America's achilles heel - election system

Amen. We DO need a paper trail so there can be meaningful recounts.

I note that Georgia took the rather interesting position that when the electronic data was going to be investigated to see if hacking had occurred, they deleted the data, claiming it was "standard procedure" as per their IT rules!!

However, ANY system based on polling places presents multiple methods for affecting the outcome. One simple one is to simply allocate voting equipment to leave long lines in places where you want to suppress the vote. We see that all the time in the news reports - places where, gee whiz, the lines got long!!

 

We were told here in Georgia that the voting machines themselves are not on line. Thus are hack proof. That they are stored under lock and key until the day comes to vote. That sounds good as far as it goes. But once the votes are counted, the computer does the counting itself. Then the results on placed on the internet, sent via e-mail I suppose from the polling place to the state.

Supposedly, a recount would involve the recounting of the printouts each voting machine provided. I never heard of those printouts being destroyed. But if one zeroizes the computers, there still should be the printouts. Now do the printouts match what each machine recorded, who knows? We're trusting a machine to add and calculate the votes and going by whatever that machine states.

Seems to me if memory serves me right, there were a couple of times in the past where the number of who voted in some precincts was higher than the total registered to vote there. I do think we're leaving ourselves open to some serious doubts about an election outcome if something isn't done.

 

Amen.

I'd also say that I don't trust the machines with no paper trail regardless of whether they spent time in solitary confinement.

They get programmed. They get shipped. They get put in storage. They get taken out and shipped to the polling place. They get set up. Etc.

It would be horrendously difficult to prove that the programming in the machine didn't have a piece of code that ran at a specific date and time and then erased itself after the results got cooked.

 

Delaying the midterms would be seen as a highly political act to take, especially for a president who has given NO reason to be trusted and who has acted as the leader of his constituency alone (constant partisan rallys, exclusion of Dems from policy negotiations, etc.).

We in WA get enough ballots received before the deadline that counts are available rapidly.

Paper ballots are important. It's the low tech way of ensuring we have a record of what happened. With computers and voting machines in polling booths there is far more chance for perversion - especially given all the vulnerabilities of polling stations REGARDLESS of ballot type.

 

Very easily done. If one has access. You're right about all the moving of the machines. I didn't think of that.

 

How do you think Obama got elected and reelected in 2012 ???

Russia Russia Russia.

For eight years Russia always got what it wanted from Obama including Crimea.

 

a few. but there's quite a few where you don't. That is the point. As to mess, it seems to work here, since we don't have anything but petty problems with voter fraud.

 

Yes, all have their vulnerabilities. Seems with paper they were always finding boxes of ballots supposedly not counted. We have early voting here in Georgia also. It seems at least half the people vote early. The lines are fairly long in my county for early voting. No line at all on election day. I used to vote early, not any more. Quicker to wait until election day, no crowds, no lines.

Regardless, whatever system that is used, people need to trust it.

 

I will stand in line all day and all night to vote. Nothing short of being shot can stop me. I had a poncho and a Camelbak in 2016 but the wait was only 3 hours, and the walk from parking was only a half mile. It rained and nobody got out of line.

I know what it took to give me that.

 

Seems to work here with the ones we allow with having such a mess and yes voter ID helps dissuade voter fraud, still can't understand why some people oppose it.

 

And the longer the voting period the longer it is open to fraud.

 

We use the optical scan and they work well. Ballots can be rescanned in close totals but they are accurate. They get tested before the vote and right after the vote for accurate tabulation. Of course that is just for tabulation errors not voter fraud, the ballots can't tell you if there was voter fraud. Even in Florida 2000 Gore went to court trying to claim he needed a hand recount because of tabulation errors and summarily lost the judge rejecting it out of hand.

And how in hades could Trump delay or suspend the midterms? A President has no such power or authority. Those are state elections he has no jurisdiction over them.

 

Thats a very illogical response based on emotion rather than reality

With your side in charge of 95% of the media trump haters will always be informed of dates and times

So your demand that voting laws cater to the laziest and least informed Americans is actually just an unintended insult to your own voter base

 

Why do rich bitch pubs always have the same insults (that is, "lazy" and "least informed") reserved for poor people? Are you trying to argue that we get a better class of voter by making someone have to choose between voting and being able to make their livelihood?

 

Actually unemployed democrats on welfare have just as much time to vote as rich republicans

But if voting meant that middle class voters had to miss half a days pay once every two years republican working class voters would still show up on election day

 

What if they were to lose their jobs for not showing up to work in order to vote? and don't say it wouldn't happen as it did quite frequently right up until they expanded the voting times.

You guys are a trip, all the dems are unemployed but all you pubs are the very models of good citizens.

"You're a bunch of degenerates while roses grow from our butts" Yeh, everybody believes that

 

The laws vary from state to state

Right To Vote laws can be passed in states that do not have them now

And most if not all republicans would support them

 

People oppose it because it is a "solution" for a problem which has been repeatedly shown not to exist (i.e. levels of voter fraud are trivially low) but where the side effects, the disenfranchisement of people for whom the acquisition of, and retention of, an adequate ID is difficult, are significant.

The GOP is very much in favour of the combination of voter roll purging and voter ID because study after study shows that under such a regimen, the GOP stands to gain considerably. Purge the voter rolls in poor black neighbourhoods, make it very difficult for people to get back on the rolls and gain an electoral advantage - it's quite simple.

You can amplify the effect by having fewer polling stations in Democratic leaning neighbourhoods, making those polling stations difficult to get to and by having onerous identification processes in place which means as few voters as possible are processed every hour, making sure lines are long so that some voters are discouraged and others are prevented from voting because the polling station closes before they get to the front of the line.

 

We have a three week early voting period. I don't think it means or adds the possibility of fraud even if everyone had to vote on election day. If one's name is on the voting registry list and one has a Georgia approved photo ID, one can vote either early or on election day. Also, one has to be registered to vote prior to 30 days prior to an election. We do not have same day registration.

 

That was an OP question. The constitution gives the states the power to pick the day/time, place and manner of holding elections.

 

Its the mere fact the machines and votes cast have to be secured that long from any tampering. As Mayor Daley said just let me get my hands on the ballots.............

 

So you have evidence that the Russians helped elect Obama as they clearly did help elect Trump. Can't wait to see your evidence.

 

Daley was famous for getting the dead to vote in Chicago. As has been attributed to him for saying, "Vote early and vote often." It's also alleged that Daley held back Chicago's results in the 1960 election to find out how much JFK trailed Nixon to make sure there were enough Chicago votes to over come Nixon's lead down state.

 

Once again showing your lack of knowledge about out election system. Please explain how Trump would do so.

 

He was mayor when I lived there............having the voting machines with uncounted ballots for three weeks......