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Senator Wants Nationwide, All-Mail Voting To Counter Election Hacks (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In the wake of the Obama administration's announcement that the Russian government directed hacks on the Democratic National Committee and other institutions to influence U.S. elections, a senator from Oregon says the nation should conduct its elections like his home state does: all-mail voting. In an e-mail, Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, told Ars: "We should not underestimate how dangerous... attacks on election systems could be. If a foreign state were to eliminate registration records for a particular group of Americans immediately before an election, they could very likely disenfranchise those Americans and swing the results of an election. Recent efforts by some states to make it more difficult to vote only serves to increase the danger of such attacks. This is why I have proposed taking Oregon's unique vote-by-mail system nationwide to protect our democratic process against foreign and domestic attacks." The only states to hold all elections entirely by mail are Oregon, Washington, and Colorado, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. More than a dozen others have various provisions for mail voting. The National Conference of State Legislatures has a breakdown here on how Americans cast their votes across the union. Wyden co-sponsored the Vote By Mail Act in July, and he did so for reasons at the time that were unconnected to cybersecurity. Instead, the measure was originally proposed to help minorities and others cast ballots. The plan requires the U.S. Postal Service to deliver ballots to all registered voters. Voters could also register to vote when applying for driver's licenses, too. The measure fell on deaf ears this year and didn't even get a committee vote. A Wyden spokesperson said the proposal will have a "better chance" next year if Democrats win a majority of Senate seats.
It's much easier to buy/intimidate votes than to tamper with the post office. Now the voter (or their mom,don't forget that recent case in the news) can just drop their blank ballot off at the local party/union/employer/funder's headquarters in exchange for whatever incentive and the ballots can be voted the "right" way. Much closer to the Russian model, actually, where the person officially voting isn't necessarily the decision maker.
How about just making it so we have a disconnected backup, maybe even a paper copy somewhere just in case, and then the threat from "hackers" isn't much of one. But that would expect a modicum of competence, right?
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Not only does it NOT require ID, it is easy to "find" ballots well after the election. Or to make sure ballots are mailed late to certain constituencies (such as overseas military) who may "vote the wrong way" - and thereby ensure their votes aren't counted.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
As Stalin once put it:
The only hope for the electorate is to keep the latter group decentralized and otherwise disconnected from each other — to keep both fraud and honest mistakes small-scale and thus unprofitable. Any attempts to centralize vote-counting is the end of Democracy.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
There is no party "known for vote fraud". All studies and investigations have shown voter fraud to be virtually non-existent.
There is, on the other hand, a party that continually tries to restrict voting and disenfranchise voters while raising the specter of that non-existent voter fraud.
You do know that has never been a real issue don't you? It's just fear driven demagoguery.
Besides, you don't just walk in and pick up a ballot, they send it to you. Funny thing, they don't send them to illegals.
Dumbass. People do this in their homes, you know, where they receive their mail. If people are coming into your home and strongarming you, you have some other serious issues to contend with. As to getting a meeting where everyone brings their blank ballots, there is no way to keep that shit secret! It will be found out, and the law will be on their ass! It's not going to happen, so you can put your tinfoil hat down, this isn't a hollywood movie.