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Russian Hacker Conspiracy Theory is Weak, But the Case For Paper Ballots is Strong (facebook.com)
On Wednesday, J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan's Center for Computer Security & Society and a respected voice in computer science and information society, said that the Clinton Campaign should ask for a recount of the vote for the U.S. Presidential election. Later he wrote, "Were this year's deviations from pre-election polls the results of a cyberattack? Probably not. I believe the most likely explanation is that the polls were systematically wrong, rather than that the election was hacked. But I don't believe that either one of these seemingly unlikely explanations is overwhelmingly more likely than the other." The Outline, a new publication by a dozen of respected journalists, has published a post (on Facebook for now, since their website is still in the works), in which former Motherboard's reporter Adrianne Jeffries makes it clear that we still don't have concrete evidence that the vote was tampered with, but why still the case for paper ballots is strong. From the article: Halderman also repeats the erroneous claim that federal agencies have publicly said that senior officials in Russia commissioned attacks on voter registration databases in Arizona and Illinois. In October, federal agencies attributed the Democratic National Committee email hack to Russia, but specifically said they could not attribute the state hacks. Claims to the contrary seem to have spread due to anonymous sourcing and the conflation of Russian hackers with Russian state-sponsored hackers. Unfortunately, the Russia-hacked-us meme is spreading fast on social media and among disaffected Clinton voters. "It's just ignorance," said the cybersecurity consultant Jeffrey Carr, who published his own response to Halderman on Medium. "It's fear and ignorance that's fueling that." The urgency comes from deadlines for recount petitions, which start kicking in on Friday in Wisconsin, Monday in Pennsylvania, and the following Wednesday in Michigan. There is disagreement about how likely it is that the Russian government interfered with election results. There is little disagreement, however, that our voting system could be more robust -- namely, by requiring paper ballot backups for electronic voting and mandating that all results be audited, as they already are in some states including California. Despite the 150,000 signatures collected on a Change.org petition, what happens next really comes down to the Clinton team's decision.
you need a paper copy that's easy to machine read, yet hard to damage when handling the forms (see 'hanging chads' from 2000)
You also don't want a paper copy that can be corrupted (an internal printout)
a printer is just one more thing that can go bad, even if the output is visible to the voter.
Scantron type ballots are easy to use, don't get damaged easily in a recount, and are easy to tally up for rapid electronic counting (or re-counting if needed)
Even here in California where we had a LOT of things on the ballot, they work well.
touchscreen and other pure electronic voting is a techie ego solution, far more complex than needed, and far more prone to failure or tampering.
It's sad and beautiful to watch to people who couldnt even be bothered to fully read the article summary in action.
As stated ITFS the researchers dont even think this will change the election results. Meanwhile, those unhappy with Russian hacking attempts and the vulnerabilities that electronic voting machines introduce into our electoral system should be quite happy to see proper review done to ensure the reliability of the system and incourage faith in it.
I'm sure you felt great brainlessly bashing those with contrary political views then yours though.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Any of my non-liberal friends are afraid to speak up because most liberals have extremely vile personalities, and they think you are Satan's Little Helper if you aren't on the same page as them. The vast majority of them won't even listen to reason, just spouting off the rhetoric they read from their left-wing propaganda rags.
Totally unlike you who has just spouted off a bunch of vile rhetoric about how slightly over half of the voters are evil.
Seriously, who modded this inflammatory shit "insightful"?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You young whipper snappers are talking about this like it's a new thing. 16 years ago when the same EXACT thing happened between Al Gore and George W. Bush and the same exact call for a recount happened after Al Gore conceded: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... That's the thing, Hillary ALREADY conceded. It's done and on the books. Why people keep ruminating about this is beyond me. Life goes on.
We'll make great pets
And in UK the Brexit STILL happened despite the media declaring the majority of people was against it and it was just a small group of crazy nut jobs with ties to white supremacy and nationalistic tendencies.
The media (and the liberal elite as Bernie Sanders called it a few days ago) has gotten way out of touch with the actual voters. CNN was doing exit polls only in primarily Democratic areas. There was only one poll that consistently showed Trump ahead with the margins it eventually ended up to be and that's the only poll that also publishes it's methods, largely mocked in the media even though it had accurately predicted both Obama's victories (where Clinton also lost, against all the media proclaiming otherwise).
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
The "You didn't understand rural America" meme is getting tiresome. It's not as if 2008 or 2012 was followed by calls for conservatives to understand urban America.
This country is a melting pot of many different groups, and demanding that any one group - already a group with outsized representation in government - be treated with more reverence than all the others is exactly the kind of identity politics that those who whine about rural people not being listened to complain about.
Nor does it really help understanding why a crazy thin-skinned posterchild for the ultra rich who spouts fascist rhetoric, and who on the face of it, whether you're liberal or conservative, appears to be an existential threat to America, got elected.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The entire point of a blockchain is to create a cryptographically signed set of transactions which can't be altered without compromising the database. ... Are there any obvious downsides I'm missing?
Like it or not, voters really don't understand the technology behind such things. It would sound like snake oil, which likely is not what we want. The paper ballot is the key, as you have already mentioned. It can be filled out by a computer. You can even do initial tallies via a computer, but there must be a verifiable paper ballot that can and should be reviewed by the voter for every vote.
The think I really want to see is some form of ranked voting. Just having a first, second, and third choice would not be that hard. Heck just having a first and second would work for most. That can be explained, and while not perfect is way better than pure first past the post. It would have saved the republican primary. It would have saved the general.
"By the way, this is how you "cite" sources. Not some vague reference to something from yesteryear."
A: Was posting from my phone. My reference was more than adequate for my post.
B: Article was easily found as it's the most active post since the election and was less than 24 hours ago and was bumped up to the top at least once
C: Yesterday is not "yesteryear" It's still on the front page of slashdot!
Slashdot article I cited that is STILL on the front page: https://politics.slashdot.org/...
Business Insider article references in that article summary: http://www.businessinsider.com...
Relevant text: "And Michigan uses only paper ballots."
And "scantrons" are not evoting machines. They read paper ballots.
Lastly, why do you feel the need to be an ass? Fake news? How about your impotent indignation?
Actually, the reaction in 2008 and 2012 was screaming about a stolen election, about how America only elected Obama because he was black, that America was doomed, and even claims of a divided country. So he barely got anything done, despite all the frenzied accusations of tyranny, he even gave conservatives what they wanted on health insurance reform. So Democrats paid the price in 2010 because they didn't do the left wing option, and you wouldn't know that in 2012, House Democrats were ahead, and in 2014, the real story should have been the plummeting turnout. It was abysmal.
Meanwhile, this year, with Trump actually behind Clinton in the popular vote, Republicans are already insisting that they clearly won, that America is behind them, that they have a mandate, and grumbling over an imaginary group of illegal immigrants voting. Not that they have evidence, mind you, but believe them, it is true.
But don't worry, Trump clearly has America's best interests at heart.
Watch him do nothing, take credit for things he never did, and ignore all the fuckups.
You need to start paying attention to more than just your navel, HBI, you've got a blindspot.
What makes you assume that if we went by the popular vote we would have had the same vote totals? You change the method of elections, you also change the incentives of the voters and the candidates. With the electoral collage, what reason would a Republican voter in California even have to bother showing up at the polls? (Also true for Illinois, New England, New York, etc.) You switch to a popular vote, and suddenly Republicans in those states have a lot of incentive to vote! Not enough to flip the states, but if you're counting the national total, but quite possibly enough to overcome Hilldog's popular lead, which primarily came from California.
If you discount California, in the remaining states Trump won the popular vote by almost 2 million. Perhaps we should just let California decide who the president should be?
You've also changed the incentives for the candidates. Trump didn't spend a nickel or a minute in California. Do you think he would have ignored it if he knew that votes for him there would actually count for him?
Let's also keep in mind that "state" is not a synonym for "provence". Technically, the US is a federation, much as the EU is. The states are limited sovereigns. I'll buy that the US should decide national offices by popular vote when you can convince the EU to do the same. Good luck with that!
The whinging about "It's not fair! We was robbed!" Every time a Democrat looses an election is getting pretty tiresome.
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
The final referendum polls showed it was a very close race, and the final result was largely within the error margin. Let's be clear here, Leave won by a very small majority. They may act like they had a profound and unassailable majority, but the reality was that it was a close thing.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Printed ballots run through a scanner is the best system. It's much cheaper than electronic ballots, but just like our tests in high school and college you can tabulate the results electronically AND the paper ballot is filled out by the person directly which also creates the audit trail in their own hand.
Paper is universally easier, cheaper and more secure. There is no reason to use computerized automation for filling out the ballot, just tabulating the results on-site.
Poorer areas may not want to afford to switch back to paper and scanners after they just wasted money on electronic ballots, but at the end of the day electronic ballots are nothing but trouble and added costs.
I don't see how paper is not accessible and a computer screen is. It's going to be 100 times easier to print out some braille ballots than it would be to make and upkeep electronic voting for a tiny tiny percentage of voters. The fact is electronic ballots were just a scam pushed on states to generate money. Any smart district would move back to paper and scanners.