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.

Comments

US Post Office always secure.

[bongey]

Because the US mail has never been tampered with. http://ktla.com/2016/08/27/33-...

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[_Sharp'r_]

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?

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[myowntrueself]

Because the US mail has never been tampered with. http://ktla.com/2016/08/27/33-...

And when people vote by mail there's absolutely no chance that their vote might have been coerced.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[theArtificial]

That's unfortunate. Would you say more people are affected by the mail slip ups or computer breaches presently? How would you suggest the lack of a paper trail that voting machines enable be addressed?

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[lgw]

Does "vote by mail" require any sort of ID? If not, how on earth is this more secure than a ballot box?

In pretty much any kind of fraud, people are far less willing to show their face to any sort of authority. Fraud online or by mail is just much easier to work up the courage for.

What's going to stop $PARTY_YOU_HATE from mailing in thousands of ballots for people that didn't vote (the recently dead/felons, people they know directly that didn't vote, etc). When all you need is a name to forge a ballot, no risk to the fraudster, vote fraud will be epic.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[LynnwoodRooster]

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.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[pe1rxq]

Mail voting is incredibly weak and incredibly stupid.
There is no way to verify that the person voting is the correct person and he is not forced in any way.
Your paper trail is completly useless if you cannot prove it has a proper origin.

Voting in secrecy in a nice voting booth using a simple straightforward ballot is a beautifull system. It is simple enough that you can not only explain it to a ten year old, the ten year old can actually go see for him self and verify proper procedures are followed.
Yet again and again people try to fuck it up with mail or electronic voting schemes.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[AchilleTalon]

This and also with email voting, someone can sell his vote to anyone and it is possible for the buyer to make sure he got the vote he bought. Also, with email vote, someone can be under a third party (family or other) to vote for a given candidate. No, email voting is far to be the best system. Paper track is mandatory of course to trust elections, however I don't see anything to replace the voting polls.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[frovingslosh]

You miss the obvious advantage that so many more people will have the opportunity to exercise their right to vote this way. Why here in North Carolina we have people as old as 160 who still vote by absent-tee ballot (mostly Democrats), which I doubt they would be able to do if they had to appear at the poles. I'm sure there would be no problem, like selling of uncompleted ballots to a political party, since our parties are so scrupulously honest.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[frovingslosh]

They passed a law in my state to require ID when voting. The Democrats challenged it and the Supreme Court (with all of its new appointees) ruled in their favor, so no ID check at our polls either.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[frovingslosh]

How would you suggest the lack of a paper trail that voting machines enable be addressed?

If only there were some way to vote on paper ballots and not by an unaccountable machine.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because in your poor ass state you did away with DOL locations in poor areas so that poor people couldn't get their license to get ID.

They should really just switch to vote by mail. It's more secure and it's sent to registered voters. If you move, it's a few clicks on a website to update your address or get a form at the USPS. Internet access available to all at a public library.

It's about being open and available and you're state was choosing to not be that way and they got corrected by intelligent people.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[theArtificial]

Excellent. You mean like what the article suggested?

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[theArtificial]

I vote by mail and I'm in favor of a paper ballot. I don't trust the voting machines. Do you know of any countries that make use of anything like this?

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

No. Not in Chicago.
Modern system is that you cannot remove ballots from the polling area. However what precinct captains can and sometimes do do is to get a bunch of blank ballots prepunch them. Then meet a person outside give them a prepunched ballot which the person then takes and throws into the ballot box while keeping the blank ballot given him. He then turns it over to the precinct captain who pays him.

That is why it is highly illegal to posses blank ballots.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[_Sharp'r_]

Here union member, prove you're loyal... when you get your mail-in ballot, just sign it and leave it blank and drop it by the office. We'll take care of it from there and make sure you get the best work assignments...

I'm sure that could never happen... it's not like mail-in ballots are considered more vulnerable to fraud or anything...

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[Gr8Apes]

maybe even a paper copy somewhere just in case

Paper copies that the voter verifies and is received is the only thing that is close to inviolate. Electronic elections? Sure, print paper, voter validates paper, drop paper into the box. Only thing that counts is paper.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[ChrisMaple]

You drop them off at a location manned by the party of fraud.
FTFY.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[ChrisMaple]

Mail is extremely vulnerable. In rural areas, mailboxes are there for anyone walking by to open and steal the contents. In apartment complexes, it's even worse. A person with a duplicate key to the back of the postboxes could steal 100 ballots in a minute.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[ChrisMaple]

Most graveyards.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[pixelpusher220]

perhaps you've heard of auto complete on phones? Jeebus grammar Nazi-ing is so pathetic

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[hairyfeet]

Why not have the best of both? That is what we have in my home state, the "electronic voting machine" is really nothing more than a screen and a glorified printer. When you are done making your choices it shows you a list of what you have chosen and says "If this is what you voted choose yes, if not choose no" and if you choose yes it prints it all out in nice human readable text and you drop it in the ballot box while the voting official resets the machine for the next person, easy peasy.

I really have to hand it to my local election officials, they have voting as smooth as a well oiled machine. When I was waiting in line last election there was a couple of people that had shown up to the wrong precinct,did they force them to go drive to the right one? Nope they just pulled them aside and got on the phone and had it all worked out in under 5 minutes and then gave them the next open machine so they wouldn't have to go to the back of the line, even had coffee and donuts. It was a very pleasant experience, despite the cold rain outside, just lovely.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[Berkyjay]

I'm wagering that you only read the headline of the first link in your Google search. The article actually makes an argument for the pros and cons of vote-by-mail. You concerns are kind of silly because they aren't any different than someone picking up the local paper and voting exactly how they "recommend" you vote. Vote-by-mail has been going on for decades and there is no evidence that the system is fatally flawed. Voting will never be 100% secured.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[Obfuscant]

Does "vote by mail" require any sort of ID?

In Oregon, no. It requires a signature of the voter on the "secrecy" envelope. The election officials are supposed to verify the signature against the registration documents.

If they think the signatures don't match they don't count the vote. They don't notify the voter of the problem, they just don't count it. (The address of the voter is on the envelope, they COULD send a postcard if they thought telling you that your vote wasn't being counted was important to know. Hell, a postcard that was sent to the voter telling them their vote WAS counted would be a good idea anyway.) If you find out about it prior to the end of voting, I think you can go in to the election office and vote in person, but that requires a trip to the county election office and knowing that your vote wasn't counted.

And now with motor-voter in Oregon, the signature they have to match against will be a stored, digitized version as it appears on your driver's license or state id. That makes it impossible for anyone to ever produce your signature on a forged ballot. Yes.

I haven't bothered to check, but I'd guess that those who get their ballots at a PO box and don't care about voting may discard them in the PO itself -- a collection of known valid but unvoted ballots. But the issue is much worse than just mailed in fake or forged ballots. As others have pointed out, vote by mail opens a big wide door to coerced/sold votes. On the other hand, what a marvelous DOS attack to produce and drop off a few hundred thousand fake ballots. No postage necessary, every county has several convenient, free ballot drop off sites, which are usually just a standard looking postal collection box with the sign "vote here". You wouldn't even have to print actual ballots, just the outer and secrecy envelopes and put a piece of blank paper inside. The election folks would be so busy verifying addresses and signatures it would delay the results for days.

Besides the ability to create fake voting sites to gather official, signed ballots to be fixed, there were warnings about "helpful people" who would stand near the official drop sites and offer to drop your ballot into the box for you so you didn't even need to get out of your car.

I am not surprised at all that our dear Doctor Wyden has suggested the entire country go to this system.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[ZenShadow]

I'm having a hard time believing that story. I would think that an employer demanding your ballot in any form (unfilled or otherwise) would be highly illegal.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[fahrbot-bot]

More problematic is that vote by mail isn't private / anonymous - your actual vote is visible for all to read.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[frovingslosh]

That's a complete lie. While they do move driver's licenses offices (I spent an afternoon trying to track one down about 10 years ago when the one that I used to go to wasn't there any more), the number seems to be increasing and well distributed. And there are provisions to get a free ID if you don't drive (if you do drive then there is no reason that you can't get to a license office). They have actually made things easier, since you can renew a registration over the Internet now, which you couldn't do before. So there is clearly no intent to keep legitimate people from voting or getting an ID. Checking for ID seems a perfectly valid thing. If I have to show an ID to fly (as in freedom of travel) then I should certainly have to show one to vote. It is only Democrats that thrive on voter fraud (and we have plenty of it here) that opposed this.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[frovingslosh]

Here you are (Google is your friend). This is four years old but nothing has changed except the voters are getting older. The local news says it continues this year. http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[DarkFencer]

Oddly, the party known for vote fraud seems to do quite well in Oregon.

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.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[Nkwe]

In addition, the post office doesn't have to be secure. Here in Oregon when the ballots are received at the elections office (either by mail or drop off), the signature on the ballot envelope is manually checked (by an elections official) against your signature on file (when you registered to vote). If the signature doesn't match, the ballot is set aside as pending and elections office contacts the voter to ask what's up. To forge someone's ballot you would also have to forge their signature (and get it to the elections office before the real voter did.)

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[frovingslosh]

Yea, but the Supreme Court struck down the Republican heavy gerrymandering. Interestingly, I know many Democrats who say "We had them gerrymandered in our favor even worse when we were in power".

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[meerling]

You also have the sign the security envelope it's sealing in, over the seal, so if it's opened, it's pretty damn obvious.
So yeah, unless you think 10,000 ballots with the same handwriting won't get noticed.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[bondsbw]

All studies and investigations have shown voter fraud to be virtually non-provable.

FTFY

And as I recall, a huge number of voters in said "known for vote fraud" party were really pissed at their eventual nominee who appears to have committed vote fraud during the primaries.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[tbq]

Does "vote by mail" require any sort of ID? If not, how on earth is this more secure than a ballot box?

Washington state requires you to provide a driver license number or state ID number when registering to vote online (WA state license numbers are a combination of a person's initials, last name, and date of birth). You also have to check a box that says you're a US citizen and another box saying you'll be over 18 by the time of the next election. They also have a text-based CAPTCHA at the end of the form so you know that there can't be any sort of fraud.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[dbIII]

Currently election fraud fits into the category of "non-problem" - it MIGHT be easy to buy/intimidate votes but it does not appear to actually be happening, especially since it seems to be very easy to detect after the fact (unless it's a Diebold machine or other voodoo voting "solution").
The question here is not how to solve a "non-problem" but why this Senator is kicking up a stink about it. Previous efforts of this type have blatantly been used as an excuse to make it more difficult to vote and turn specific groups of people away. Jeb for instance got up to a lot of games of that type in Florida some years ago which was a scandal that attracted international notice.


In areas where it IS a real problem there have been plenty of solutions to stop ballot stuffing or theft of ballot boxes. I like the one in India where a very cheap mechanical voting machine has a very small maximum number of votes so that even if someone steals it and maxes it out with votes for one canditate it is unlikely to skew the vote. A perpetrator would have to steal a lot of the machines and that is likely to be noticed by a large number of people.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[dbIII]

Where I am the choice was to go with paper and pencil then feed the sheets into huge scanners.
It's quick and leaves everything available for a manual recount when the inevitable court case from a prick that does not want to admit defeat happens.

did they force them to go drive to the right one? Nope they just pulled them aside and got on the phone and had it all worked out in under 5 minutes

Where I am there is always someone appointed to deal with absentee votes and they certainly don't take five minutes per person.
Something like an "electoral commission" done at a Federal level as seen in other countries would make it as smooth as you've seen (or IMHO a lot smoother, no waiting for a voting official to reset the machine) everywhere instead of good in some places, insane in others and on a fucking Tuesday so only the obsessed take time off work to vote.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[MrL0G1C]

In the UK the only time I ever hear about voting fraud is with 'postal votes' and it sounds like it's pretty rife. But the fraud isn't with royal mail but with the people who are supposed to give the vote cards to the voter and then post it.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[MachineShedFred]

This is why in Oregon you can drop off your ballot at designated places. When I lived in Portland, I didn't ever mail it - I drove to the Multnomah County HQ and they had volunteers standing around the entire block taking ballots into lockboxes with slots in the top. You drive up to the curb, drop your sealed ballot envelope into the box, and drive away.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[MachineShedFred]

Yes, but the point is this: filled out by whom?

There's no way to tell. In reality though, if the voter signs the ballot (as is done in the vote-by-mail process in Oregon) and the signature matches what is in the voter registry, does it really matter? They endorsed what is selected on the ballot.

Of course it matters if they are pressured into voting one particular way by illegal means, but there is nothing inherently worse about vote-by-mail than the current system.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[MachineShedFred]

Smells of horse shit. If any company required you to give unfilled ballots to your CEO, it wouldn't be a company much longer. Someone would drop a dime to the FBI and that CEO and anyone involved would be in Federal prison.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[MachineShedFred]

Because this Senator is from a state that largely doesn't matter in Presidential politics, and needs a headline so people remember him. Especially since he spends the vast majority of his time in either Washington DC or New York City, and not anywhere in the state he represents.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[MachineShedFred]

The way it works in Oregon:

You receive your ballot in the mail, as well as two envelopes. One is a 'secrecy' envelope with a signature line on the back, the other a standard envelope with the address of the county seat of government on it, and prepaid postage.

You fill out your ballot, you put it in the inner envelope, you sign that, and then you put it in the outer envelope. At the county elections office, they compare the signature on the inner envelope with the one on record from your voter registration. If it matches, they open it up and count the ballot. If unsigned, or wildly different, they put the ballot aside.

Perfect? No. Largely useable without complaint? So far, for 15+ years.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[MachineShedFred]

Unless there is signature verification, which is the way any sane setup would have. Oregon at the very least does this before even looking at the ballot.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[MachineShedFred]

Which is why any sane vote-by-mail setup would have signature verification in place. Having 100 ballots doesn't do anything if you also don't have the corresponding 100 signatures to be verified by monitored election officials.

It's almost like this has been thought through before being implemented successfully in several states.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[dywolf]

Oregon has unions.
Oregon has vote by mail.
And yet somehow they don't seem to have any problems with voter fraud, OR low turnout.

Seems youre just another anti union troll posting ignorant BS.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[dywolf]

and theres no way to tell whos been intimidated outside the polling booth either.

its a moot point equally applicable to all potential systems and to bring it up solely as an argument against mail in voting is an exercise in ignorance.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[dywolf]

ID's don't prevent voter fraud anyway.

In person voter fraud is a manufactured myth created by the GOP to cover up attempts to cause outright voter suppression through those same voter ID laws, knowing that they disproportionately affect the Democratic party and its voters.

In person voter fraud is the most difficult way to commit fraud and carries the least reward.
It's also incredibly easy to stop just through simple. Simple voter registration and a roster already stops it in its tracks, simply by the fact that when you show up to your designated polling place they mark your name off a list. Try to show up again or in a different spot, and you don't get to vote!

And lets also not forget that Oregen and several other locales ALREADY use mail in voting as the primary method.
and they don't have a problem with fraud.

so youre just another ignorant troll

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[dywolf]

what is it that you have against republicans?

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[dywolf]

https://thinkprogress.org/afte...

http://billmoyers.com/story/go...

It is no coincidence that 17 states have enacted new voting restrictions just in time for the 2016 presidential election — or that 22 states have toughened access to the ballot box since 2010. Here are those 17 states: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

It’s also no coincidence that 16 of these 17 states (save only Rhode Island) have legislatures that are dominated entirely by Republicans. NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice calls this “part of a broader movement to curtail voting rights, which began after the 2010 election, when state lawmakers nationwide started introducing hundreds of harsh measures making it harder to vote.”

In North Carolina — home to perhaps the most gerrymandered legislature in America — the judges were even more emphatic as they connected the dots between the GOP-implemented voter-ID laws and the desire on behalf of Republicans to tamp down the turnout of minority voters unlikely to cast ballots for conservatives. Their ruling painstakingly dismisses any problem with voter fraud in North Carolina, and compiles voluminous evidence that “the ‘problem’ the majority in the General Assembly sought to remedy was emerging support for the minority party.” The legislature, according to the ruling, “unmistakably” sought to “entrench itself” by “targeting voters who, based on race, were unlikely to vote for the majority party.”

sure sounds like fraud to me.
the real kind.

and then there was Wisconsin shutting down dmvs or changing their hours, to make them difficult to access.
Georgia has moved polling places out of poor and/or black neighborhoods, switching peoples polling places from across the street to 3 buses across town.
your party is blatantly deceitful, guilty of blatantly rigging the vote, yet you call democrats the party of deceit?

and now you idiots are calling for the 19th amendment to be repealed, because if woman couldn't vote, trump would easily win?

let me spell it out for you jack: the party of voter fraud is the republican party

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[dywolf]

this.
so much this.
mod it up.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[dywolf]

complete and total, manufactured garbage.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[dywolf]

then those people are as ignorant as you.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your recollection seems to be in error, as what happened was a bunch on unproven allegations were made, and resentful recalitrants decided they'd bitch about that too.

Look, if you are unsatisfied with election integrity in this country, you can work to remedy it, but picking particular politicians that you despise is a way to discredit yourself. If elections are compromised, then the proper action is to treat all elected officials as illegitimate.

I can get behind that. But partisan targeting is counterproductive.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but what was the "vote fraud"? Yes, I've heard the DNC was clearly favoring Clinton in ways which were probably not appropriate, but as far as actual votes, I've seen nothing to indicate fraud. If you've got something reputable, please share. I'm honestly interested.

captcha: manure (how fitting)

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[CaptainLard]

This. EVERYBODY knows that to tamper in an election all you have to do is find a million people that will sell their vote for $100 or so...oh and hide a $100M paper trail...oh and the big one, keep a million people quiet who's loyalty is for sale. But if my tin pot candidate loses its gonna be rigged I tell ya! But not if tin pot candidate wins of course...then it wasn't going to be rigged. Keep them armchair conspiracies coming.

Sidenote: I can't find the "news for nerds, stuff that matters" anymore on the site. For transparency /. should put something like "flamebait for flamers, stuff that incites" in it's place.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[EricTDuckman1414]

What's to stop someone from paying people to vote for certain candidates? In the current system, where people go to a monitored location and use a machine or fill in a paper ballot, there is no way to be sure the person votes the way you pay them to, unless they use their phone to take a picture of their votes, and that can be prevented fairly easily. With the mail in system, they can let someone else fill it in, or take a picture or otherwise make a copy to prove they voted the way they were paid to. And how do you maintain the secrecy of mail in ballots? If the ballots must be signed, whoever tallies them will know how you voted, which provides other opportunities for shenanigans. As for unions, at this point, the only really effective ones remaining are those representing police, and that's a big part of the problem with disciplining bad behavior by cops.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[EricTDuckman1414]

Vote parent up. Mail-in ballots have a unique ID printed on the ballot. The ID is correlated with the voter's request for a mail-in ballot. When the ballot comes back, the ID on the paper is checked against the ID recorded. You _could_ intercept the ballot on the way in or the way back, but it's impossible to do this on a significant scale without having several inside men in the Post Office.

Most mail-in ballot systems are significantly more secure than many online voting (or vote management) systems in the field.

So the ballot is directly traceable to an individual, who could then be subject to punishment or reward for how they voted.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[EricTDuckman1414]

I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.

Which "freedom" do you miss the most; the freedom to own slaves, or the freedom to send your children to work in coal mines?

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[EricTDuckman1414]

Interestingly, I know many Democrats who say "We had them gerrymandered in our favor even worse when we were in power".

If that were true, how did the Democrats lose power?

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[CaptainLard]

Yeah, perpetuating mail voter fraud is so easy I just have to go around to a million mailboxes, stealing the ballots and replacing them with fakes (specific to that person because thats how mail ballots work, you don't just get a blank sheet of paper) so no one notices and then mail my stolen ballots in such a way as to not arouse suspicion, such as putting the million stolen real ballots back in the mailbox I stole them from in a timely manner with no mistakes or leaks from my hordes of voter fraud henchmen.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[JesseMcDonald]

In reality though, if the voter signs the ballot (as is done in the vote-by-mail process in Oregon) and the signature matches what is in the voter registry, does it really matter? They endorsed what is selected on the ballot.

What is to say that the nominal voter didn't sign the blank ballot before handing it over to someone else, either under duress or to obtain a reward?

The only way I know of to deal with this is to allow the ballot to be secretly voided at any time (before or after it's been filed) at the request of the voter to whom it was issued. If you anticipate voter intimidation you could request an extra pre-voided ballot, indistinguishable from a real one, and hand that over instead. If you were the subject of unanticipated intimidation you could request that your original ballot be voided and vote again. Of course, this safeguard can be circumvented if the intimidator is able to keep a close watch on your activities throughout the process—at some point you need to be able to communicate with the election committee without their knowledge.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[DaHat]

And yet somehow they don't seem to have any problems with voter fraud,

How do you know that?

How do they know that?

Even if they did know it... you assume they care.

Didn't we just see news out of New York City this week of election commissioner describing fraud there? http://projectveritas.com/2016...

I can't speak specifically to Oregon, but up here in Washington I know there exists several vulnerabilities in our election system which could be used to cast hundreds, if not thousands of votes from ones own basement. Even if the county or state figured out what was going on, it'd be near impossible for them to finger who did it.

I've a hard time believing that I'm the only one who noticed these issues here, I'm just ethical enough not to use it, but also know (given state politics) I've I disclosed it, I'd more or less get a "we don't care".

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[JesseMcDonald]

More problematic is that vote by mail isn't private / anonymous - your actual vote is visible for all to read.

What kind of system are you using? Typically you don't just write your candidate's name on the back of a postcard. The ballot itself does not contain any voter identification. You seal the completed ballot inside a blank envelope, and then put that envelope inside another envelope labeled with your voter identification. You sign the outer envelope and mail it in. Later someone checks the identification and signature, confirms that you didn't already vote by mail or in person, and removes the sealed inner envelope—they see who voted, but not the actual votes. The outer envelopes are discarded, while the anonymous inner envelopes containing the ballots are mixed together and opened by someone else. This second person can count the votes but does not have access to the identities of the voters.

The system honestly isn't all that bad, though it does have certain vulnerabilities. Most notably, someone could watch you fill out and mail the ballot and also ensure that you are unable to reach the polls to override the mailed-in responses by voting in person.

Of course, all this effort is pointless if one can simply ask voters about their selections and reasonably expect a truthful answer. The practicality of the secret ballot fundamentally depends on voters' willingness to lie, which makes it rather dubious, morally speaking. The fact they they could lie and that there is (ideally) no way to prove that any given response is accurate means little unless a significant fraction of individuals are actually willing to defraud prospective vote-buyers, which would reflect poorly on their character and is not really a form of behavior which ought to be encouraged.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[DaHat]

EVERYBODY knows that to tamper in an election all you have to do is find a million people that will sell their vote for $100 or so

Maybe some people, know things you don't as you incorrectly assume you need to target the voters and not simply their ballot.

How hard would it be for a malicious actor to say... request 10,000 absentee ballots, likely for targeted individuals who they believe will vote 'the other way' or not likely to vote (maybe recently deceased), then cast those ballots on their behalf.

10k not enough? That's just from one small crew. Need to say... swing Florida to Romney in 2012? Just need 8 crews doing 10 ballots each to hit the margin... which isn't all that many people.

oh and hide a $100M paper trail...oh and the big one, keep a million people quiet who's loyalty is for sale

Really? So simply getting a bus full of dedicated party loyalists of want to be criminals together to drive from polling place to polling place wouldn't work? http://projectveritas.com/2016...

There are plenty of ways to commit massive voter fraud under all systems in place in the US today, most just don't want to see how easy it really is.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[DaHat]

At least in Washington, you seal your your ballot in to a privacy envelop which has no PII, which in turn goes into the mailing envelope which contains your name, mailing address & signature.

Come election day, after they verify your signature they remove the privacy envelop from the mailing one and separate them into rather large piles for later opening & counting.

If you do not use the privacy envelop then the person doing the first opening could put 2+2 together, but otherwise it's not as easy to figure out who voted for what.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[DaHat]

Tell me, in Oregon, what do you do about those who cannot reliably sign their name? Say you've got a broken hand on election day, or worse, have no hands? Do they have to show ID to prove themselves later? Or don't they get to have their ballot counted?

Here in Washington, in such a case the envelop contains an option at the bottom to have two people 'witness' your mark.

Care to guess how much validation is done regarding those witness signatures? Hint: It's exactly how much suspicion the ape-descendant Arthur Dent had that one of his closest friends was not descended from an ape, but was in fact from a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse and not from Guildford as he usually claimed. (ie none at all).

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[TechyImmigrant]

Because this Senator is from a state that largely doesn't matter in Presidential politics, and needs a headline so people remember him. Especially since he spends the vast majority of his time in either Washington DC or New York City, and not anywhere in the state he represents.

You do know that senators are supposed to spend time in DC. It's where congress is. He appears to be an unusually competent senator. We only know this because in Oregon we have the internet, so we can check up on him without also travelling to DC.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[TechyImmigrant]

>How do you know that?
>How do they know that?

Because there isn't a statistically significant difference between how people report they have voted and the election results.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[DaHat]

So little imagination... or knowledge.

If the ballot itself has a unique id that is correlated to the voters request... that means that Oregon lacks a secret ballot.

More so, even if we assume it's difficult to print identical looking ballots for some stuffing operations... there are cases when it is legitimate to print your own ballot, say you are overseas in the military, hell, our own federal government has a page for doing this, here is the one for Oregon: https://www.fvap.gov/oregon

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[DaHat]

I keep hearing that... yet here in Washington state I know exactly how to cast 10k+ ballots from my basement if I wanted to. The state *may* eventually figure out something is happening, but only after it's too late... and it'd be near impossible to figure out who it was.

Would they look to me first because I've made a statement like this? Possibly, I've also made sure that no actions I take could be seen as actually doing so.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[DaHat]

ID's don't prevent voter fraud anyway.

Neither do re-inforced cockpit doors prevent hijacking... however both make either goal much more difficult.

In person voter fraud is a manufactured myth created by the GOP

Just keep telling yourself that: http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws....

In person voter fraud is the most difficult way to commit fraud and carries the least reward.

Which is why no one ever admits to knowing about such schemes: http://projectveritas.com/2016...

and they don't have a problem with fraud.

That you or they know of... or care about.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[DaHat]

Because there isn't a statistically significant difference between how people report they have voted and the election results.

I thought we learned back in 2000 that exit polls weren't always the most reliable.

Even polling has a margin of error, and I can point to plenty of elections that were not only within the margin of error of even the best polls, but likely within the margin of fraud as well.

Shame there exists no reliable way to know if a person is supposed to be eligible to vote or not, or if they've already cast a ballot or not.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[syn3rg]

It requires a signature of the voter on the "secrecy" envelope. The election officials are supposed to verify the signature against the registration documents.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? What would prevent a corrupt Election Official from declaring the signatures don't match because they didn't like the way the person voted?

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[lgw]

In person voter fraud is a manufactured myth created by the GOP

You might find this interesting. straight from the mouth of a NYC (Democratic) election commissioner.

Well, you might find it interesting if your confirmation bias isn't extreme.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[lsatenstein]

No. Not in Chicago.
Modern system is that you cannot remove ballots from the polling area. However what precinct captains can and sometimes do do is to get a bunch of blank ballots prepunch them. Then meet a person outside give them a prepunched ballot which the person then takes and throws into the ballot box while keeping the blank ballot given him. He then turns it over to the precinct captain who pays him.

That is why it is highly illegal to posses blank ballots.

Where I live we have enumerators come around to each household, and register potential voters. They leave a slip as proof of registration. They also leave info for people who were not home. Around a week later the voter registration list is published, with some instructions explaining to those who were missed, how to register. (Usually at a local school).

Amendments are also made at this second chance.
Forms for siblings to obtain information for parents or family who will be away on voting day are available. Early voting takes place a week early.
When we enter the school gymn (usual voting location), there is a greeter. He directs us the the proper queue (lineup). When we vote, our name is struck from the list, thus preventing double voting. We get around 80% or better turnout.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[Obfuscant]

Having 100 ballots doesn't do anything if you also don't have the corresponding 100 signatures to be verified by monitored election officials.

Yeah, good thing that the super of a large apartment building doesn't have copies of signed leases on hand as a source of the resident's signatures or anything. Or signatures on copies of the rent checks.

It's almost like this has been thought through before being implemented successfully in several states.

Depends on your definition of "successful". Ron Wyden and Peter Defazio got elected/reelected, so it must be successful, by some definitions.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[Obfuscant]

Vote parent up. Mail-in ballots have a unique ID printed on the ballot. The ID is correlated with the voter's request for a mail-in ballot.

You really have no idea what you are talking about, do you?

I've never seen an ID on the ballots I've gotten. All the identifying information is on the envelope(s).

I've never sent in a mail-in ballot request, so there is no "voter's request" to correlate an ID to.

but it's impossible to do this on a significant scale without having several inside men in the Post Office.

When "inside man" can be as simple as "someone who goes into post offices and looks in the trash cans for discarded ballots", the difficulty level goes way down.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[desdinova 216]

why is it ok to have the political parties (who both have a vested interest in the results) make the rules and count the votes. Multiple international organization would be inspecting everything if this was going on in an Asian or African country

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[fahrbot-bot]

Sure, and thanks for the detailed explanation (I've never voted by mail) but the fact remains that your name / signature and your vote are available together, should someone wish to snoop - at the processing center. It may be difficult to ascertain the vote from within the sealed envelope, but it doesn't mean it's impossible. It all boils down to trust -- as long as that trust can be monitored and verified.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[JesseMcDonald]

You cannot allow revocation of a cast ballot without linking the vote to the person casting it. Ballots need to be secret.

This is no more of a problem than preserving secrecy for normal mail-in ballots, and is handily solved by the widely implemented double-envelope scheme. The outer envelope is labeled with your voter ID. Inside that there is a blank, sealed envelope containing the ballot. After the polls close the sealed inner envelope is removed from the outer envelope and mixed with other ballots to ensure anonymity before the blank envelopes are opened and the ballots are counted. In the event that a voter revokes their ballot only the outer envelope needs to be examined. The inner envelope and ballot can be destroyed while still sealed.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[Bartles]

I'm sure they always have handwriting experts on hand to verify every signature in the state. A signature means nothing. You want a signature? I can get you a signature. The safest most secure voting method is in-person paper ballots.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[Bartles]

Shut up. Poor (when people say poor, they really mean black and hispanic) people are inferior, and aren't capable of simple tasks like getting an ID. Only white people and Asians possess the life skills and intelligence necessary to get an ID.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[TechyImmigrant]

>I thought we learned back in 2000 that exit polls weren't always the most reliable.

But if they consistently reflect the actual polls over a number of elections, that's evidence that the voter intent is what got recorded. A large random variation or systemic variation would show up otherwise. If there's a discrepancy, there are all sorts of reasons that could be the cause of the discrepancy. E.G. , so it's easier to show the absence of fraud than the presence of fraud.

We've seen both cases. Oregon seems to do OK with its mail in ballots compared the other places where voter intimidation and geographic exclusion are common practice.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[Anonymous Coward]

So the allegations of sexual harassment from Bill Clinton & Donald Trump are false... because there exists no video of either occurrence?

Why limit yourself to those two? You could find thousands of suspect allegations in a year, millions if you consider the court system as a whole?

And here I thought such logic only existed on the Chappelle Show: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/...

Why is people think a link to a random video is particularly informative? Go watch some court TV, you'll see the same things.

Yes, it's so misleading to document how easy it is to get someone eases ballot without ID.

But that video documented nothing, it was allegations, and not specific ones.. Don't believe me? Ok, find the bus. Name the precincts. Identify the false voters. Oh wait, he never even saw anything.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[_Sharp'r_]

Voting fraud is most important... and most likely to happen, in closely contested elections. Yeah, when an election is for sure going one way or the other, why would anyone bother to risk it?

You sound like you haven't actually thought any of this through. There are already news stories of the young and the mentally ill in this election cycle having their absentee mail-in ballot voted for them in swing states expected to be close.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[_Sharp'r_]

I read it. Apparently you missed some key portions...Yeah, it mentions the pros and cons. The reason it talks about them is that:
"While voter-impersonation fraud at the polls is nearly unheard of, both sides in the voter fraud debate acknowledge that absentee ballots are susceptible to fraud."
and then there is this little section:

More susceptible to fraud
Election fraud is rare, but it usually involves absentee or mail ballots, said Paul Gronke, a Reed College political scientist, who directs the Early Voting Information Center in Oregon. He cites what he calls a classic example of election fraud, a local official stealing votes by filling out absentee ballots. That was the case in Lincoln County, W.Va., where the sheriff and clerk pleaded guilty to distributing absentee ballots to unqualified voters and helping mark them during a 2010 Democratic primary.

Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, said vote-buying and bribery could occur more easily with mail voting and absentee voting. At a polling place, someone who bribed voters would have no way to verify that the bribe worked. A person who bribes mail voters could watch as they mark ballots or even mark ballots for them.

Gans also points to the potential to influence voters in gatherings that some call ballot-signing parties. A caregiver could mark a dependent's ballot.

"All the other types of fraud are essentially hard to do and easy to defend against," Gans said. "This isn't."

The point was that vote by mail is way more susceptible to fraud... something which if you took a few minutes to think it through is pretty obvious.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[_Sharp'r_]

You've never seen someone reseal an envelope? Or open it along an edge (leaving the seal) and then close the edge back up?

Or hey... just have them show the voted ballot before sealing it and giving it to you?

It's a small security help, but not much of one.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[_Sharp'r_]

Look at it from a game theory perspective. Election fraud is more rare when an election isn't expected to be close (not worth the risk of bothering) and more common when it is. Election fraud is more rare when riskier (i.e. more likely to get caught) and more common when unlikely/impossible to get caught.

So nobody bothers much when the election isn't close and people are voting securely, but when you get a few really close swing states to turn an election and they have a situation where it's easy to defraud, then that's when you get stories about Ohio precincts with no opposition poll watchers voting >100% of their registered voters, or people complaining about their Florida mentally ill brother having someone come and take his absentee ballot.

The idea is to keep it on the difficult side to commit fraud, not to suddenly make it much easier across the country by going to 100% mail-in ballots.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[_Sharp'r_]

It's a lot easier to drop 1000 ballots in the mail than it is to escort 1000 different people into a polling booth as their "grandson" on election day. They have poll watchers to cover the second scenario, but not the first.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[DaHat]

But if they consistently reflect the actual polls over a number of elections, that's evidence that the voter intent is what got recorded.

Again, only when the actual results are outside of the margin of error... still waiting for an explanation as for how you accuratly account for those results within that margin (which are inline with polling).

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[Berkyjay]

Nope, it's not "way more susceptible". As Paul Gronke said, election fraud is rare. It's generally isolated to smaller community elections where a few hundred votes can sway the outcome. But even then it's hard to hide, just like the case in West Virginia that was cited. Trying this same technique on the state or national level and get away with it would be a herculean effort. Also, simple practices would make vote-by-mail far more safe than it is now. Oregon seems to be doing just fine with it. They haven't collapsed into a pit of corruption.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[TechyImmigrant]

>Or perhaps no one have yet bothered to conduct voter fraud there yet.

That was what I was implying.

>Do you also buy those bear repellent stones?

Bears don't roam once they build a semiconductor fab on their habitat.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[frovingslosh]

Actually it was all over the news 4 years ago, including the local left leaning TV stations. I was asked for a link, this was the first that Google found. It is the same information, just not the original source.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[TechyImmigrant]

As the number of trials increases (I.E. the number of elections) the P value on rejecting null hypothesis improves if it is actually false.
 

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[frovingslosh]

The airlines are NOT requiring it. Our government, through the TSA is.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[david_thornley]

OK. Intimidate me outside the voting booth. Then I go in and vote in privacy. It's a lot easier to successfully intimidate me when I'm not in a private place.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[david_thornley]

That would be so easy to break up if law enforcement actually cared about it. No voting scheme is inherently incorruptible. They all rely on the ability of an election official or observer to report fraud and have somebody actually care.

In other words, buses of people voting in numerous different precincts isn't the basic problem; it's just a symptom.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[david_thornley]

Um, huh? Where do you live that the major parties make the rules and count the votes? Where I live, the rules are set by the Legislature, and the counting is done by election officials. Both major parties generally have observers everywhere important, which is good, since any cheating would presumably be to the benefit of one party, and the observer from the other party would complain to the authorities.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[lgw]

Oh, I agree. The thing about in-person voting is it's well understood, and the anti-fraud mechanisms are well understood, and in most places fraud is kept largely in check. I think voter ID would help, but democracy is an imperfect process, and that's not exactly our biggest issue.

OTOH, ballotless electronic voting, mail voting, voting that lets a corrupt official see who you voted for (like Oregon's system): these things open up the door to far worse fraud problems than we have today.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...because then you have "hanging chads" and "didn't stay within the lines"? With a machine doing the actual printing you don't have those issues because every print out stays true to the form.

And the "reset" was an official simply walking by the machine and pushing a button, 30 seconds max. I really don't know how more simple you could possibly make it. All in all I cannot say anything bad about the way we have it set up, it was fast, easy, they had helpers for the disabled, nobody was sent away if they went to the wrong place, it was a truly pleasant experience despite the nasty weather.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[dbIII]

I really don't know how more simple you could possibly make it

Pencil. Paper.
Or India's very simple cheap mechanical voting machines that max out on a low number of votes because ballot theft and fraud is actually an issue there.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[dbIII]

BTW, I'm referring more to how inconsistent things are than your local polling place that ran things well.
If it was all like that everywhere then I wouldn't have anything to talk about on the issue other than describing a different system that also functions.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[houghi]

Not sure how it works elsewhere. In Belgium every several years Union reps are voted for in all companies that have more than 50 employees. Voting is done by every employee, not only union members and it is not an electronic process.

Sometimes people will not be able to be at the place where the voting is done, so they get to vote by letter. This is how that works:

They get a blank letter with a ballot and two envelopes. One envelope is blank. No identification on it. The other has the identification of the person on it. So what happens is that on the day of the election all the envelopes are first taken by one person. name (or number. I forgot) is read out lout. Another person checks it of a list. The envelope is opened qnd the second envelope is checked and if OK put to the side. Not ok; would be not sealed, visible voting, writing or any other indication.
The valid envelopes are thrown in a box and when all are done, shaken,and then they are opened one by one. These votes are varified if they are valid and then thrown into the ballot box.

This is witnessed by at least one person of each union. Where I was there were 7 people from several unions looking over my schoulder. They are NOT allowed to touch the ballots in any way.

What I did during the day was take the ID of a person coming in, saying his name so somebody else would tick it off They then got a ballot and where allowed to vote. After they put the ballot in the box outside the voting booth, they would get their ID back.

Much more details went into the whole process.
The whole system was interesting to witness.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[desdinova 216]

most of the legislators in the US are members of one of the two major parties.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[MachineShedFred]

Fine. I'll agree with you if you get me my signature. And it had better be close to what is on my passport.

Good luck.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[MachineShedFred]

Yes, I have a familiarity with this Senator, as I voted for him twice when I lived in Portland. And yes, I'm aware that Senators usually need to be present in the United States Senate to do their job. That doesn't mean that he should spend 90% of his time that the Senate isn't in session in New York, rather than doing the other thing Senators are supposed to do: meet with their constituents and learn what issues they face, so that he can represent them better.

That being said, Wyden does a far better job than that muppet Merkely does. Has Merkely done anything in his time in the Senate besides bitch about the processes in the Senate... as a freshman Senator that has absolutely no power or clout to change anything about the workings of the Senate?

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[Bartles]

It doesn't have to be close to what is on your passport. No state requires a passport for voting. It just has to be close to what is in your registration. And it is clear that our voter registration system has major problems.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny, my wife is black and obviously knows a ton of black people in her extended family and personal life. She is mystified by voter ID laws because every black person she has ever known has a photo ID.

And this matters because she knows a large percentage of the country's population? Has she even conducted a thorough examination of her family and friends to verify that they all have ID that is valid for voting?

You can't function in modern society without one.

I've gone through the year without producing ID for anyone except the voting office. Twice this year, we have off-set primaries and elections for certain reasons.

Voter ID laws aren't racist, they're just common sense.

The effects are, and deliberately so when you consider the compounding effects of shutting down licensing offices and polling sites, as well as early voting.

The only way to have secure voting is to:
-only allow voting in person
-only allow voting on one day
-require registration beforehand, with validation of the list for eligibility
-require a forgery resistant form of ID that matches the voter registration record
-stain the thumb with ink that is hard to remove

1 and 2. Will violate the rights of many, such as service members, those in medical care, and even force people not to travel. Besides, if you can't secure the vote over multiple days, you have a problem. 3 means that you risk denying soneone the right to vote when they can produce valid documentation. 4 has the aforementioned provisioning problem that HAS to be solved. Why not just take their photo at registration though? 5. Please don't waste our time with that silliness. 6. Is assuming papers can't be forged for some reason.

-only use paper ballots, using a machine readable ballot is fine
-every blank ballot is imprinted with a unique serial number in a barcode and mailed out to each voter before the election- not for the purposes of identifying how people vote but for preventing people from printing up or obtaining blank ballots to rig the election- it becomes easy to see during a count if the ballot you're scanning is not a blank ballot that was given to a voter or if there are 30 ballots that all relate to the same voter, etc

Adding more completely and solving nothing. If you can fake ballots, you can fake these mail-outs.

-are observed to prevent tampering with ballots

Already done.

This way you ensure that the only people who vote are:
-people that are allowed to vote (ie, humans, adults, non-deceased, citizens, not incarcerated, etc)
-are the people they claim to be (say hello to miguel sanchez)
-only vote once

Even if it did, which it doesn't necessarily, what are you going to do when your system is abused?

As it stands, your system is abusive to many simply because you demand it to be in-person. That you risk further abuses because you demand it to be in one-day adds to the likelihood.

It also ensures that votes can be physically counted and re-counted, with no room for shenanigans.

There is plenty of room for shenanigans. Already mentioned is the ID issue, then there is the issue of jammed voting precincts, and spoiling ballots by losing the other part in the mail, and more, depending on the particulars.

I get it, you want an easy solution. You haven't got one. You have more work to do.

But hey, just solve one problem. Make it the duty of the state to provide ID. Put the burden on them.

That will establish some credibility on your part.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[MachineShedFred]

The ballot is still secret. The signature is on a "privacy envelope" that contains the ballot. They verify the signature on the envelope, open it, and take the ballot out and put it into a pile to be counted by other official election counters.

Not conceptually different from verifying ID before handing you a ballot and pointing to a booth.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[MachineShedFred]

You clearly don't understand what I'm saying, or you are being intentionally obtuse.

In Oregon, when you register to vote, you sign the voter registration card. This signature is then kept in the voter rolls for the county in which you reside.

You sign the secrecy envelope that contains your ballot. When you drop off / mail the ballot to the county elections office, they compare the signatures. If they are wildly different, the ballot is set aside with a voter contact scheduled. If the signature is a reasonable match, the ballot is then removed from the envelope and given over to the ballot counters.

I mentioned my passport signature because you seem to think it's trivial to forge a signature on an official government document you've never seen. Feel free to match my signature from my voter registration if that confuses you less. You're the one that said you can get me a signature if I wanted one. I want one that would fool an election official to accept a ballot that is not mine.

Do it, or shut up about it. This system has been in place in Oregon for over a decade, and yet we've not heard of massive voter fraud issues with it, even through some fairly contentious elections and referendums. Why not, if it's so god damn easy to defraud?

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[Bartles]

And you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. Say you're a homeless person that doesn't vote, or hasn't in years. Someone decides to register for you. They sign the registration with your name. They use a homeless shelter or a Po box as your address. Then they collect the ballot and sign the same signature. Mail in the ballot and it's counted because the signatures match. You will have no idea that you even voted, because it's not even on your radar. It happens in nursing homes, homeless shelter, anywhere there's a population that has dropped off the radar.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[Bartles]

Our voter registration system security is so lax, that this sort of thing can happen because there's no way to even detect it. You can't have fraud if you can't or won't make an effort to detect it.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[NotAPK]

The UK doesn't even bother with a secret ballot at the voting booth, let alone by mail. I suspect you're from Australia? They have secret voting there and I think it's a much better system.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[NotAPK]

You're completely overlooking the failure of that system: the votes can be legitimately discarded if the official "doesn't like" the signature. This means that votes can be lost from the system. All the official has to do is check the post mark to see where the vote is coming from, and if it's a neighborhood that votes a certain way, they can discard it.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[NotAPK]

But sometimes just "losing" the ballots is as effective as casting new votes.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[NotAPK]

The fraud in the UK is that the ballot is not secret. How this influences voters is difficult to ascertain, but it makes me wary to vote against the government when on principle, following an election they could round up all the voters who did not support them.

The UK is hardly a democracy, yet the locals voted for Brexit to champion democracy? Ridiculous.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[MrL0G1C]

For postal voters perhaps (a tiny minority) but for the rest of us, the vote is definitely secret.

I know because I've voted here many times, put a cross in a box on a piece of paper, fold it, put it in the ballot box slot.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[NotAPK]

I'm sorry, but regular votes in the UK are not secret.

At the polling station the staff member takes a ballot sheet from the pile, all of which are printed with a serial number. They write the serial number down on the electoral roll against your name, and then hand it to you so you may cast your vote.

From the Wikipedia article here on voting in the UK: "The use of numbered ballots makes it possible, given access to the relevant documents, to identify who has voted for whom."

Don't be too hard on yourself, every UK citizen I've discussed this with (a few dozen in the past couple of years) was unaware that the UK ballot was not secret. Blame your education system, then blame the government, then blame your fellow citizens for tolerating such a system.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[MrL0G1C]

Well it depends on what you call secret. I don't think the gov't goes to the trouble of entering all of those codes back into some system and keeping a record of how people voted, that would be a massive and illegal conspiracy. (The secret ballot was eventually extended generally in the Ballot Act 1872)

And it's also possible in parts of the US "Sometimes the ballots themselves are numbered, making the vote trackable. This was ruled legal by Federal District Judge Christine Arguello, who ruled that the U.S. Constitution does not grant a right to a secret ballot.[24]"

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[Bartles]

What literacy test?

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[Fjandr]

No, then you're followed in and monitored as you vote. It doesn't happen in the modern era, but it most certainly has happened. When it has happened, it happens on a wholesale level at every precinct in which it occurs. With vote-by-mail, it gets a lot more difficult to commit wholesale fraud without resorting to completely different means.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[Fjandr]

Might be easier, assuming you have access to voter lists necessary to craft counterfeit ballots and envelopes containing accurate voter data. What happens when those names pop up twice, half of which came from a single location, however, is not as easy to control. That requires significant access to the entire voting apparatus, and if you're that intimately involved with the entire process there are easier methods of fraud. Of course, that assumes there are people who have access to the entire vote-by-mail system at that level, which is not borne out by any evidence anywhere.

Re: US Post Office always secure.

[Fjandr]

The signature is used when more than one ballot with the same voter information comes in. Only one will be valid, at most.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[Fjandr]

You apparently know nothing about him then. He's one of the few Senators I'm aware of who still commands a significant amount of respect from both sides of the aisle (among voters, anyway).

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[MachineShedFred]

That's an interesting idea, as I've actually voted for him twice. Just because I have some criticism doesn't mean that he is terrible. The quality of a job that someone does is not a binary value.

Everyone can improve what they do, and he could do a little more constituent service.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[MachineShedFred]

Ron Wyden is a decent moderate Senator, which is usually what Oregon sends to DC. See: Bob Packwood, Mark Hatfield, Wayne Morse, Gordon Smith.

Peter Defazio gets re-elected because he's a little left of Lenin, and represents Eugene / Lane County; it's a perfect fit.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[Nkwe]

This is prevented by policy (which you can trust or not), but the policy is that if any voter's ballot is in question due to signature, the voter is contacted by the elections office and given an opportunity to confirm that it is or is not their signature. As a voter you can also contact the elections office and confirm that your ballot has been received (and had its signature accepted). Records (and actual images of the mailing envelope signatures) are kept for each voter. So you can get your entire voting history (if you have voted or not, not your actual votes of course...) In my elections office, three different elections officers have to agree that the signature is not a match before the ballot is set aside.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[Fjandr]

The difference between standard mail-in ballots and absentee ballots is huge. First, mail fraud requires that the real voter never returns their ballot for every fraudulent vote. When a 2nd ballot comes in (the real one, or a replacement if they actually managed to get ahold of originals and the voter requests it because they never received their ballot), the voter is contacted and the ballots are examined to determine what happened. For 100% mail-in systems, there are no absentee ballots. They're irrelevant. Second, large-scale fraud requires massive coordination in order to create voters who don't exist and create counterfeit ballots linked to those voters. It requires access to the voter database and the ballot processing equipment in order to get them into the mail stream without being blatantly obvious. Doing so on any sort of scale would require the system to already be so thoroughly compromised that the fraud would be simply a matter of course at that point.

So no, while the system is vulnerable to certain frauds, wholesale fraud is not one of those vulnerabilities. Being "way more susceptible to fraud" is only obvious if you think about it for a few minutes and then stop thinking before you actually get to the important parts.

Re:US Post Office always secure.

[Fjandr]

Interesting is one way to put it with that additional context. That actually subtracts from my estimation of the original comment, but "headline" was all that was available to comment on before. He's certainly made headlines, but I have yet to see one that wasn't actually about an important issue. I'm not in Oregon any more though, so I only see the national ones.

Re:Drivers License?

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy Fuck.

They are giving out IDs for free. Take your fucking drivers license and drive the other 5 people down to the DMV to get a Voter ID card.

God Damned fucking moron.

Or, more likely a fucking Hillary OFA Troll. You shit stains should be shot on sight.

Mail-only voting

[mhkohne]

Senator, you do know there's a REASON we went to the secret ballot originally, right? Because without it, a political figure who wants to buy votes can easily see if the people he bribed or threatened did what he wanted. (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-vote-that-failed-159427766/?no-ist)

I've long considered Oregon insane for going to all-mail-in voting, for precisely that reason. I can easily imagine a union getting all their members together and 'helping' them vote. Under the guise of pressuring everyone to vote, they'd actually be pressuring everyone to vote for the candidate that they wanted.

Even if they don't do anything overtly illegal, peer pressure is a powerful thing, and a secret ballot nicely end-runs around it by making it so that you can lie to people about who you voted for, if you like.

Re:Mail-only voting

[KingBenny]

Mh ... yea, anonimity should be an option, indeed. And to say its guaranteed does not make it so im afraid. Yea, why does it all have to be i dont know, is it cos of the distances you have in the states ? Is it cos less people would come and vote ?
here you HAVE to ... its the belgian way, all things start with you have to OR ELSE ...
which doesnt stop a lot of people from not coming since that law is so 1830s i think they raffle a few every year and a lot dont actually get fined for not showing up i know i never got fined in my years of not caring and since i had my conviction(s) they never asked me to come so

since i just cant seem to find the lesser evil in the party-soup here that just fine with me
if i were forced to vote WITH MY NAME ON IT, id vote blank every time

Re:Mail-only voting

[ChrisMaple]

It's not "voting with your name on it"

Prove it. Examine each ballot with a microscope to show that there's no hidden code, no pattern of missing micron-sized bits of ink on the corners of letters. No hidden magnetic strip. No invisible ink. No watermark. No pattern of microscopic dots that show up only under UV light. No pattern of metallic inks that burn an ID when exposed to certain microwave frequencies. Etc., etc., etc..

Re:Mail-only voting

[ChrisMaple]

The 2000 Florida election for President went to Bush by fewer votes than the number of teachers in a school district. One school district union accomplishing coercion or fraud, and history books would be telling about President Gore.

Re:Mail-only voting

[jrumney]

You might want to learn something about how mail-in ballots work. It's not "voting with your name on it".

So how do you know that all the ballots have been filled by registered votors?

Re:Mail-only voting

[Obfuscant]

Mh ... yea, anonimity should be an option, indeed.

No, anonymity is mandatory. If you make it optional, then those who wish to buy votes or coerce someone will simply force them to choose the non-anonymous option.

if i were forced to vote WITH MY NAME ON IT, id vote blank every time

The ballot itself does not have your name on it. The inner envelope you put it in does not. The outer envelope does.

When we used to have polling places, you'd take your completed ballot to the final checker who would verify that it was the one you were given (by a tear-off serial number strip), tear off the strip, and you'd slide your ballot into the box without any id on it. Now your ballot leaves your possession and you have no way of knowing that the election officials aren't just tossing it because it has your name on it.

Re:Mail-only voting

[ZenShadow]

Or, you know, a database table that says what ballot ID number was mailed to which voter...

Re:Mail-only voting

[meerling]

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.

Re:Mail-only voting

[meerling]

If you're going to be that paranoid, how do you know that ballot booth isn't rigged to take your picture, record your biometrics, and the button or level also takes a small dna sample?

Re:Mail-only voting

[meerling]

How do you know Bush didn't win by those exact means?

Re:Mail-only voting

[dbIII]

If you're going to be that paranoid, how do you know that ballot booth isn't rigged to take your picture, record your biometrics, and the button or level also takes a small dna sample?

Because it's made of fucking cardboard.
I suggest you take a look at a sane voting system like the one in Australia instead of your "hanging chads" and other bullshit.
Paper. Pencil. Fast electronic scanners with a serious automatic feed.
Australia runs it's elections well. The results - well sometimes we get the utter pricks we seem to deserve but at least we know a lot of people voted for them.

Re:Mail-only voting

[dbIII]

Did you forget that the court decided instead of there being a full count or do you just want an excuse to put a boot in to a Union?
Gore would most definitely have been a better President than "mission from God when I'm not on vacation" Bush, but so would have Cheney, Powell, Rice and maybe even at a stretch Rumsfeld.

Re:Mail-only voting

[fgouget]

Dumbass.

Dumbass to you too sir. (I didn't know this was a greeting. Must be an american idiom)

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.

A lot of people have spouses or parents coming into their homes ready to play the peer-pressure or wholesale strong-arming game. After all if 1 in 4 women experience domestic violence how many would merely be forced to vote for the right party? How many cases of unprovable vote coercion would even be reported? How many would be investigated?

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.

Indeed this is different and not a hollywood movie. It's history. While what happened in Chile did not involve mail-in it qualifies as strong-arming on a scale large enough to clear the "no way to keep that shit secret!" threshold. And yet it worked for decades...

Re:Mail-only voting

[dywolf]

and no one in all the places that use mail voting has ever solved or thought of these problems before, right?

do try to learn something before speaking.

Re:Mail-only voting

[dywolf]

yes, and the florida election commission just happened to purge a number of predominantly democratic voters right before the election.

election fraud exists.
just not where you think it does.

Re:Mail-only voting

[Obfuscant]

A lot of people have spouses or parents coming into their homes

The "in their homes" meme is a smoke screen by someone who wants simple, easy vote fraud to become the norm. He thinks if he keeps repeating the claim that is impossible and would never happen that everyone else will decide to stop talking about the obvious lack of security.

Some people get their mail "in their homes". Some people get their mail "at the post office". Some people get their mail at a small box located up to a half a mile or more from their homes. Where I grew up our mailbox was 1/4 mile away. But this is all irrelevant. Where you get your mail doesn't matter.

The ballots do not have a GPS tracker that invalidate them if the ballot leaves "their home". Ballots are not some huge, heavy object that are hard to transport. They are small, easily carried objects that can be taken anywhere that the recipient wishes them to go -- whether that is from the mailbox to the living room, or to the union office, or to work, or where ever. Trying to claim that people only vote "in their homes" and since nobody can violate the sanctity of this castle there is no possible issue is just stupid. Dumbass.

Re:Mail-only voting

[NotAPK]

Go try the UK. They do not have a secret ballot. I feel disgusted every time I watch the official the ballot slip number against my name in the electoral roll.

When I raise this with my English colleagues they tell me I'm an "idiot" and that it "isn't a problem" and that the vote is still "effectively secret". It's like everyone is living in the past. Sure, 20-30 years ago it would be a major undertaking to go through all the ballot slips and check them against the roll. Now, with computer vision, document feeding scanners, and OCR, a small team of people could digitize the entire ballot in a few days, and then it's a simple software problem to line everything up.

Everyone claims this "feature" prevents voting fraud. If that is in any way the case, then the government has to actually keep the ballots and to organise them in some way. Otherwise, how else could I go to the government and query my ballot. Which, BTW, I can't actually do in practice because while the claim is that the system is to prevent voting fraud, it doesn't actually empower any citizen/subject to query the ballot. Certainly I'm not aware of any way to do this, comments are welcome.

It's such a massive failing of the democratic process and no one in the UK seems to care. It makes me sad.

HB2 voting

[turkeydance]

fraud but identifies as mail

Russian hacks

[johnnybogosity]

I think this whole Russian hack shmegegge... and that Obama is considering a 'proportional' response to the Russia hacking is starting to smell just like the old Weapons of Mass Destruction. I want to see some proof.

Re:Russian hacks

[meta-monkey]

Would the government lie to you? I'm sure the evidence for the Russian hacking is every bit as rock-solid as the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Re:Russian hacks

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

Yep. Both "didn't happen" under Democratic administrations.

voting day holiday

[zlives]

why is this not a thing for registered voters?

Re:voting day holiday

[jeff4747]

Because there still would be lots of people who can not get a random Tuesday off. They also tend to be the same people who currently have difficulty fitting in waiting in a multi-hour line to vote on a random Tuesday.

If we're going the holiday route, make the election Saturday and Sunday, and require employers to give at least one of those days off (So if you work Saturday, you are off Sunday and vice-versa). Should make it possible for almost everyone to fit in one day or the other. And the extra day would hopefully spread out the load that mysteriously surprises election officials in the certain places over and over again.

Re:voting day holiday

[jeff4747]

Wait, so it's ok to set the rules so that working folks might not be able to vote, but requiring ID is "rayciss!"

So you're completely unable to comprehend the part about requiring employers to give each employee one of the two days off?

Methinks you are not quite the "maker" you believe.

Re:voting day holiday

[dbIII]

waiting in a multi-hour line

Then fix it like everywhere else did years ago and have enough volunteers running things so that people do not have to wait for anything close to an hour.
America is supposed to be great so surely you can get your shit together enough so that it doesn't look like Pakistan are the professionals instead?

Re:voting day holiday

[AmiMoJo]

How is it that the United States of America can't even run the most basic part of democracy properly? Many other countries manage to do it just fine, but for some reason in the US it's a fiasco.

Racist voter registration laws, hanging chads, dodgy electronic voting machines p0wned by Russia, and long lines because apparently there is a shortage of voting booths or something.

Come on America.

Re:voting day holiday

[luis_a_espinal]

Because there still would be lots of people who can not get a random Tuesday off. They also tend to be the same people who currently have difficulty fitting in waiting in a multi-hour line to vote on a random Tuesday.

If we're going the holiday route, make the election Saturday and Sunday, and require employers to give at least one of those days off (So if you work Saturday, you are off Sunday and vice-versa). Should make it possible for almost everyone to fit in one day or the other. And the extra day would hopefully spread out the load that mysteriously surprises election officials in the certain places over and over again.

Which is why Voting day should be on a fucking weekend, or a mandatory holiday for anyone not in the civil services with a 9-5 job, or at least how we have it in my county (Broward, FL), early voting with a span that includes two weekends prior to voting day.

Since voting day is Novermber 8, I for one would have preferred that, nationally, early voting was mandatory (including two weekends). That's plenty for anyone interested in voting. Perhaps in some poorer (or more remote) areas, early voting should start on a Saturday, and span two more weekends.

If you are voting in person, and if fraud is pretty much non-existing (as it has been despite all the hooplah), I do not see what the problem is with extended early voting other than funding of extended hours for civil servants. Beyond that, the only reason to oppose it is to prevent certain classes of people from voting. Period.

Re:voting day holiday

[luis_a_espinal]

Wait, so it's ok to set the rules so that working folks might not be able to vote, but requiring ID is "rayciss!"

So you're completely unable to comprehend the part about requiring employers to give each employee one of the two days off?

Methinks you are not quite the "maker" you believe.

Herein is the problem. Voting day should be on a weekend, or a mandatory holiday for a) non-exempt employees that are b) not in the civil service and that c) work on a day shift.

But we don't because we are stupid and like to complicate shit more than what it should be.

Re:voting day holiday

[WrongMonkey]

The United States of America doesn't run any elections. 50 different states run 50 different elections using 50 different systems. Some of those systems work well, others not so much.

Re:voting day holiday

[david_thornley]

When you've got voting machines, the lines depend heavily on the number of machines allocated to each precinct, not how many volunteers you've got. In some cases, the neighborhoods of the right party got ample working voting machines, and the neighborhoods of the wrong party got too few machines, some of which were flaky.

Re:voting day holiday

[jeff4747]

We could get our shit together. And in fact, we do have our shit together....in districts that tend to vote for the same party as the state election officials.

Districts that tend to not vote for the same party as election officials have these mysterious shortages of machines.

Re:voting day holiday

[dbIII]

When you've got voting machines, the lines depend heavily on the number of machines allocated to each precinct

Exactly. It doesn't scale. Yet another reason why the machines are a fucking stupid (and expensive) idea which probably would not have been adopted if Diebold wasn't such a major donor.
It's not hard to do properly
Pencil. Paper. Lots of people (scanners help too).

Re:voting day holiday

[jeff4747]

The problem with your reasoning is you are starting with the assumption that the people running the elections want everyone to vote.

They don't. Especially in districts that heavily favor the opposite party as the state election officials.

None of those problems you listed were statewide. They tended to happen in districts that heavily favor the opposite party as state election officials. Who just happen to underestimate turnout, buy unreliable election systems and are a "tad overzealous at purging the voter rolls"...over and over again.

Re:Lose all the Mail for the Win

[LynnwoodRooster]

Or, as happened in Washington State, mail the ballots late to certain constituencies that tend to vote Republican - the military. Gotta ensure those serving overseas do not get enough time to receive the ballot and send it back!

See who voted

[bjamesv]

Senator, you do know there's a REASON we went to the secret ballot originally, right? Because without it, a political figure who wants to buy votes can easily see if the people he bribed or threatened did what he wanted. (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-vote-that-failed-159427766/?no-ist)

I've long considered Oregon insane for going to all-mail-in voting, for precisely that reason.

Here in WA ballots are SENT by mail but returning ballot by mail is just one of several options, to include: counties organize to provide large, physical dropboxes you can walk up to & place your ballot in.
The fairly long window for voting also greatly increases the cost needed to approimate the fabled 'thugs pressuring at polling places'. Partisan grousers are just mad their traditional methods of supressing/tampering with votes arent readily applied; "I already submitted my ballot" is a ready excuse to attempted coercion here.

It's my preferred way to vote. Saves me (and the impoverished/the state) from having to pay the $0.50 to mail it back individually.

Re: See who voted

[Entrope]

"Thugs pressuring at the voting place"? Where do you live, Philadelphia? It shouldn't take very long at all to have police show up and read the riot act to anyone loitering outside the voting location. Also, there are these nifty new things called cell phone, they're great for capturing evidence of such shenanigans.

Re:See who voted

[ChrisMaple]

The long voting window is a severe problem, as it encourages voting before all the relevant scandals have been exposed.

Re:See who voted

[Obfuscant]

Here in WA ballots are SENT by mail but returning ballot by mail is just one of several options, to include: counties organize to provide large, physical dropboxes you can walk up to & place your ballot in.

Dropboxes solve none of the problems of by-mail voting. They are a difference that makes no difference.

The fairly long window for voting also greatly increases the cost needed to approimate the fabled 'thugs pressuring at polling places'.

No, it just moves the thuggery up to the day before the ballots are mailed. "When you get your ballot, sign it and give it to me" doesn't need to happen on one day in November to be effective.

"I already submitted my ballot" is a ready excuse to attempted coercion here.

"I told you to sign it and hand it over before you sent it in. You thought your life in this union was bad before, now you're going to face hell."

Saves me (and the impoverished/the state) from having to pay the $0.50 to mail it back individually.

Vote by mail does not save the expense of returning a ballot. And the state never intended to foot the bill for sending them back, but it does have the expense of mailing them to every registered voter, even if that voter has no intention of voting with it.

I'm glad you prefer that system. I bet you didn't realize you could use that option with an absentee ballot without forcing everyone else to vote by mail and opening up the system to such trivial fraud.

Re:See who voted

[Frankie70]

"I already submitted my ballot" is a ready excuse to attempted coercion here.

Not if the coercion starts before postal voting starts.

Re:See who voted

[antimatter_16]

I was a ballot observer last November in WA for a morning. The head of the elections office showed me around, and I was pretty impressed with their method. Ballots are counted at every step of the way from the ballot box and meticulously documented. In addition, there is added security by using two envelopes to hold the ballot. The outside enveloped has your identification signature on it, which is compared to your signature on file from your driver's license or your voter registration by a human being. I've personally received a call from the office because I started using a different signature after college, and was told to come down to the office to verify my signature before it would be counted. The outside envelope also contains information about how many ballots you've been issued (if you asked to invalidate a previous ballot that hasn't been verified and counted yet. Additionally, if you were coerced, you could cancel your ballot, and ask for a new one, because the first has an identifying number on it. After verification, The outer envelope is opened, and your ballot secured in the inner envelope is removed, and placed with all other ballots to be counted, ensuring anonymity. You might say that the wrong people in charge of your ballot could throw an election, but that is true whether it is paper or electronic. I consider paper to be more secure, because it requires a considerable effort to destroy or modify, and recounts can be done by different staff and/or with public oversight. Electronic election fraud could be committed by changing an entry in a database.

Re:See who voted

[meerling]

Same in Oregon, you can mail it, but a lot of people drop them off at the official ballot drop boxes.

Re:See who voted

[meerling]

Really? You think people are going to be extorting whole neighborhoods for an extended period for their ballots, and have them sign the security envelope it's sealed in just to try and rig an election? Due to the obvious exploitation and manpower requirements, it would be far more efficient, safer, and faster to just extort the ballot officials that tally the damn things. Of course, that doesn't even need a vote by mail system.

Your paranoia is unfounded and silly.

Re:See who voted

[dywolf]

yes, I do love seeing more and more dirt pile up on Trump, while the GOP continues to swing and miss at Clinton.
the inevitable Clinton landslide is getting larger every day.

Re:See who voted

[dywolf]

um....you know dropboxes and ballots are anonymous right? once you remove the ballot from the envelope used ot send it to you, its no longer connected to you. this is not a difficult concept.

again: Oregeon and several locations have both Unions AND mail-in voting.
and they don't have these issues you keep creating in your head.

just the in person voter fraud that voter IDs don't actually stop, because it doesn't exist, this is a problem that only exists in your head.

just because you are too ignorant to understand how its done, doesn't mean it cant be done.

Re:See who voted

[Obfuscant]

Really? You think people are going to be extorting whole neighborhoods for an extended period for their ballots,

I think the example I used was for a union, and yes, I think that some unions will quite happily try to adjust the voting patterns of their members.

it would be far more efficient, safer, and faster to just extort the ballot officials

Oh, ok then. We can rest assured that people who want to influence an election will choose only the most efficient and safest method of trying to bribe one official instead of influencing hundreds of people whose jobs may depend on voting the right way.

Re:See who voted

[Obfuscant]

once you remove the ballot from the envelope used ot send it to you, its no longer connected to you. this is not a difficult concept.

It is apparently difficult enough that you don't seem to understand this at all. The ballot is not connected to you, but the ENVELOPE YOU SEND IT BACK IN IS. And it's irrelevant, since a coerced vote will be returned in the proper envelope with the voter's id on the outside, but it proves nothing about who actually filled out that ballot.

and they don't have these issues you keep creating in your head.

Of course they have these issues. You just don't understand what the issue is or how it works.

just because you are too ignorant to understand how its done, doesn't mean it cant be done.

How ironic that these are the exact words I would use regarding your inability to think of any ways of defrauding vote-by-mail.

Re:See who voted

[Obfuscant]

I've personally received a call from the office because I started using a different signature after college, and was told to come down to the office to verify my signature before it would be counted.

Nice that they did this, and had your phone number so they could do that. That's not done in Oregon. My phone number is not part of the driver's license data that is used to register voters.

After verification, The outer envelope is opened, and your ballot secured in the inner envelope is removed, and placed with all other ballots to be counted, ensuring anonymity.

So, pray tell, your first, coerced ballot comes in and goes into this anonymous box. You walk into the office and say "I was coerced, I want to change my vote." How do they know which of the thousands of anonymous ballots in the box to pull back out to cancel your first vote?

You might say that the wrong people in charge of your ballot could throw an election, but that is true whether it is paper or electronic.

Vote-by-mail does not solve any of the problems of ballot handling that take place after the ballots enter that anonymous box, but it creates an entire new class of problems involving how that ballot gets to the box in the first place. The fact that election officials can still cause fraudulent results does not mean we should overlook the gaping security issues of vote-by-mail.

When people go to a polling place and are watched entering and exiting the booth, and their ballot is tracked from the time it is handed to them until it enters the anonymous box, you cannot have a situation where one spouse takes a ballot that the other spouse has thrown away, votes it, and sends it in. (And if I hear "but but but it has to have a SIGNATURE" from someone who thinks that one spouse can never forge the other's signature, I'm going to scream.)

Re:See who voted

[NotAPK]

I'm supporting your post, in case it isn't clear.

But there are heaps of posts in this thread about signatures and forging them, etc, that are entirely focused on the objective of casting fake votes. Fine, I understand that.

But it is equally as effective to discard votes from those you know will vote against you. Since the official is comparing all of your personal data from the envelope to the computer records, they know exactly who you are, and if you come from the wrong neighborhood, then the official can discard your vote. And it's not even that suspicious since there is an official channel to do so: "oh, the signature doesn't look right".

WA Mail In Voting Experience

[JoeMerritt]

The WA Mail in voting experience is overall good from a voter perspective, ballots show up early, you fill them out and mail them back in or drop them off at a secure ballot box. From that point onward the system is secure, there are multiple people monitoring the collection, opening, and tallying. But they seem to overlook two essential problems: fraudulently registered voters, and fraudulently filled/coerced ballots.

If you have non-qualified people signed up to vote, they get a ballot at their registered address and you fill it in and mail it in, it will be counted. (this problem is not solved by voting in person)
If you know someone who doesn't vote, you grab their ballot and fill it in for them and mail it, it will be counted. (this problem is likely solved by voting in person)

The most recent WA election scandal was the 2004 Governor election, which was BEFORE mail in voting was State level. They "found" the votes to reach the "right result" after two recounts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I would be okay with a federal level mail in vote IF they mandated ranked voting or better, not first past the post. Two party system would be gone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:WA Mail In Voting Experience

[Hebetsubeach]

When you return ballots in Washington State, you put the ballot in a secrecy envelope, and then put that envelope in a return envelope which you sign. The state checks your signature when it receives your envelope. "If you fail to sign the ballot declaration, or the signature on the ballot declaration does not match the signature in your voter registration record, your county elections department will contact you. If you are unable to sign the declaration, make a mark in front of two witnesses and have them sign in the designated spaces." from https://wei.sos.wa.gov/agency/... If your signature is OK, the secrecy envelope is put in the stack of ballots to be opened and counted. No one who handles the stack of ballots to be counted has any idea whose they are. There are also bar codes on the envelopes so making duplicate copies and mailing them in won't work either. Washington State has been voting by mail for many years, and it works very well. You get your ballot in your mail, can take your time to fill it in at your leisure, and either mail it back or drop it off at a collection box through election day. You don't have to worry about taking time off from work, standing in line, or any of that. The biggest plus is that since there are no polling stations, there are no exit polls. The media has to wait until the results come in before they can say how a vote is going down. They can't say, 20% of this group is voting this way and 40% of that group is voting that way.

far bigger danger

[ooloorie]

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 far bigger danger to the integrity of elections is of the vote early, vote often variety. Well, that, and dead people voting.

Of course, we could just do what European nations do, which is citizen-verifiable voting, government voter and residency address registration based on valid identification, and a requirement that people carry a government-issue photo id and show it on demand. Of course, according to Democrats, Americans are too stupid for that.

Re: far bigger danger

[Entrope]

I like the idea of using purple ink on one finger. It almost trivially avoids double voting, and lets you relax citizenship verification because it's auditable by anyone else who knows the voter and sees them.

Re:far bigger danger

[jeff4747]

Of course, according to Democrats, Americans are too stupid for that.

No, it turns out there are lots of people who can vote who do not have a government ID. And it turns out being able to take off time in the middle of the day to go to an office many hours away when you don't have a car is a tad problematic.

And that's ignoring some of the byzantine "problems" that appear. For example, it took me 9 tries to get my CO drivers license changed to an NY drivers license when I moved. Magically the documentation was never sufficient, and documentation that was good enough on attempt 1 was suddenly not good enough by attempt 3. It couldn't possibly be because I checked the party affiliation opposite of the vast majority of people who lived in that area. It's not like the clerk literally crossed out the motor-voter part of the form on several attempts.

You want to have workers drive to a voter's house to handle all the necessary documentation, including out-of-state birth certificates, at a time of day of the voter's choosing, then go right ahead. If you don't want to pay the massive pile of money for that problem, you're going to have to accept that the right to vote is not attached to the right to drive, or any other government-issued ID.

Re:far bigger danger

[toonces33]

Seriously? Do you have any examples that this has happened any time in the past 50 years? Anecdotes and urban legends don't count.

No, I didn't think so.

Re:far bigger danger

[meglon]

Of course, according to Democrats, Americans are too stupid for that.

No, but we are smart enough to know that if you don't have a problem, then you don't need a solution that causes other problems. We do know for certain though, that republicans are stupid enough to to buy into the bullshit they're fed by the political overlords they're conned into voting for. It must be hell going through life so scared of everything.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/2449...

Re:far bigger danger

[ooloorie]

No, it turns out there are lots of people who can vote who do not have a government ID.

Well, not in Europe, because possessing (though not necessarily carrying) a government-issued ID is legally required. It's something the US should also consider because it is quite sensible.

And that's ignoring some of the byzantine "problems" that appear. For example, it took me 9 tries to get my CO drivers license changed to an NY drivers license when I moved.

The solution to that is obviously to fix the byzantine problems with bloated and inefficient administrations, not to design ever more laws around the assumption that the bureaucracy doesn't function properly.

And it turns out being able to take off time in the middle of the day to go to an office many hours away when you don't have a car is a tad problematic.

Well, what can I say, Europeans deal with it. In fact, the hours for government offices are often shorter and wait times longer than in the US.

It's quite bizarre how Democrats and progressives in the US keep pointing to everything they like in Europe, but ignore the parts of European government that make progressive policies actually function in Europe (to the degree that they do).

Re:far bigger danger

[ooloorie]

Seriously? Do you have any examples that this has happened any time in the past 50 years? Anecdotes and urban legends don't count.

How would anybody be able to prove voter fraud under the current system? A significant percentage of votes could be fraudulent and nobody could tell. I'm not talking (just) about non-citizens voting, but fraud by staff, voting machine manufacturers, and others.

The real question is why the US shouldn't do what other Western nations do: require clear identification and establishment of citizenship in order to vote, combined with simple, consistent, auditable paper-based voting instead of the current mess of machines and local regulations.

Re:far bigger danger

[ooloorie]

Obama, Clinton, Sanders and all these guys keep talking about how we should do what other "advanced democracies" do. Well, other advanced democracies issue every citizen a clear form of government ID, uniform across the country, and require it for voting and all other government services. That not only prevents voter fraud, it also prevents non-citizens from taking advantage of government services they are not entitled to. It doesn't "cause other problems", it fixes other problems, as experience shows.

Re:far bigger danger

[jeff4747]

Well, not in Europe, because possessing (though not necessarily carrying) a government-issued ID is legally required. It's something the US should also consider because it is quite sensible.

This will not pass in the US. The fever swamps believe national ID cards are the first step in rounding up "true patriots" and sending them to the camps. Even though we're all issued Social Security cards...they just don't have a picture so magically they are not evil.

Those same fever swamps are absolutely convinced that all sorts of terrible people are getting fake IDs, so they keep increasing the difficulty to get one. And since the rules change state-by-state, there is little consistency. Even within a state there is little consistency, because state laws are easier to pass than federal.

Hence my example of Colorado confirming my identity via an ID was not good enough for New York to confirm my identity.

Well, what can I say, Europeans deal with it. In fact, the hours for government offices are often shorter and wait times longer than in the US.

Hours of travel time was not an exaggeration.

Part of the way the fever swamps keep "those people" from getting IDs is to reduce the number of locations that issue them. There are many places in the US where a non-drivers-license ID office is at least a two hour drive away. Driver's license offices are better distributed, since they're used by "fine upstanding citizens".

It's quite bizarre how Democrats and progressives in the US keep pointing to everything they like in Europe, but ignore the parts of European government that make progressive policies actually function in Europe (to the degree that they do).

It's because we know things like single-payer are far easier to pass in the US than national ID cards.

Re:far bigger danger

[meerling]

Imagine a place where you can get your official ID, but it's only open a couple of days a month, for a few hours on those days, they aren't on the weekend, and it's the only one for 50 miles or so.
So now tell me again how you think getting an appropriate ID isn't an issue?

Re:far bigger danger

[dbIII]

I thought you were too busy pretending to be far too stupid to read but here you are back again.
Election fraud hasn't seemed to have happened much in the USA in the last half century, you have been played by this Senator as if you are as stupid as you have been pretending to be. He's using the spectre of fraud to push an agenda.

Re:far bigger danger

[ooloorie]

you have been played by this Senator as if you are as stupid as you have been pretending to be. He's using the spectre of fraud to push an agenda

Honey, dearest, "this Senator" is Ron Wyden, who opposes voter ID requirements.

Do you even bother the article summary, or do you just jump right into the comment section to abuse people and push your agenda?

Election fraud hasn't seemed to have happened much in the USA in the last half century,

Yes, and lack of identification requirements is intended to keep up that appearance. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

Re:far bigger danger

[dbIII]

Here's the thing - when someone gets hysterical about a total non-issue your mental alarm bells should ring and you should check to see if they are using it as a distraction to get their hands on your wallet.
Of course you already knew that, you can not be anywhere near as stupid as you keep pretending.

Re:far bigger danger

[ooloorie]

Here's the thing - when someone gets hysterical about a total non-issue your mental alarm bells should ring and you should check to see if they are using it as a distraction to get their hands on your wallet.

My mental alarm bells did go off: Ron Wyden, being a Democrat voting against Voter ID laws, is likely trying to make it easier for people to vote who don't have a right to vote. Hence my suggestion of coupling such vote-by-mail efforts with better identification requirements.

Of course you already knew that, you can not be anywhere near as stupid as you keep pretending.

Sadly, I can't say the same thing about you. In fact, with you, the reverse effect seems to be operating.

Re:far bigger danger

[david_thornley]

It doesn't work in the US. The Feds can't just issue IDs to everybody in the country and have the states use them, since it's not one of the Constitutional powers, and it's not close enough to hope the Supreme Court stretches the Constitution to cover it. Elections are administered by individual states, not the Federal government. There are no national elections, although people routinely count up the number of voters who vote for each Presidential candidate. The only national elective offices are the Presidency and Vice-Presidency, and those are determined by individual elections for slates of electors in each state who will fill out the real official Presidential ballots that actually have legal significance.

Some time ago, the Feds started a RealID program, an attempt to require state-issued IDs to conform to certain standards to be valid for boarding an aircraft. It faced a lot of opposition..

Re:far bigger danger

[ooloorie]

It doesn't work in the US. The Feds can't just issue IDs to everybody in the country and have the states use them, since it's not one of the Constitutional powers, and it's not close enough to hope the Supreme Court stretches the Constitution to cover it.

That's a ridiculous argument, given how much has been shoved into the interstate commerce clause. FFS, we have a federal requirement to purchase health insurance now and SCOTUS had no problem with that. Those bright, progressive lawyers could easily find a loophole; for example, they could require it for everybody who ever engages in interstate commerce, or they could require a nationwide supplemental federal drivers licenses, they could require standardization of state drivers licenses, or they could simply issue an ID that is required for all interaction with any federal agency, including the IRS, Medicare, and any federal welfare program. Even if people want separate cards for all of those, they could simply unify the namespace for each of these agencies, so that your IRS-99999999999, SOCSEC-999999999999, and MC-999999999999 all use the same format, and possibly even the same unique suffix. That way, you could use any of those identifiers to identify yourself.

Some time ago, the Feds started a RealID program, an attempt to require state-issued IDs to conform to certain standards to be valid for boarding an aircraft. It faced a lot of opposition..

All states are trying to comply with RealID, some states are just so badly run that they can't get their act together.

Re:far bigger danger

[jeff4747]

All the national ID card proposals that have been floating around in the US (mostly from Democrats) so far have come along with national citizen databases, and that is a problem.

I'd love to hear your proposal for issuing ID cards with zero tracking of what cards have been issued, and no way to authenticate the card is valid. Or perhaps we can use some Randian magic to make that not require a database.

Yes, and passing European-style welfare laws without European-style government is utter foolishness.

European-style government is not national ID cards. We already have a unique identifier for every US citizen - a Social Security Number. That gets us about 99% of what we'd need to implement "European-style welfare laws". Lack of a national photo ID is not the barrier you imply.

So? It takes hours to get this kind of crap done in Europe as well.

Ok, go ahead and head over to google maps and show me a place in Europe that requires a 2 hour drive by car to the nearest ID office. And if you want to claim wait time or other bureaucratic delays, that comes after the 2 hour drive in places like Alabama.

I see massive "fever swamps" on both the left and the right. You have to be the same kind of illiterate idiot to support Clinton or Sanders as you have to be to support Cruz or Trump.

*Citation Needed.

Re:far bigger danger

[ooloorie]

European-style government is not national ID cards. We already have a unique identifier for every US citizen - a Social Security Number.

The social security number is not a secure or unique identifier, and it lacks biometric and legal information. More importantly, the social security number is not an ID card: the advantage of an ID card is that the information it contains can be used without a central database. Using the social security number as an identifier, without a physical ID card, is actually what creates the need for centralized databases.

I'd love to hear your proposal for issuing ID cards with zero [national-level] tracking of what cards have been issued, and no way to authenticate the card is valid.

The same way it's been done in Europe: there is a EU-wide standard, but the cards are issued and tracked locally, without a central database (there are also restrictions on private databases containing this information).

These days, the cards are chip cards and digitally signed and secured. The cards contain biometric identifiers together with citizenship information. Anybody wanting to verify someone's identity, age, address, or citizenship can do so, either visually, or (more securely) using a chip reader terminal. You can also use the cards to securely identify yourself for online transactions.

Paper Trails

[frovingslosh]

Let us remember, Bernie won the primary by 51% total in all of the states that have a paper trail, and lost overwhelmingly in the rest of the states that do not have a paper trail. Isn't that interesting, I wonder what it means.

Re:Paper Trails

[Shadow of Eternity]

and that the DNC staffer who actually leaked those emails was shot repeatedly in the back and left with all of his money and valuables.

Re:Paper Trails

[dbIII]

It doesn't mean anything because the "superdelagates" had disproportionate power so it did not resemble what most people would consider an election.
It's a bit creepy seeing that in a place that is supposed to be "for the people" and not for King and aristocrats.

Re:Paper Trails

[T.E.D.]

Bernie won the primary by 51% total in all of the states that have a paper trail

???

Sanders actually did best in the Caucus states. In other words, precisely those states where there was no secret ballot, and its possible to strongarm and intimidate voters, and where the fewest % of the population actually votes, so fraud could be most effective.

In primary states with a huge number of voters (eg: Florida, Texas, Ohio, Georgia, California) he got waxed (25, 22, 10, 8, 7 points respectively)

If I were to suspect fraud based on the numbers, I'd suspect it of the Sanders camp. More neutrally, its pretty clear, no matter how popular the guy was online, real live Democratic voters preferred Hillary.

Re:Paper Trails

[david_thornley]

Got any evidence for that statement?

Re:Paper Trails

[david_thornley]

It was an election. It was set up to favor Clinton, but Sanders had a real shot at the nomination. He just had to do significantly better than Clinton, where he failed.

Re:Paper Trails

[david_thornley]

In my precinct, pretty much everyone who wanted got to go to the State Senate District convention, where there was actual competition to be selected as a delegate to higher conventions, and where we split up into subcaucuses that were a blend between what you wanted to have happen in the party and whose ego demanded its own subcaucus.

The result was that, at least for my precinct. who determined whether state votes went to Clinton or Sanders was not the rank and file, but those who were willing to put in some extra effort. In other words, it was undemocratic.

Re:Paper Trails

[Shadow of Eternity]

You do realise that saying "citation needed" for something that was literally day to day news just makes you look like a pedantic ass, right? Seth Rich's murder is common knowledge on the level of Mike Pence being a state governor and Hillary Clinton having been a senator.

Re:Paper Trails

[VisceralLogic]

Is the Washington Post good for you? https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Placebo voting

[Okian Warrior]

Let us remember, Bernie won the primary by 51% total in all of the states that have a paper trail, and lost overwhelmingly in the rest of the states that do not have a paper trail. Isn't that interesting, I wonder what it means.

People seem to think that voting has some sort of meaning, and not a placebo to calm and comfort the masses.

Consider that Bernie raised $60 million to Clinton's $20 million, so the DNC quickly moved $60 million from down-ballot elections directly into the Clinton campaign. The popular vote by percentage was almost exactly proportional to the amount each candidate spent, so if the DNC hadn't done that, Bernie would have won.

Then consider that if you swap Hillary's superdelegates with Bernies, Bernie would have won. A candidate can have upwards of 30% more votes, and the superdelegates will still outweigh the popular vote.

Let's not forget that Clinton and Bernie were in a dead heat in several Iowa counties, and delegates were assigned by coin toss, of which Hillary won all 6.

A recent Wikileaks leak shows that, well... here's the relevant quote:

Why not throw Bernie a bone and reduce the super delegates in the future to the original draft of members of the House and Senate, governors and big city mayors, eliminating the DNC members who are not State chairs or vice-Chairs. (Frankly, DNC members don’t really represent constituencies anyway. I should know. I served on the DNC first as Executive Director and then as an elected member for 10 years.)

So if we “give” Bernie this in the Convention’s rules committee, his people will think they’ve “won” something from the Party Establishment. And it functionally doesn’t make any difference anyway. They win. We don’t lose. Everyone is happy.”

On the Republican side, several candidates signed a pledge to support the candidate whoever it should be, and we know how that turned out. "Except when they call my wife a bad name" is an exception, apparently.

And of course many Republicans don't support Trump, and the RNC cut off funding to his campaign and redirected funds to down-ballot elections.

Which prompted the recent tweet: "Shouldn't the goal of the party be to elect the candidate we voted for?"

People think that voting means something, but it doesn't. Not when the party can withhold support and sabotage their campaigns.

(The stock answer is that "The $x party is a private club, they can make whatever rules they want." Why do we even *bother* with primaries?)

Re:Placebo voting

[JeffOwl]

And since, for practical purposes, it is a two party system the stench permeates the general election.

Re:Orangutan Wants Nationwide, All-Male Voting

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

Nah. Men are jsut as stupid as women.

Bonus

[Stormy Dragon]

Wyden's plan eliminates secret ballot so that people who vote the wrong way can be properly retaliated against.

Re:Bonus

[Nkwe]

Wyden's plan eliminates secret ballot so that people who vote the wrong way can be properly retaliated against.

Actually here in Oregon, the mail in ballot is still secret. You mark your optically scanable ballot (fill in the bubbles), and you put it in a provided secrecy envelope. Neither the ballot or secrecy envelope have any identifying marks on it. The secrecy envelope is put inside a mailing envelope that you sign and mail or hand deliver to a nearby drop box. When the ballots get to the elections office, your signature is checked by one elections official who marks you as voted. They then take the still sealed secrecy envelope and but it into a prefix specific box which another elections employee opens and counts (feeds into the machine) later. No one person gets to see your name and your marked ballot at the same time. Representatives of major parties and general members of the public are invited to watch the process. I have personally gone down to my local elections office and watched the process. It works as described.

Re:Bonus

[meerling]

And just why is that? Do you think there are video cameras reading your mail? Watching you in your own home? Recording everything you do?

If so, please turn a little to the left and smile, I want to save this one for the scrapbook.

People casting votes decide nothing

[mi]

As Stalin once put it:

People casting votes decide nothing. People counting votes decide everything.

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.

Re:People casting votes decide nothing

[ChrisMaple]

The counters also have to either consist of, or be monitored by, representatives of all interested parties.

Re:People casting votes decide nothing

[dbIII]

Instead of spewing stupid platitudes who about looking at some of those attempts to centralize vote-counting that actually reinforced democracy?
Clue number one - it's done in public with representatives from all the people on the ballot watching. The UK, Australia, a lot of places have something a thousand times better run than the Florida hanging chad bullshit or people having to wait in line for hours on a fucking Tuesday just because the local electoral office just cannot get their shit together.

Re:People casting votes decide nothing

[swillden]

As Stalin once put it:

People casting votes decide nothing. People counting votes decide everything.

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.

That used to be the only hope. Today we have math. We can fully centralize vote counting while fully distributing count verification.

You should look into end-to-end verifiable voting systems like Scantegrity II. Every voter gets a voting receipt that allows them to verify that their vote was correctly counted in the final tally, but does not allow them to prove to anyone else how they voted (to avoid vote buying/coercion, which is a potential problem with mail-in ballots). Anyone can also verify the integrity of the entire counting process after the election, and before and during the election anyone can verify the integrity of the ballots by requesting some chosen at random for auditing.

Cryptographers have applied their attack-oriented style of thinking to the voting problem and have devised numerous solutions which are incredibly resilient even in the face of massive, deep corruption at all levels. Early election security research produced systems that were extremely secure but impractical, but the later ones (like Scantegrity II) are both very secure and eminently practical for real-world elections.

It's interesting that there seems to be very little interest in using them.

Re:correction

[hyades1]

Um, yes. He's right. You're wrong. Hard evidence proved voter fraud was a minor problem, while the states' efforts were largely based on keeping people the right wing establishment doesn't away from the polls.

Sorry to disappoint you with these simple truths.

Stop them from voting

[PopeRatzo]

Here's a solution offered by one segment of the population:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new...

Re:Stop them from voting

[PopeRatzo]

You mean the democratic segment of the population who formulates a fantasy to make their opposition look bad, and then pretends they are the opposition and supports it?

Do you realize that the recent "Repeal the 19th Amendment" meme was started by Trump supporter Peter Thiel?

http://www.slate.com/articles/...

Re:Stop them from voting

[PopeRatzo]

Some people just can't take a joke, I guess.

And some people take their voting right seriously.

Re:Drivers License?

[meglon]

...and if it was that simple, there wouldn't be a problem. BUT.... it's not, and stupid fucking cunts like you just can't seem to get that into your pea sized brain.

Re:correction

[JoshuaZ]

Let's look at North Carolina https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/appeals-court-strikes-down-north-carolinas-voter-id-law/2016/07/29/810b5844-4f72-11e6-aa14-e0c1087f7583_story.html. A three judge panel found that the voter ID and related restrictions their were constructed to target minorities with "surgical precision" (the term used by the judges). Most damningly:

The panel seemed to say it found the equivalent of a smoking gun. “Before enacting that law, the legislature requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices,” Motz wrote. “Upon receipt of the race data, the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans.”

So, yes, please go explain how these laws are about protecting vote integrity. And then.explain why if they care so much about vote integrity they don't do anything about absentee ballot voter fraud which is a much more common and well-documented problem.

Re:Aren't counting machines hackable

[ChrisMaple]

Sure they could have. But in case of doubt, those ballots can be hand counted.

Rule #1 of automation

[Locke2005]

Always create a full paper trail for verification and audit. Any computer election system that doesn't do that was intentionally designed to make hacks easy and undectable.

The federal government taking over election manage

[rickb928]

What could possibly go wrong?

Gawd, these people can't possibly believe their own hype, can they?

Re:correction

[Trailer Trash]

> Hard evidence proved voter fraud was a minor problem'

How can we HAVE hard evidence when it requires no ID to vote? You are aware that basically most of Europe requires ID to vote, right? Are they doing voter suppression?

Canada also has it. The *only* reason anyone would be opposed to requiring a valid ID to vote is that they know that people who can't legally vote are voting for their preferred candidate. I guarantee that if Latinos suddenly started voting for GOP candidates in droves this would suddenly become a bipartisan issue.

Re:correction

[JoshuaZ]

That's not what happened here, and it is pretty clear that's not what happened even if you just read this article, even before one goes through the effort of reading the original opinion. For example, they took away Sunday early voting, and the report in question explicitly said that that was a common thing used by African-Americans. Literally every single change they made was one which the report that they commissioned had identified as having a more negative impact on blacks than anyone else.

Re:correction

[Trailer Trash]

For example:

http://projectveritas.com/2016...

And don't bother drooling out "but it's James O'Keefe". The guy either said they bus people around or he didn't. He did. O'Keefe didn't make him say it.

We all know it's going on, and we know that IDs help with the problem. They don't eliminate it, but they help. And there's one party doing that, by the way.

Re:ChrisMaple always dumb

[Obfuscant]

well DUH you think an entire apartment building full of people is not going to notice that their ballots are missing?

By the time they do, the votes will have been dropped into the collection boxes. Those who don't notice/don't care will have voted. Those who do care will be stuck arguing with the election officials to get another ballot and how to get the first vote to be uncounted.

well DUH do you think that your fellow humans are too stupid to figure out what is going on when a whole apartment building has their ballots stolen?

When I lived in an apartment building, I had no idea what mail other people got. Most of the people who do notice they didn't get a ballot will not know the entire building's ballots were stolen without a lot of work. By the time they do, the evidence to prove who did it will be long gone, and the votes for those who didn't notice will be cast.

Suppose it is only the ballots for the people the super knows are out of town or have recently moved? Is a little fraud ok?

All mail voting?

[argStyopa]

So we should replace an electronic system that's moderately difficult to hack, with a system that's hackable with nothing more high-tech than the willingness to pop mailboxes?

Re:All mail voting?

[Boronx]

We should replace it with non-electronic voting booths. Do what Canada does: a piece of paper with some check boxes. Respectable little old ladies count them in public.

Re:All mail voting?

[meerling]

Not to mention it runs the real risk of getting caught. You ever try to open one of those metal cans? Noisy as hell and people are happy to report your ass for that. You can F with a lot of things, but the mailbox and ballot dropoff boxs are two that people feel happy to report even if they do the no snitches thing.

Re:All mail voting?

[meerling]

So you mean stick with the same thing that has been problematic in various places for the last several national elections, though none quite as messy as the florida hanging chad fiasco?
Of course that solves nothing, so why go backwards?

Re:All mail voting?

[Boronx]

Mail in vote doesn't solve the problem of ambiguous ballots in close elections. And no, I don't mean stick with the same thing. I think we should get rid of any electronic vote counting.

My county, for instance, used to use scantron machines (same as Florida, hanging chads etc.) the ballots were dutifully observed travelling in locked ballot boxes handled and put into the machine. But the old DOS computer reading the machine ... they didn't really have any proof that it wasn't compromised, they just knew it counted a small test set properly. It almost certainly wasn't compromised, but there's nobody at the elections office who's qualified to check.

Re:All mail voting?

[david_thornley]

US elections are complicated. I'm going to be voting for President, Representative, State Senator, State Representative, and a batch of offices that I really don't care about. There could also be referenda on the ballots. I haven't checked this year. Typically, I'm facing at least two dozen things to vote for. It's easier to run the ballot through a counting machine and save it away in case a recount is necessary.

Re:All mail voting?

[argStyopa]

Because we had democrats screaming for years after Hanging Chads in 2000 that the public was too stupid to be trusted to operate a paper ballot.

Many mail-in/absentee ballots not even counted

[Anonymous Coward]

If a person votes according to a newspaper or union pamphlet's recommendations then that is a decision they freely made since no one is looking over their shoulder in the voting both. However with a mail-in system someone looking over your shoulder is a very real possibility. The two cases are not equivalent.

Vote by mail is not heavily targeted because it is currently largely inconsequential. Many mail-in ballots, absentee ballots, are never even counted. They are only counted if their number exceeds the current margin of victory, its a cost savings thing.

Re:Many mail-in/absentee ballots not even counted

[meerling]

Only if they are in your house

Re: ChrisMaple always dumb

[im_thatoneguy]

You can track your ballot online.

Secret Ballot no more

[Frankie70]

Postal Voting should not be allowed at all, forget 100%. Postal Voting does not provide Secret Ballot.

Assume, someone is either paying your or threatening you to vote for Candidate X. At the voting booth, you could still go ahead and vote for Candidate Y without him being any wiser.

This gets compromised in Postal Voting (and Internet Voting). The guy can make sure you vote for him.

Re:Secret Ballot no more

[jwhitener]

You seem to think it is possible for some 'bad guy' to go door to door and force people to fill out ballots in his favor, and to do so in such large enough numbers to influence an election, and at the same time, none of the people the 'bad guy' threatened come forward to the police...

That seems so highly unlikely it is laughable.

Any sort of fraud that requires you to impersonate people, one by one, or intimidate voters one by one, is just way too inefficient to influence an election.

And it is equally liked by both parties: The poll also shows high favorability among both registered Democrats (85%) and Republicans (76%). from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote-by-mail_in_Oregon

It has worked quite well in Oregon.
http://www.ktvz.com/news/central-oregon/despite-easy-voter-access-voter-fraud-deemed-rare-in-oregon/69175638

Hard Evidence?

[Frankie70]

Hard evidence proved voter fraud was a minor problem

What hard evidence?

Re:Hard Evidence?

[dywolf]

actually tracking down all the known cases of actual fraud.
less than 50 cases out of a billion votes over a 14 year period.
its several orders of magnitude below the threshold needed to actually impact an election.

therefore, as justification in disenfranching a few hundred thousand legitimate voters in the process, it is somewhat lacking.

All Mail Voting is horrible

[Boronx]

All mail voting sucks. It's traceable, and you be coerced into voting by an overbearing spouse, parent, or some social group. It's an incredibly bad idea.

Re:All Mail Voting is horrible

[meerling]

Tracable? Not really. You have obviously never done it before.
Coerced by those around you? Why would they strongarm you over a mail in ballot when they aren't already doing that for your current voting method?
If they are coercing you, you should contact the police. If they aren't I somehow doubt a mind control ray will suddenly cause them to start if mail in ballots happen.

The unrealistic paranoid fantasy that people have been posting on this entire article are mindboggling!

Re:All Mail Voting is horrible

[Boronx]

Where I'm at, you have to sign an affidavit that accompanies your ballot. In a voting booth, you can vote however you want because it's secret. Your husband can't accompany you into the booth.

Re:Now that's more like it

[Boronx]

Good god no. If we had that, Trump might still win.

Re:Understand how the system works first

[Boronx]

A major problem with mail voting is coercion. A domineering husband can tell his wife how to vote, but with mail in ballots, he can make sure she does what he wants. Can you imagine a whole church group getting together to vote in public? Votes need to remain secret.

Also, absentee ballots are historically a huge source of vote fraud, and that's all this is. Absentee ballots for everyone.

For the record, I live in a state that is all mail in ballots. I love the convenience, but the downsides are not worth it.

So many fallacies

[holophrastic]

So, russians can't hack anything to make me president. So the most that they can do is cause Trump to win, or cause Hilary to win.

Given that, right now, without knowing what voters will do, both hilary and trump are legitimate and viable options, then allowing russia to pick between two already-vetted contenders ain't sooooo bad. You've got plenty of checks and balances to cover anything.

Of course, if you're saying that one of the contenders is horrible for the country, then shouldn't they a) have not made it to the final round; and b) be an obvious scratch at this point?

Seems like a dumb system -- but the best reality television has to offer.

Try changing 10,000 votes by mail.

[katarn]

Can vote by mail possibly be gamed? Yes. Everything can possibly be gamed. If you are worried there are places in every county where you can directly drop off your ballet. What is incredibly difficult to do by mail is change 10,000 votes at once. This is entirely possible with electronic voting.

Re:Drivers License?

[meerling]

Getting a valid photo ID there is the same as the drivers license, other than you don't have to take the driving tests, and it doesn't give you permission to drive.

Re:Drivers License?

[meerling]

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.

Re:Orangutan Wants Nationwide, All-Male Voting

[meerling]

Stop insulting our primate relatives!

Re:Lose all the Mail for the Win

[meerling]

If they could do that, then they already control the voting officials that count the ballots, and it wouldn't matter what anyone voted by any means.

Re:Lose all the Mail for the Win

[meerling]

That can happen, but Oregon is rather dedicated to the vote by mail thing. They send the ballots to overseas voters early, so yes, those people may get to cast their votes before some other people, but they get to cast their votes in time!

Re:It's actually a lot easier...

[meerling]

It's easy to not have a permanent location, but still have a permanent mailing address. Just ask any snowbird. If you don't know what a snowbird is, google it.

Re:Orangutan Wants Nationwide, All-Male Voting

[bondsbw]

Or, shockingly, women are more attracted to the idea of a female President.

Please, take a sip of water, I don't want you to pass out from the amazing revelation I just bestowed upon you and the world.

Re:correction

[meerling]

You do know that the republicans in a particular state did a study to find out what possible rules to voting would affect which demographics, and they specifically chose to implement the ones that would most affect those groups most likely to vote democrat?
Look it up, it happened.
So what was the purpose of those laws again? That's right, to fuck over the US public by preventing a LOT of non-republicans from voting.
It's like gerrymandering. WTF is wrong with people?

Re:The only voting system

[meerling]

No more than going to a polling booth. And do you really think anyone has the manpower and money to afford to go to enough houses and extort enough people to swing any election, much less something on a national level?
Here's a hint, if they did, they don't want to be president, they already have more power than he'll ever have.

Re:Understand how the system works first

[meerling]

That happens without mail in votes, what's your point?
No, absentee ballots are NOT a "...historically a huge source of vote fraud...".
So what coolaid have you been drinking?

Re:Now that's more like it

[meerling]

And then for four years, no voters would get laid.
Look at the bright side, invest in a dildo factory.

Re:Lose all the Mail for the Win

[dbIII]

It's things like that which call for doing it all independently on a Federal level with competency instead of things like Florida 2000 that the world is still laughing at.
You already have the core of people who do it. Plenty of Americans are among those to conduct elections in some places on behalf of the U.N. - especially in the most recent elections in Iraq and Afganistan.

Mmmmh

[nospam007]

How about the 'lazy mailman attack' where they throw mail by the sack in rivers to avoid working?

voting weekend

[ThatsNotPudding]

Why is THIS not a thing? Along with a ban on exit polls; 'with 2% of the vote in, we project...' is not democracy but rigging.

Re:ChrisMaple always dumb

[MachineShedFred]

And when those ballots are turned in without signatures that match the voters' registration cards, they are set aside. Ballots are mailed out weeks in advance, and when those voters don't receive ballots they call the election office and ask for a replacement. And when those ballots have valid signatures on them, the election officials are looking right at documented evidence of fraud which can be reported to the FBI.

In Post-Soviet Russia...

[Buchenskjoll]

Reporter: "Mr Putin, how do you avoid the elections getting rigged?" Putin: "That's easy. By rigging them ourselves, of course."

NO!

[p51d007]

Stop early voting, Stop electronic voting. ALL votes should be by paper ballot, and after voting, every person that casts a vote, will dip their index finger in a non removable ink. It's about the only thing some of these 3rd world countries have right!

Re:ChrisMaple always dumb

[dywolf]

still doesn't solve the matching signature requirement, so its still a made up non-existent problem, a hypothetical that you don't need to worry about..

Re:Drivers License?

[dywolf]

the ID may be free, but neither getting there nor taking time off to get there is free

Re:Drivers License?

[dywolf]

-If the person is able to maintain multiple voter registrations without being caught, then having an ID requirement isn't going to stop him.
- if he can get multiple registrations, he can get multiple IDs .

-when the people who have trouble getting IDs, a problem that arises because of poverty/low income, begin flying on airplanes regularly, you let me know.

-a reasonable person would conclude that someone screwed up. only nutters see conspiracies everywhere. now that they ARE citizens though, we cant really take it away. theres no mechanism for doing that (only for when its gained fraudulently, but if they had no part in someone else's screwup, we're stuck with em)

-convicted felons who have served their time and re-entered society. if you want them to be perpetually punished, don't let them out of prison. also, ex-con party affiliation is not statistically deviant from the population at large.

once again, you post nothing but ignorance.

Re:Orangutan Wants Nationwide, All-Male Voting

[dywolf]

so not only are you racist, but you're sexist too?
good to know.

Re:Orangutan Wants Nationwide, All-Male Voting

[dywolf]

are you and ChrisMaple in a competition to see who can out-sexist the other?

Re:Orangutan Wants Nationwide, All-Male Voting

[DickBreath]

Senator Ron Wyden wants nationwide all-mail voting to counter hacking threats.
Donald Trump wants nationwide all-male voting to counter female voting threats.

Re:Lose all the Mail for the Win

[LynnwoodRooster]

Washington is also a vote-by-mail-only State (like Oregon) and these clear violations of voter rights still happen. All it takes is a few political hacks in the bureaucracy and ballots go out late - and thus votes are denied. Washington sent them out "early" as well, but not early enough (later than the actual Federal requirements) so the ballots cannot be returned in time to be counted before the results are certified.

Re:Lose all the Mail for the Win

[LynnwoodRooster]

Or, you just take whomever was in charge of mailing the ballots and charge them with a case of voter suppression for each and every late ballot. Looking at hundreds of lifetimes worth of jail time should HOPEFULLY push the elections commissioner to make sure those ballots go out on time or even early. If there's one group who should NOT have their ballots monkeyed with, it's those deployed overseas in service to their country.

Re:Orangutan Wants Nationwide, All-Male Voting

[meta-monkey]

Am I winning?

Re:correction

[dywolf]

Canada also far more worker protections in addition to higher incomes and far better mass transit, thus, they don't suffer from the same problems or to the same degree as our poor and low income voters do in meeting the requirement.

Just gives them more time to cheat

[RogueWarrior65]

What was wrong with the mechanical voting machines? They can't be hacked externally and there is no risk of mail-in ballots getting tossed or rejected because somebody supposedly didn't color in the square completely. And you have to sign the voter registry so there's no chance of somebody voting twice. All that would need to happen, and probably should happen is election day should be a national holiday. If you can't spare an hour of your time to go to a polling place, you need to reevaluate your priorities.

Re:Lose all the Mail for the Win

[dbIII]

With the greatest possible respect, I suggest you consider the likelihood of those charges occurring when the failure to deliver on time benefits the incumbent.
If you see corrupt activities it does not make a lot of sense to report it to the corrupt and expect them to sort it out.

Easy way to make election unhackable

[aepervius]

Have the ballot a paper that you hand down, the person vote, and the other ballot paper are trashed or kept by the eprson. Et voila, you don't even need complex mail psot scheme excpet for those wanting to vote in absentia. Heck, anybody can then recount at will the ballot. Both party they want.

Re:correction

[luis_a_espinal]

Pick the biggest screwups you can find, figure out how they screw up the most, don't let those shitty practices screw things up anymore.

Now you can argue it is "wrong" that blacks were identified as the most likely to fuck up a ballot but I'd want to see some hard data because at every election there is always some old black lady who went to the wrong polling place, and the local get out the vote dems throw her in a car and take her to the right one.

Well, I want to see some hard data corroborating each and every incident of this hypothetical old black lady thrown in a car by dems to get her to the right one. Otherwise, you are just making up shit out of your ass, sir.

Re:Highly Illegal

[alva_edison]

We've got a president-select who is above all laws regarding classified material, and a president who continues to legislate by executive order, and you think they're going to stop union thuggery?

He said it was his CEO, that's the opposite of union thuggery. It's corporate thuggery.

Let's be realistic

[vandamme]

Why not just let the candidates raise money from wherever, and the highest total gets elected? Put it in the US Treasury, no ads on TV, no voting, no cheating or hacking, just count the dollars. Wouldn't be much different from our present system, and non-hypocritical.

Christ on a crutch

[PontifexMaximus]

These idiots in Congress just don't get it. ESPECIALLY the damn Democrats. Most idiotic political party on earth just keeps proving it with shit like this. It's a damn shame most of America just blindly vote these assclowns in time after time.

Re:ChrisMaple always dumb

[DaHat]

Lets ignore fraud for a moment... what happens if you cannot reliably sign your name on election day? You've got a broken hand, or recently lost your hand. How does the state validate your identity when trying to cast the ballot?

Tell that to illegal aliens voting in US elections

[mpercy]

If it was required to prove ID, residency, and citizenship when registering to vote then I would agree that voter ID at the polling place is probably not required as that kind of "My name is Bob Smith but I'm going to pretend to be Bill Jones so I can steal his vote" voter fraud is probably non-existent. Just sign your name and if the data on the form and the signature matches the registration, then off you go to the booth.

But in most places registering does not require any of the above. If it did, the Democrats would be screaming about disenfranchisement at the time of registration--how dare we require someone to prove that they a) are alive and who they say they are via approved photo ID, b) actually reside in the district in which they are voting, and c) are actually US citizens? In some places, you can register and vote on the same day.

If nothing else, can we agree that voting in US elections should be reserved to US citizens? If not, let's just send a ballot to every person on the planet and let them vote for US Congress and President. And if so, can we come up with some way to ensure that only US citizens vote that Democrats will not complain about?

How to view any voting change

[mattwarden]

How to view any voting change suggested by a sitting politician or political party: whatever he/she is suggesting will help their party get more votes, based on research and data mining of coring patterns conducted by a top firm during a 6 or 7 figure project.

Re:correction

[JoshuaZ]

So, your reply a) doesn't address the fundamental facts of the case at all b) ignores the many associated aspects and c) ignores that, as discussed in the article, many forms of ID were not acceptable, and that those IDs were forms mainly possessed by minorities and poor people. In fact, variants of the last are very common: if one looks at a number of other state voter ID laws, they allowed gun permits to count as IDs, but not student IDs, apparently because college students are likely to vote Dem.

Re:Lose all the Mail for the Win

[LynnwoodRooster]

Yes, I know I'm an idealist, i still believe the justice departments and law enforcement authorities operate outside of political influence. But when your job (or other benefits) as chief law enforcement officer hinges on your boss getting re-elected, I guess things like this get overlooked.

Re: ChrisMaple always dumb

[Obfuscant]

You can track your ballot online.

If you know how, if you bother to do that, if you think you voted, and you are interested at all. An average turnout is usually less than 50%, maybe higher in major elections. All those people who didn't vote aren't going to spend a lot of time online tracking their ballot to find out that somehow they did vote.

And a spouse whose ballot was voted by their partner isn't going to look online or report the problem.

Re:ChrisMaple always dumb

[Obfuscant]

still doesn't solve the matching signature requirement, so its still a made up non-existent problem, a hypothetical that you don't need to worry about..

Your inability to think of a solution to the "signature requirement" isn't a limitation to those who have done so.

Why shouldn't we worry about obvious issues in voting security? Just because you can't imagine anyone trying to commit vote fraud or how they might get around trivial verification methods?

Re:Orangutan Wants Nationwide, All-Male Voting

[desdinova 216]

or, most likely, women aren't interested in voting for someone who's a bigot and a perpetrator of sexual assault. Also Bill Clinton is not on the ballot so his personal life should not be a actor

Re: Highly Illegal

[Bartles]

What makes you think there's a difference. Unions are corporations by definition.

Re: ChrisMaple always dumb

[DaHat]

So if you simply file one of these... seems pretty easy to exploit, just need to prepare for the election a little further in advance by covering your bases and sending in one of those before you send in the fraudulent ballot.

Truth Alert

[frovingslosh]

Parent posted the truth. Must be modded down Immediately. And all paid "Correct the Record" trolls should viciously attack him and submit a link to the flame to "Barrier Breakers" for payment.

Do NOT connect voting machines to the INTERNET!

[jerryjnormandin]

Do Not connect internet devices to the internet! If you think devices are secure then you are just fooling yourself. usernames, passwords, and encryption are only there to keep honest people out. If a device is connected to the internet it is hackable.

Re:Lose all the Mail for the Win

[dbIII]

i still believe the justice departments and law enforcement authorities

They would not get a say with your suggestion.
They follow the laws as drafted and your suggestion would require those who benefit from the current situation to pass new laws that remove that benefit.
See also how hard it is to get rid of a Gerrymander situation.

Re:Lose all the Mail for the Win

[LynnwoodRooster]

In the Washington State case, the ballots were mailed out later than Federal regulations allowed. Clear violation of a regulation that has associated penalties - but no prosecution was recommended. Just - dropped. In violation of the law.

Re:Tell that to illegal aliens voting in US electi

[NotAPK]

Why should voting be restricted to citizens?

If "others" are living and working in the US on a visa then why shouldn't they be allowed to take part in the local democratic process?

You probably think that all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others?

Re:Lose all the Mail for the Win

[dbIII]

"It's things like that which call for doing it all independently on a Federal level with competency instead of things like Florida 2000 that the world is still laughing at."
Doing things on a local level results is a long list of stories like yours.
Food safety is handled at the level, why not protecting the Democracy/Republic?

Of course I'm one of those freaks that think everyone should participate in an election even if they just leave the ballot blank. Proportional representation is nice too especially given the current circus where so many people do not like either offering.

Re:Lose all the Mail for the Win

[LynnwoodRooster]

In this case, it was Washington State violating Federal law. And the Feds turned a blind eye towards it...

Re:Lose all the Mail for the Win

[dbIII]

I think you missed the word "independently" - it's the most important one.
Other countries (and US people when working for the UN) take elections more seriously.