I just thought this would be a nice little peak into the voting systems that are in a vast majority of the United States coming from an expert that did a forensic examination of a past election that I am not going to bother going into the details of because you SHOULD know what I’m talking about if you live in the Greatest Nation. I’m not here because of politics, I’m here for the 'security" (actually, the LACK OF) that each and every one of us should care about on a very deep level.
1 Like
California and other states mandated paper records of every vote. The voting machines print out a receipt that you see through a window, and once you approve it, it drops into a storage area. If there are any doubts about a vote count, you can go back to the paper copies.
Not that it’s a requirement. Besides the voting machines there are still exit polls, and hundreds of polls to estimate the winners going for weeks leading up to the election, which would flag any system problems that change a statistically significant number of votes.
I’m all for improving the security of voting machines, but vote fraud in the western world is extremely low. Small & subtle fraud won’t make a difference, big fraud will get noticed, and there’s basically no money in it, so criminals go out and ransomware companies instead.
Number of voter fraud cases since 2000: 44 cases out of 1 billion votes cast
(8 of which involve more than one ballot affected)
Rate of voter fraud: 0.0000044%
1 Like
Here in OR we have been doing Vote by Mail for years now, hopefully we can keep it that way as I’ve never seen nor used a voting machine.
We don’t have a problem with insecure voting machines in Germany anymore. Our constitution states that the vote has to be verifiable by anyone. In 2009 our supreme court ruled that the votes submitted via voting machines are not verifiable by anyone and banned them. So we have to vote on paper in person or on paper via mail in vote. I am very content with this solution.
7 Likes
There is. Al Capone could rule Chicago because the politicians and other elected officials that were supposed to fight him were on his payroll. And only 2 days ago it came to light that some very senior managers (civil servants) working for a town in NL diverted a very large chunk of the Covid-relief subsidies the town got from the Gov’t to a company they controlled and had it pay them out. Meanwhile, the intended recipients of those relief funds were handed small-change sums instead. 
1 Like
the uk has a similar system today…
although there does seem to be talk of electronic voting…
but for the same reason you mention. i would vote against it.
digital votes can be manipulated simply because they are digital and cant be checked to see if the persons vote, is the vote that was cast;
or even if the right person voted.
at least with mail in you have to supply your signature which makes it legal and traceable.
and in person voting?.
well your there in front of them, its gonna be hard to claim your someone else and not the guy who voted 2 times already.
1 Like
I have only voted in the UK like 5-6 times. Each time, I went to the desk, said a name and an address, and was allowed to vote on that name.
I never dustbin dived for an envelope, but the barrier to do so is pretty low; simply a name and address from a discarded envelope would probably suffice
OTOH, if I went to vote in my own name, and the people said my vote had already been cast, I would be mortified and embarrassed, but have the documentation to prove I am me. But the voting boxes are sealed, so I don’t know how they would resolve it.
Maybe mark the box as having a duplicate? Or refuse to give me a voting slip?
It would be too late to go back and see who impersonated me, in this hypothetical case
2 Likes
yeah but a few months earlier you should be sent a voter registration confirmation. which your asked to fill out and return if the details are wrong. if they are right you dont need to reply.
your also given a poling station.
yes the uk system could be abused as is, but nowhere near the potential scale, if electronic voting was allowed.
as for the hypothetical, local government has a procedure for that and they do take potential fraud seriously.
Whoever that clown is talking knows absolutely NOTHING about how voting systems work.
“Just asking questions. What if …”
What if … you left me unattended with a bag of tools, special EPROM chips with your ATM?
I would drain your bank account. How often has that happened to you?
I program voting machines then test for program logic and accuracy before use in my county in Virginia. This is my thirteenth year. Our voters mark a printed ballot on card stock with a common pen, stick the ballot into a scanner with their own hands, which drops it into a box.
There is zero zilch nada NO NETWORK CAPABILITY WHATSOEVER.
No bluetooth, no wifi, no ethernet. ZERO
Months after the election, you have a problem with vote totals, well … let’s pull all those voted paper ballots marked by the voter’s own hand and we’ll count them again then.
The level of distortion and ignorant misinformation being spread in this country is painful to see.
2 Likes