listen to content at double speed (while doing other stuff).
Every single one has their own take, but just to get you up-to-date with what the right believes:
* BLM and Antifa caused billions in damages. Harassing or attacking everyone who disagreed with ideology (they were coming to senators homes)
* in some places this is leading to the reintroduction of segregation https://atlantablackstar.com/2021/08/10/it-was-just-disbelie...
* FBI spied on trump on Clinton and Obama’s behalf. Utilizing a known fabricated document (fabricated to keep business with the Clinton foundation - see uranium one): https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-sc...
* election laws were changed last minute, broken among other things to effect a coup and they brag about it: https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
* more people voted in 2020 than were registered in 2016 or 2018. With a 93% then out rate.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/273743/number-of-registe...
* here’s a couple video explaining some of their concerns about the election
https://rumble.com/vkyxju-retired-u.s.-army-colonel-phil-wal...
https://rumble.com/vkyzgb-mike-lindell-cyber-symposium-dr.-d...
The list goes on and on...
It is indeed.
You sound arrogant, “only one side is correct and it’s my side”
I have very little patience for dishonesty. If that makes me seem "arrogant" to peddlers of disinformation, so be it.
BLM and Antifa caused billions in damages
Sure. That was terrible and uncalled for. Lots of bad ideas and movements come from the grassroots left, like "Defund the Police" and "All Cops are Bastards". I don't recall this being sanctioned or incited by Joe Biden or the Democratic Party, and it wasn't a coup d'etat.
in some places this is leading to the reintroduction of segregation
I didn't see where your source made a connection between these events. Either way, if you think that a racist principal imposing segregation in their school somehow vindicates right-wing insurrectionists, I don't know what to tell you.
FBI spied on trump on Clinton and Obama’s behalf. Utilizing a known fabricated document
This is an article about two British citizens independently making a decision to attempt to influence our election in a small way. I find that objectionable for the same reason as Russia's larger-scale election interference, but I don't see how it relates to the conspiracy theory of Obama spying on Trump.
election laws were changed last minute, broken among other things to effect a coup and they brag about it
Can you be more specific? All I'm seeing from an initial pass is that an effort was made to respond to right-wing voter suppression efforts and disinformation leading up to the election.
more people voted in 2020 than were registered in 2016 or 2018. With a 93% then out rate.
That was pretty cool. I'm not sure what you're suggesting it has to do with right-wing beliefs.
here’s a couple video explaining some of their concerns about the election
Sure, I'm aware that Trump and his allies claim to have concerns. That's what we're discussing here. Do you have more specific points and sources that aren't videos?
Use paper ballots
It's boring but it works. Lots of places do this successfully. You don't need different software, you need to stop using software.
Blockchain considers secure private key management outside of its threat model which is crazy when you think about it.
The best argument I think I could make in favour of using paper over any electronic voting system is the scalability of an attack.
Generally speaking changing one vote in an electronic system is just as easy as changing a million. Scaling a physical attack against paper ballots is much harder and actually increases the likelihood of getting caught.
Also for blockchain in particular. It solves no problem existing mixed trust voting systems already solve more efficiently.
It's clear, relatively secure, auditable, verifiable, and somewhat anonymous.
For those unfamiliar:
> The idea is that you xor together 3 ballots when you vote, but one of the three ballots is published.[3]
> The trick to the 3-ballot voting protocol is that not everyone can validate their vote. However, when a group of voters band together, they should be able to validate that a subset of their votes (1/3) were registered with high probability. > ... > With a sufficiently large group of voters checking results, the law of large numbers comes into play and they can statistically detect the presence of voting fraud.[4]
You would still need to trust that the poll worker is tabulating correctly and working randomly, though that's an assumption that we're already making as it is.
Scantegrity[5], Prêt à Voter[6], Helios[7], and Punchscan[8] also seem promising, though I'm not as familiar with them.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThreeBallot
[1]: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/Riv06c.pdf
[2]: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/RS07.pdf
[3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20554744
[4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16598777
[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantegrity
[6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prêt_à_Voter
[7]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Voting
[8]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punchscan
[0]: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs.html#Riv19i
[1]: http://fc17.ifca.ai/voting/papers/voting17_bv.pdf
At 11:30 he starts to actually talk about which vendors have VDPs.
Eventually makes it to ES&S and Dominion having good policies, and also being the bulk of voting systems in use.
And reaching the end, this is a focused video about disclosure programs, with no content about whether or what vulnerabilities have been found, how the companies responded, etc. So maybe not all that relevant.
I agree with the thrust of your argument, but for exactly the opposite of the state's you mentioned.
https://ballotpedia.org/Changes_to_election_dates,_procedure...
1. According to the clerk, these passwords are only held by the Secretary of State (or Dominion techs) (not sure how legit that is).
2. The Secretary of State then raided the office of the clerk (with dominion techs, supposedly) while they traveled to the Cyber Symposium.
2. At the Cyber Symposium claim to have imaged the machines with someone on the ground in IT and the clerks help. These images were brought to the Cyber Symposium today.
3. Ron Watkins and others spent today reviewing the image by VPNing into a machine where the read-only image was hosted.
Timestamps of analysis 1:57:00 - 3:51:00
https://rumble.com/vl05im-watch-mike-lindells-cyber-symposiu...
Personally, I have no idea what to make of any of it, but it does appear like some weird stuff was on there. Particularly 3:29:00 - 3:35:00 they discuss a batch file which seems to do something ominous sounding, but without seeing the image no idea.
Only thing I take away from this, we need to just count paper ballots. Potentially, keep images as backups.
Not nearly the same, but back in school, we were able to real havoc with some rouge batch files that were included in the image used in every machine. In our case though, one happened to contained credentials for an AD account with admin privileges.
They do actually pull that up, though the resolution here is too poor. In the live stream on lindelltv.com it was clear. They actually discuss what it does as well
https://www.maricopa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/70435/Final-Sig...
what, if anything, would a router show at this point in time. Do these routers use store logs that would still be accessible?
Are they trying to find some rhetorical bamboo in the switch (trying to be funny though those beliefs definitely are not in my book...)?
That said, the EMS is usually a small half-rack setup and I'd be surprised for there to be a router at all. Often it's a single machine. The vendors usually tell you to either never connect it to outside networks, or to do so only for setup and disconnect it before you start election preparation. Most, usually all, in-election connectivity to the machines is via sneakernet.
Any kind of detailed network logging becomes a big undertaking at organizational scale, so it's very unlikely that there are any kind of useful persistent traffic logs on the routers. Any such logs would have been kept on a dedicated system like a netflow collector or SIEM, the routers don't have the storage (or storage write endurance). The fact the senate didn't subpoena for such a system suggests it doesn't exist, which is unsurprising. Mass-retention of network traffic logs is a sufficiently expensive and complex thing that not a lot of organizations do it.
That was my guess on logs. Really cool to learn more!
You sound like you work in the industry. I'm sorry for that ;( Recent WaPo article on election workers was scary.
There isn't, you can actually see their EMS diagram here: https://recorder.maricopa.gov/justthefacts/pdf/Maricopa%20EM...
(Switches yes, but no routers)
https://recorder.maricopa.gov/justthefacts/pdf/Maricopa%20EM...
It shows the EMS rack and the ballot scanners in a network configuration.
Since this seems to be windows based from a video I've seen. At least the software they were using to adjudicate votes. Source: https://rumble.com/vbqj0b-dominon-voting-machines-walkthroug...
I expect the EMS rack have a network port and not a wifi port. Back when I was using windows, connecting to the internet through the network port required a setup step, for things like DHCP server for the dynamic ip. I'm curious, does windows remember the configurations it has used in the past? And does windows keep a log file of the network connections it makes, and how often are those logs rotated typically?
But you can see they use a Netgear switch, so we don't even know if it's managed but I'd guess it's not because Netgear's managed line just isn't that popular. There's probably nothing of interest that could be extracted from that switch.
Yes, as far as I know all of Dominion's management software is Windows-based. There's a potentially huge amount of forensic data available from the Windows machines but whether or not you could demonstrate internet access just depends. It's the kind of thing you could probably only prove in the positive. Windows does not keep network logs per se, just there are lots of other logs that can be used to infer certain network activity. The reality is that network traffic is so high volume and low value that it's unusual for anything to record it in much detail, it'd just eat a lot of storage and I/O to never get looked at.
The subpoena requested "all routers used in connection with the November 3, 2020 general election"; so I guess it could arguably cover routers outside of the EMS.
That said:
#1 It's unlikely that the AZ senate has the votes to hold the county in contempt at this point (the audit has only gotten less popular over time).
#2 They want to avoid handing them over for security / privacy reasons (they've mentioned a few times the sheriff's department has concerns -- nothing concrete but c'mon who among us would be happy to hand over a ton of info about an intranet we're in charge of).
To put this all in context: the county took a much more aggressive position against the audit after the audit twitter account accused them of deleting a DB file to hide evidence and the AZ senate was about to drag them into a hearing they planned to broadcast on OAN. In particular the county has done an incredible job of countering misinformation with facts on their twitter account.
Also since the states run their own elections and the Senate had broad oversight rights, the judge so far has ruled against the county at every step. The county is just delaying things really.
This is a bit confusing because there was a judge who decided the senate's first subpoena was valid [1], but that too was still a senate subpoena.
They certainly could try to go to court to get an enforceable subpoena, if they do I'll make some popcorn.
As for the routers my current position towards the AZ auditors is "put up or shut up". If the EMS really was connected to an external network then they must have some event logs somewhere showing an unexplainable MAC address or something; if they don't then asking for unrelated routers just feels like a fishing expedition.
[1] https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021...
But you know .. "whatever" reason.
a) the election-tabulating machines were never connected to the internet
b) we've already given you (well, the cybersecurity experts you hired) enough information to prove it
c) we have had two other audits that agree with us that they were never connected
d) actually complying with your order presents severe privacy and security risks
e) it also is a very severe operational router, since the senate was essentially asking for physical custody of all county routers, which would presumably include things like the routing to the county website to cross-reference real estate deeds or the like
But sure, let's ignore their actual claims as to why they didn't do it and imply that they didn't do it because they're afraid of producing culpability of criminal actions.
However, I like two simple arguments for paper ballots: low skilled people theoretically could still verify, so it seems more democratic. And changing / replacing millions of papers doesn't seem to scale as well as a hacker changing codes.
I don't know how we begin to restore confidence and protect our Democracy when each of us live in radically different <i>un</i>realities.
https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/A4F1/production/_115252224_gettyi...
Followed by articles like this:
https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
And blocking audits like this:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arizona-audit-election-subpoena...
I agree, give everyone paper. Count by hand. Then scan into machine. Every ballot should have a secret code they can then use to see their ballot online.
Really don't see why they wouldn't keep out a mass of protesters mid count? If they were doing it in a completely unmonitored room you might have a point.
If you read the article on “fortifying the election for the proper outcome” they straight up say why they do this.
The general point isn’t what you or I know or believe. That image doesn’t spread any confidence. In a democracy, all citizens need to trust an election to allow for a peaceful transition of power. Basically, everyone has to be like, “okay, fine my guy lost”
To accomplish that anyone should be able to observe and inspect or its not a democracy. One party doesn’t feel they can observe and knows they can’t inspect the results
Paper ballots are extremely hard to hack given the scale of the operation. Because it would involve people. The more people involved to more chances one gets discovered or comes out with the truth.
I have no issues using both simultaneously for near instant results as long as paper count is there to verify the results.
I wouldn't trust anyone who subscribes to the QAnon lunacy to tie their own shoes.
However, there is a definite potential of adverse impacts on election integrity either if the machine configuration is tampered with prior to the election or the totalized results are tampered with and the state lacks a sufficiently rigorous auditing program (which unfortunately many do). For that reason it's considered a best practice to keep the EMS under strict control. Disconnected from the internet in a locked area under Sheriff's guard is a common approach. Of course there are almost certainly counties out there that do not take any precautions.
The EMS is basically just a Windows application that runs on servers in the county clerk's office, but the servers are provided on a lease basis by Dominion. So it's no surprise that Dominion sends out this basic documentation on post-installation configuration of the servers. These passwords and documents are not related to the actual "voting machines," markers and tabulators, which run on more bespoke hardware with a much more unusual security model.
While I'm sceptical of claims that there was widespread fraud, the fact that there's so much pushback against just counting and verifying the integrity of the ballots is pretty insane. There's zero stakes if everything was fair, and even if it wasn't there's no legal mechanism to remove Biden from office.
All of that being said, I would love to know what the end goal was here. This (along with other things connected to the symposium) could be linked to massive security breaches if they're legitimate. I hope this was worth it to them.