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.

Comments

In the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

We have paper ballots in the UK still. It's made somewhat more interesting by the counts racing each other to see who can finish first. All the counts have TV crews, observers and so on. They're kind-of public. Why screw up a system that's worked so well for so long? Electronic voting is asking for trouble.

Re: In the UK

[Entrope]

The usual motivations are accessibility and some idea of cost savings. Accessibility because blind people need Braille or spoken ballots, and people are worried about improper influence if a living person helps. Cost savings because they know how much printed ballots cost, and can be buffaloed about how much computerized systems will cost (and about the security concerns).

Re:In the UK

[Dutch Gun]

Paper is certainly better than any currently used electronic method, but it seems like we could do better than that. I'd like to see someone investigate the idea of using blockchain technology to create a read-only database of the election results. The entire point of a blockchain is to create a cryptographically signed set of transactions which can't be altered without compromising the database. Banks are investing in this technology, where trillions of dollars are at stake, and in which every penny must be accounted for. Why not voting data as well?

This doesn't preclude the paper ballot backup as well, which I'd also agree is important. Computers are too easy to compromise, so I'd say filling out a paper ballot and having a locked down system scan it would be best. You then have the original form, as well as the convenience of computers to count the data, and finally, the blockchain to ensure no tampering of the digital database.

Are there any obvious downsides I'm missing? We'd need to ensure privacy, but I don't think this is an insurmountable problem. And done correctly, you could even build a verification system for people to check and make sure their individual votes were cast and tallied properly.

Re:In the UK

[guruevi]

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).

Re:In the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:In the UK

[Sperbels]

Why not both? You vote electronically, it prints your ballot, you verify it, put it in the ballot box. You get the best of both worlds, you get fast results, and you can go back and check the paper ballots later to make sure the electronic results were accurate.

Re:In the UK

[bongey]

There are machines that do this both an electronic vote is taken and a vote is recorded on paper which you can see to the side when your voting.

Re:In the UK

[MightyMartian]

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.

Re:In the UK

[codebonobo]

A Block chain database would only be as secure and fair as the security behind it. Thus only public blockchains with proof of work would qualify. Bitcoin is the most secure example to date. You could indeed use colored coins, counterparty, sidechains or other layers to create an immutable voting ledger within bitcoin but I wouldn't want to create an incentive to begin to attack bitcoin anymore as is, and with presidential candidates spending over a billion dollars on campaigns I would be a little worried they may try to manipulate the open source development process or play other games to weaken security. Thus we would want bitcoin to mature a bit before serving any such purpose.

Re:In the UK

[fred6666]

Ideally the person should not have the opportunity to tamper with the paper ballot. Otherwise some people would deliberately cross a second choice on their paper ballot just to prove the electronic is wrong

Re: In the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:In the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

This is because of Cambridge Analytics and facebook giving a minor edge to conservatives in UK and America. Look up Cambridge Analytics and SCL Group and become horrified.

Hillary won the popular vote and Trump won well under the margin of error or ANY polling method, so you're talking out your ass. Nobody can predict elections that close, but you can review them for anomalies. What don't you understand about that?

You act like Trump won by some large margin when instead he won by a couple thousand votes in a couple states, which is exactly what all the polls said. The difference is now we have percentages to go along with the margins and the predictions were wrong, because they did not take into account a proper margin of error of their own polling.

The election could have easily went either way, that's why a recount is a valid request. Most people don't seem to understand how close the election really was and think Trump won by some large amount, that's not what happened at all. Liberal leadership is not out of touch. This election was the most propagandized in history and we see Facebook battling that issue.

You seem to be just ignoring the facts and repeating bullshit you hear on TV and the internet... people like you are a core problem with America. If you don't understand the math, just stay out of the conversation. If you win elections on lies, you will wind up with a years of high crime and low production. It's important to stick to the facts.

Sanders is really just talking out his ass. Sanders has 95% the same platform as Obama and Hillary and anybody who reads know that. I know it was a whole 8 years ago, but Obama ran on public healthcare and public education funding just like Sanders. You could say his message of change was an anti establishment message against Bush.

The massive difference is that the economy is doing quite well under Obama and it was trashed under Bush, anti establishment sentiment is not justified in this case unless you've been brainwashed or can't read economic data.

Re:In the UK

[quenda]

despite the media declaring the majority of people was against it

UK has the same problem as US: the biggest challenge with polls is in guessing who will actually turn up to vote. In Australia, with compulsory voting attendance, the polls have been far more accurate. (And it makes politicians more moderate, trying to capture the average voter, instead of firing up their base.)

Re: In the UK

[fredgiblet]

They literally don't. The question isn't whether or not they count, it's whether or not they should.

Re:In the UK

[fredgiblet]

Curious, do you actually have to vote or can you just turn in a blank ballot if you don't care?

Re:In the UK

[marka63]

You have to turn up, get your name marked off the roll, walk over to the booth, submit the ballot paper into the box.

If you don't walk over to the booth you will be asked to do so. Whether you end up writing anything on the ballot paper is up to you.

You can pre-poll. You can use a postal vote. If you don't vote you will be asked if you have a valid excuse for not voting. If you don't have a valid excuse you will be fined. If you are marked off multiple times you will also be asked to explain and can be fined if it is determined that you voted multiple times.

If there are enough irregularities detected that the result could have changed count will be declared invalid and a new election held.

Recounts are automatic if the margin is below a threshold and can also be called for.

Re:In the UK

[quenda]

Even if you can't be bothered to make up a decent excuse (I was too sick), the fine is only $20.
Postal voting is easy. People are mostly happy with the system.
Voting is often done at primary schools, with cake stalls and sausage sizzles for fund-raising.
Ballots are counted on-site after closing, then sent off to secure storage in case a recount is called.

No ID needed. The system is set up to show that fraud is not happening, rather than trying to physically prevent it.

Re: In the UK

[lgw]

The usual motivations are accessibility and some idea of cost savings. Accessibility because blind people need Braille or spoken ballots, and people are worried about improper influence if a living person helps.

These are all important concerns, and reasons for computer-assisted voting. Use whatever UI you want at a computerized kiosk, but the result needs to be a ballot printed on paper, which is then placed in a ballot box.

See how simple this whole thing is? You vote using the touch screen or whatever, then then you take your printed ballot, check it, and cast it normally. Accessible to everyone, enough people will check the printed ballot to catch anything fishy going on, and no spoiled ballots.

Why do it any other way?

Re:In the UK

[jeff4747]

It's much cheaper and easier to do the reverse - you fill in the bubbles or connect the lines on a paper ballot, and then feed it into a scanner.

That way all voters need is a table and a pen, with one computer/scanner per precinct. Get a lot more voters than expected in a precinct? Add more tables and pens since filling out the ballot is the bottleneck in the voting process.

Re:In the UK

[fredgiblet]

Sounds pretty decent.

Re:In the UK

[guruevi]

Clinton lost 232 - 290. Where in the world did the polls have a 20% error margin? The error margins on the polls were called at about 5-10 electoral votes, not 60. 60 is not an error margin, that's all the electoral votes of NY and FL combined, or about 4-5 entire states anywhere else.

The Dems realized they lost the vote before the entire vote was even in, the media ran the coverage and didn't call it until ~3am even though almost everyone realized by 10pm that Trump was going to be the winner. This wasn't close AT ALL. Recount, flip a state or two if you can by fraud and you still won't make it.

As far as the "popular vote", it's about 1M people difference currently, not 2M or more which the DNC keeps claiming and that's without even counting millions of mail-in votes that are typically overwhelmingly Republican. It also doesn't explain the Republican house and senate wins. People typically vote according to party lines, take away the presidential campaign and you'll see the same "problem" liberals tend to claim.

If you win elections on lies, you will wind up with a years of high crime and low production.
Yes, we've had that for the last 25 years now, people are sick of it and want real hope and change. The Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations in combination with Congress have effectively destroyed all remaining trust in the political system.

As far as Bernie talking out of his ass: he seems to be the only one that has any clue these days on the left about what people want. Had the DNC listened to it's people, you would have a democratic president.

Re:In the UK

[guruevi]

In most cases you don't even get the fine or any follow-up. I never went to a compulsory vote, nobody ever came to pick me up or question me.

Re: In the UK

[rtb61]

Nope, printed ballots manually counted at the polling station, with government officials doing the count and volunteers representing those running for the election over seeing that count, each and every single vote. Want people to believe their vote counts, than have a person count that vote and not some machine make up a number that favours the manufacturer of that machine or the current political party in charge of that machine or in the very remotest instance outside people hacking that machine.

Elections are about people and should be managed by people from start to finish. Elections should always be on weekends to make the more accessible, with http://www.electionsausagesizz... or the equivalent to make it more community based. It is meant to be all about people not machines voting for machines. Want more participation in elections than give greater access for participation and of course compulsory voting often got to make the lazy buggers get out the first few times to vote, it is the least of citizen responsibility and failure should come with a penalty (for those who don't vote or for the arse holes who purposefully make it difficult to vote).

Re:In the UK

[Lennie]

"with some of the greatest freedoms"

What are you talking about ?

Re:In the UK

[Lennie]

Where their not a lot of problems with printers failing in elections in the US a couple of elections ago ?

Re:In the UK

[MoarSauce123]

Germany has the same although more and more districts are switching to electronic devices. The draw to computer voting is a faster tally, but in an election I rather have slow, but accurate results than fast and wrong ones. Paper ballot with a pen and clearly marking the vote is the way to go. Yes, old school and expensive, but anything else is savings in the wrong spot.

Re: In the UK

[MoarSauce123]

"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." Good points, a computer touch screen is not Braille enabled unless a special device is connected. As far as electronic voting machines goes...the manufacturers are strong supporters of the Republican party. Looks as that this symbiosis finally paid off.

Re:In the UK

[RandomSurfer314]

This is a horrible idea. The vast majority of results in cryptography are not based on hard proofs but on the assumption that someone hasn't made some mathematical breakthrough. But these breakthroughs happen from time to time.

From a more practical perspective, endpoint security is not high enough and will never be high enough. Banks can and do deal with occasional breaches by insurance, their own money and by swiping them under the carpet, for a democracy such breaches would be unacceptable and much more is at stake than just a few bank accounts.

Re:In the UK

[dywolf]

and a lot of people voted "f it, I don't care", until later when they found out what it would mean.
thus creating the desire for a re-do that would have reversed brexit.

but too late suckers: you don't let emotion get in the way of rationality, and now you're screwed.
ditto America.

Re:In the UK

[dywolf]

and electoral votes have dickall to do with population %.
the congressional wins aren't a mystery: it was mostly GOP seats up for grabs, and the nature of our (incredibly stupid system) means that 99% of all seats are 100% safe from being taken by the other side. the only exception is when you have seats up for grabs in the following midterms in a state that voted for the opposing POTUS candidate (aka, dems gonna screwed in 2018).

Re:In the UK

[guruevi]

Read the constitution, electoral votes have everything to do with population. You get one electoral vote per 30.000 people and each state gets a minimum amount of votes, every few years the government has to redivide them. If you divided them strictly according to population places like New England would have 0 votes and New York and California (both which have the highest debts and highest taxes) would be the effective rulers of the US.

Re:In the UK

[guruevi]

The US has not been the worlds richest country nor free for a while. They're not even in the top 5% as you claim. Even in tech, the US has been surpassed for fastest Internet speeds by countries in Africa. Organizations that track human rights have long criticized the US government not just for its treatment of captured enemies according to the Geneva conventions but also for the treatment of its citizens.

Re:In the UK

[The Wild Norseman]

Like this?

http://www.ted.com/talks/david...

As the URL says, there is a method that has been developed by David Bismark to use paper, scanning, and also a secure database for the voter to be able to verify that their vote was properly tallied, and yet still kept anonymous.

It's brilliant, simple, economical, and secure, so naturally it will never be implemented in the US.

Audit the results? But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump already admitted to knowing the election was rigged. Who knew he meant it as a confession.

The first thing he is going to do is pardon himself for everything so he can't be impeached. Then he'll legally declare himself President for life, and appoint his son Barron as his heir and co-Emperor.

Bringing the glory back to the Imperial Rome.

And to think the black guy just handed him the keys. What a maroon!

yea...

[Anonymous Coward]

we proved many times before the election that many elections machines could be hacked. the election officials said no, dont worry, it's not going to happen. now that people are not getting their way they are finding any dumb excuse.

Re:yea...

[Jhon]

"we proved many times before the election that many elections machines could be hacked. the election"

The three states in question (Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin) -- where it's claimed evoting had suspicious results:

Michigan is all paper ballots -- no evoting machines.
Pennsylviania -- evoting machines so old they aren't on any network and couldn't possibility be hacked
Wisconsin -- Evoting machines were only present in rural areas -- where Trump (and republicans in general) do better anyway.
(source: Business insider -- cited in the story summary from yesterday)

This really looks like a non-story.

Re:yea...

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Michigan Voting Instructions

All voters in Michigan use optical scan ballots.

Sounds like electronic voting to me. Hope you're enjoying your fake news.
By the way, this is how you "cite" sources. Not some vague reference to something from yesteryear.

Re:yea...

[Jhon]

"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?

Re:yea...

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Watch out, something incredible is about to happen. Somebody is going to apologize to you, on the Internet.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be an ass. It's this damned election that has me so worked up. I'm not even American, but I simply can't believe people voted a narcissistic egomaniac with no idea of the world and who boasts about grabbing pussies as the president of the US. I guess the shock still hasn't worn off.

Also, maybe I am being paranoid about all the fake news topic and Russian involvement, but in Europe there is a real, noticeable influence in the comment sections of online journals of professional Russian trolls praising every decision Putin makes and taking ever opportunity to criticize the US and NATO with bogus arguments. It has been going on like this since the annexation of Crimea. I'm convinced there is an underground war declaration of Russia vs. the West:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.businessinsider.de/...
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...

It's honestly scary stuff. Then I have to think about how the Duma started cheering and clapping when Trump won the presidency. It gave me the chills that they were not just cheering for Trump, but actually at their own "Successful Operation".

Anyhow, this time, let me respectfully disagree. I think the article you quoted on Business Insider might be wrong or misleading, because the way I understood the page that I linked is, that while there are paper ballots, they are being read electronically by a machine with an optical scanner.

Re:yea...

[Jhon]

"Anyhow, this time, let me respectfully disagree. I think the article you quoted on Business Insider might be wrong or misleading, because the way I understood the page that I linked is, that while there are paper ballots, they are being read electronically by a machine with an optical scanner."

1. I humbly accept your apology.
2. With regards to the optical scanners and Michigan -- this is why *I* have a very skeptical take on original report (from the original citation):

"After examining results in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin computer scientists have discovered Clinton averaged 7% worse in counties with e voting machines vs. counties with only paper or optical scan ballots."

So... Michigan -- which is only paper ballots (which are optically scanned) is suspected of hacked evoting machines -- which they dont even have.

The fact is, there was only a SINGLE example provided by those "computer scientists" -- and that was Wisconsin. And yes -- there was a difference in evoting counties vs. non-voting counties there -- but heres the thing: They were in RURAL counties that used evoting machines. Counties that typically would lean trump anyway -- or Republican in general. And here's the kicker from the article:

"Clinton performed worse on average in Wisconsin counties that used electronic voting machines, but it could be that Trump simply performed better in those counties."

Really? That's the standard? If pressed, I'll admit that yes -- almost any machine can be hacked or affected somehow. This is true in ANY election. However, there is zero evidence of it and this request and it's justification to recount these states is just so much noise over nothing and will do nothing but make Clinton look bad and the democrats look worse.

I hate the fact that Trump won. I didn't vote for him. I think he's a functional psychopath with poor impulse control. But I didn't vote for Clinton either because I think she's a liar and a crook.. They were both horrible candidates. We were given a choice between arsenic and strychnine.

Re:yea...

[PopeRatzo]

http://www.palmerreport.com/ne...

Three neighboring precincts in Wisconsin showing more Trump votes than total votes cast. Three. Neighboring.

Remember when the Republican official during the Scott Walker recall election took home a laptop that had the only voting records on it? Wisconsin election fraud under Republicans makes Chicago look like the birthplace of democracy by comparison. You get these little semi-rural counties that have been run like little fiefdoms for generations and they'll do most anything to hang on to power.

This thing is gonna drag on, and there's no telling what could happen.

Re: yea...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm not even American, but I simply can't believe people voted a narcissistic egomaniac with no idea of the world..."
"Well I am an American and I can tell you that you just described most Americans right there so it's no surprise that's what we voted for."
Speaking as an American who proudly voted for our new leader, it was because we're well aware of how much the world's shit stinks. You fouled up our end with it and we're closing the free theme park while we clean up the euro trash that's spilling over looking for handouts.

Re: yea...

[Lennie]

"it was because we're well aware of how much the world's shit stinks. You fouled up our end with it"

Do explain, I would love to know what you are talking about.

Re:yea...

[allcoolnameswheretak]

1. Thank you
2. I don't know. Maybe you have a point, but I don't see a reason why the machines scanning the ballots (and I assume counting the votes) couldn't be hacked as well

I don't quite understand why Hillary is so despised in the US. Just because she's from a wealthy family isn't a good reason. Of course she made some mistakes in her career, as most people do, but what do we have there? Mainly the email server thing and the handling of the attack in the Libyan embassy. To me, these are legitimate errors in judgement that are being blown to enormous proportions, whereas Trump for some reason seemed to get away with everything he has ever done and said. It doesn't even compare. Even if I didn't like her, I would have supported her to prevent Trump. There's just too much at stake, like the possibly 4 (I think) supreme court judges to nominate. It's a disaster that this will fall into Trumps hands.

Re:yea...

[Jhon]

"I don't quite understand why Hillary is so despised in the US"

Because she and Bill skirt the law and it certainly LOOKS like The Clinton Foundation is a political money laundering apparatus. She becomes SoS and then BOOM. Her and Bill's speaking fees skyrocket -- by people donating to the Clinton Foundation. And many of those donors end up getting lucrative contracts. BTW, there's an investigation on-going on the Clinton Foundation.

The email issue is another example. It appears the sole function of her private server (which suffered from known security issues as late as early this year) was to allow her to skirt FOI requests. Vanishing emails, completely destroyed hard drives, unusual immunity deals for employees...

These are just two of the recent LARGE issues. Benghazi? Claiming publicly that it was due to some youtube video while we now now (because of now found previously deleted emails) was known to be completely unrelated. Ignoring multiple requests from the ambassador's office in Benghazi for increased security is another concern... It smells really bad.

You can go back to the 70's and 80's with the Whitewater real estate scandal which had several people placed in prison while the Clintons remained completely untouched. Then in Bill's "12th hour" as President, just before leaving office grants pardons to many of those found guilty. Why? It has the APPEARANCE of "dont say anything about Hillary and before I leave I'll wipe your record clean". It also smells really bad. Especially when you look at many of the other pardon's by Clinton before he left office.

There's a ton of stuff in between. Yes -- nothing that can get a "conviction" against them in court but enough "smoke" to tell any reasonable voter to make sure they never hold public office.

More than half the country do not like her and do not trust her. A huge number literally hate her. That's not a good candidate for leader.

"Even if I didn't like her, I would have supported her to prevent Trump. There's just too much at stake, like the possibly 4 (I think) supreme court judges to nominate. It's a disaster that this will fall into Trumps hands."

I can't get behind the idea of voting for "A" because they are not "B" rather than voting for "A" because I think "A" is a good candidate. Luckily, I live in California -- where they was no way Trump would win. Were it others, I would have had a much harder time deciding not to vote for either.

With regards to SCOTUS -- I fall on the side of liking conservative justices. They tend not to find "magic rights" that never existed before. The reason why I find that idea horrific is that if rights can "magically appears" they can also "magically vanish". The Kelo decision should be a particularly frightening example -- and it was all 4 of the liberal justices who made that choice with Kennedy (50/50) falling with them.

This is why it's so hard getting justices through the Senate now -- because we're not looking at their qualifications any more -- we're looking at their POLITICAL VIEWS to make their voter base happy. I blame the unintended consequences of the 17th amendment for that -- the Senate should be appointed by the various states and not popularly elected (changed by the 17th). They aren't SUPPOSED to be beholden to the people -- that's the job of the House.

There's an incredible balancing act our founders created to protect freedom and liberty. Democracy was feared by them but they used it to help protect against a tyranny by an over zealous government -- and they used a republican (little r) form of government with our three branches of government as a balance against a tyranny of the majority.

Re: yea...

[tehcyder]

Who'd have thought that calling literally all white people racist would make them stop caring about not appearing racist? That the really, really racist ones would be emboldened by the attacks meant to emasculate them?

Yeah, if we just left the poor little racists alone, there'd be no racism.

Polls were wrong everywhere

[ShanghaiBill]

If the polls were off in just a few critical swing states, the case for fraud would be stronger. But they were off by about the same amount in all states. Locations with electronic ballots were a bit more pro-Trump, but that may be explained by demographics, since areas with more minorities are more likely to use old-fashioned paper ballots.

Re:Polls were wrong everywhere

[Xenographic]

Nate Silver has pretty much debunked this one already: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/demographics-not-hacking-explain-the-election-results/

Re:Polls were wrong everywhere

[Rick Schumann]

The reason the exit polls don't match the official results might be simpler than you think it is: People might be ashamed of the way they actually voted, and lied about it in the exit polls so they wouldn't have to face that shame to someone else. We live in a country where the vast majority don't seem to remember that it's more than a two-party political system, that there are other parties, and that you don't have to be part of any politcal party to be a candidate in an election. The de-facto fact that the 3rd parties don't seem to matter is irrelevant and is more of an artifact of the ignorance of the other parties than it is of any inherent 'irrelevance''; they exist, they're valid, you could vote for them, just nobody does because they've all been brainwashed into ignorning them. Might all come down to money, really; if, say, the Libertarian party suddenly had a trillion dollars in their coffers to spend on an election, suddenly they'd be much more relevant by virtue of the fact that they'd be able to compete in the media for voter attention. For this reason I wish that all candidates from all parties were given a set amount of money for their campaigns, to level the playing field and make it fairer, allow voters to hear everyone's message instead of just who can yell the loudest with their millions in campaign funds.

Re: Polls were wrong everywhere

[tomhath]

The polls were wrong because they based them on the turnout from the last election. Obama supporters didn't show up to vote for Hillary so the total wasn't what the poll predicted

Re:Polls were wrong everywhere

[LynnwoodRooster]

Maybe it's because the plan was the skew the polls to suppress the GOP vote by oversampling Democrats? A few national polls (USC/Dornsife, Rasmussen, IBD/TIPP) all had Trump up a point or two for the last few weeks of the campaign. This is really about sour grapes, and should be an object lesson in not letting a desire for a specific result to skew the methodology.

One only needed to look at the enthusiasm and size of events to get a good feel for how motivated a base was to turn out. Trump turned out tens of thousands to his events, Hillary dozens to a few hundreds. Pence had thousands, Kaine had dozens. There was no enthusiasm for the Clinton/Kaine campaign and it showed up at the vote.

Unfortunately, the major polls didn't account for enthusiasm - and that was the deciding factor. Trump got about the same number of votes as McCain and Romney (and had an actual increase in African American and Hispanic votes, by nearly 10% for each). Clinton dropped down by 10 million as compared to Obama in 2008, and 6 million as compared to Obama in 2012. She simply could not excite and turn out her traditional base.

Re: Polls were wrong everywhere

[ShanghaiBill]

Obama supporters didn't show up to vote for Hillary so the total wasn't what the poll predicted

That was part of it, but they also misjudged how people would vote. For instance, a lot more Hispanics voted for Trump than anyone expected. Same for union members. The unions endorsed Hillary, but the rank-and-file voted for Donald.

Re:Polls were wrong everywhere

[maeka]

Maybe it's because the plan was the skew the polls to suppress the GOP vote by oversampling Democrats?

Minorities (not Democrats) are oversampled because they are minorities.

But oversampling doesn't mean what you're implying. It means if you are trying to accurately track the behavior of a minority group and only have the budget for a limited (often times in the low hundreds) data set you MUST poll more minorities constituents than otherwise would come up, or else (as happened in the LA times tracking poll) a single outlier participant can skew the results for all.

So you poll more people than their share of the electorate, BUT THEN YOU DIVIDE BY THE OVERSAMPLE FACTOR. This is statistics 101.

Re:Polls were wrong everywhere

[LynnwoodRooster]

No, take a look at the polls: they oversampled Democrats by up to 15%, and did NOT correct accordingly. IF you looked at the internals, and scaled for the registered voter Dem/GOP ratio, you end up with Hillary or Trump up by a point or two, well within the margin of error. Polls putting Hillary up 12 points were simply garbage because of bad inputs (way oversampled Democrats) and improper calculations (no correcting for the oversample). It's why USC/Dornsife, IBD/TIPP, and Rasmussen got it right - they polled based upon voter registrations AND corrected all results based upon that ratio.

Re:Polls were wrong everywhere

[ShanghaiBill]

... and did NOT correct accordingly.

Correcting is HARD. You can't just apply some simple formula. More Democrats have only a single phone, while Republicans are more likely to have both a a landline, and a mobile, so they are more likely to receive a random call. Democrats are more likely to be home to answer the phone, while Republicans are more likely to be at work or wherever, and more likely to let their calls roll to voicemail even if they are home. Also, Republicans are more likely to hang up on pollsters and refuse to participate in surveys ... yet they are more likely to show up and vote on election day.

The big question is how much each of these factors has changed since 2012. You need to apply a fudge-factor for each source of bias, and hope you get it right.

Re:Polls were wrong everywhere

[maeka]

You're mixing terms here.

Oversampling is always divided out.

What you're accusing polls of is having a turnout model which over favored Democrats by up to 15%. That's a completely different polling error and there is no reason, nor evidence, that it was intentional.

Re:Polls were wrong everywhere

[GoChickenFat]

Locations with electronic ballots were a bit more pro-Trump, but that may be explained by demographics, since areas with more minorities are more likely to use old-fashioned paper ballots.

What evidence do you have that areas with minorities are less likely to have electronic voting? Around here the election authority is at the county level so that would mean an entire county would have to be minority in order to fit your assumption. Is that likely? But is this really an issue because as far as I'm concerned you're better off with the paper ballot. My county still uses the paper fill in the oval ballot and I'm very happy with that. So if you're right then minorities have the voting advantage others don't.

Re:Polls were wrong everywhere

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Yep. No excitement for her, plus the media telling everyone she had a 80%+ chance to win anyways... At that point, lukewarm supporters could justify not voting to themselves, since she'll win anyway, right? Now, of course, that doesn't explain why they didn't vote for local stuff, but...

Re:Polls were wrong everywhere

[ScentCone]

For this reason I wish that all candidates from all parties were given a set amount of money for their campaigns

But I don't want to give money to a Green Party candidate that is anti-science on matters like vaccinations and homeopathy. Why do you want to force me to spend part of my working year generating money that will be taken from me against my will to further such a cause?

allow voters to hear everyone's message

I don't want to hear from the Vampire Clown Party and their eight supporters. If they can muster enough supporters on their own to raise their media profile enough to get a persuasive message in front of me, I might take note. Regardless: Hillary Clinton and her media and entertainment industry apparatus spent several times as much money as Trump, and failed. Why do you think money is what makes the difference? She hugely out-spent Bernie Sanders, too, but almost lost to him.

Re:Polls were wrong everywhere

[GungaDan]

The explanation for "local stuff" is simple. People were led to believe that the democrats' planned coronation would happen without pesky vote tabulations or anything getting in the way (kind of like in the primaries with the extremely unlikely coin tosses, etc.), so they voted for the opposition in every other race hoping to hold her majesty to account once she was installed.

Re:Polls were wrong everywhere

[LynnwoodRooster]

Oh, I agree it's hard! But when you simply look at a model that says Democrats will turn out like they did in 2008 and 2012, but the campaign rallies are virtually empty (as compared to the GOP campaign events), your model is wrong. When you sample 15% more Democrats than Republicans nationwide and don't factor that out - your model is wrong. Three models got it right - and those were roundly criticized and dismissed by most of the mainstream media.

Re:Polls were wrong everywhere

[LynnwoodRooster]

I love the interviews with current protestors, where about 75% of them didn't vote, or weren't even registered to vote! In other words, much of the traditional Democrat electorate expects other people will do the voting for them. And it failed, miserably.

Re:Polls were wrong everywhere

[ScentCone]

you don't believe in the 1st Amendment rights of every citizen

Yes, I believe in those rights. Every American is welcome to run a web site and communicate however else they like if they can afford to, or persuade other people to pitch in and help them if they make a good case. You have that right, right now. So do I. What you DON'T have is the right to force me to help you cover the costs you incur while you try to make other people interested in voting for you. Why do you think that other people should be your ideological slaves? Never mind, I think I know. You're a typical liberal/progressive, and think that everyone owes you the part of their day they'll have to work so you can be whatever you want. Why should YOU have to work if you want to be a poet or a politician, right? Right! The government should force other people to fund your Special Snowflake Party, so you don't have to actually convince anyone to support you willingly.

Please kill yourself, you're holding back the human race with your faggotry.

Yup, definitely a progressive. It's the only way you people know how to get political power - through hatred, violence, and intimidation. At least you're consistent, you little tyrants.

Re:Polls were wrong everywhere

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

I guess I wasn't clear. I was saying that the people who are currently protesting, and didn't vote because they assumed she would win, should have still voted for local stuff.

Re:Polls were wrong everywhere

[ScentCone]

Hey, look! Another deluded, crazy, violent liberal!

The media lied

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything was rigged to make Hillary look better than reality, and it turned into one big liberal circle jerk. Just like when all the liberals read their Mother Jones / Upworthy articles, got so fired up, shared them amongst themselves, then wrongly presumed all Americans felt the same way. Nope, far from it.

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.

Nationalism is back in a big way. First was Brexit, Second was Trump, Next will be Le Pen.

Re:The media lied

[serviscope_minor]

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"?

Re:The media lied

[Geoffrey.landis]

Everything was rigged to make Hillary look better than reality,

That makes no sense, sorry. Why would they do that? If anything, they'd want to do the opposite, to get their vote out.

But bhe best pre-election analysis showed that Hillary's estimated lead was roughly equal to the statistical error in the polling, and the post-election analysis pretty much confirms this. No need for a wacky conspiracy theory.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/fea...
http://fivethirtyeight.com/fea...

Re:The media lied

[BigBuckHunter]

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"?

Like any group of humans, 15% are vile, 15% are righteous, and 70% are sheep and will do whatever the loudest person in the group is doing. It is unwise to dismiss our shared shortcomings.

Re:The media lied

[dywolf]

remind me again how its liberals, who support equal rights for all, that are vile, and not the white nationalists you seem to like so much, who cant wait to "make america white again"?

Had paper ballots here ...

[fahrbot-bot]

... in my VA precinct. Filled in the bubbles then fed into a optical scanner attached to a lock box. It was the actually easier and perhaps faster than using the electronic voting machines we had last election. (State was Blue again this year.)

Re:Had paper ballots here ...

[Waffle Iron]

We have the same type of system here. It makes total sense and couldn't be easier to use.

The only disadvantage I can see with it is that they sometimes make a mistake with the pre-printed ballots and have to scramble to get enough correct ones made up. However, if that's a problem, I think that just giving each polling place a laser printer and having them print them on demand would be better than getting a whole bunch of hackable electronic voting machines.

Scantron voting seems like the best option

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:TRUMP 206

[rholtzjr]

Trying to shape the discussion by posting the expected opposite of this post? BOTH SHOULD BE modded as TROLL for that reason alone. WHO in the right or left mind would mod this as Funny?

conspiracy theory became media story

[NotInHere]

Its quite remarkable that the same papers disregarded as a conspiracy theory before is now a story on the newspaper. I always thought this was an issue: https://politics.slashdot.org/...

Either way, lets hope that computerized ballots get abolished, and the voting system gets reformed, so that each state uses the system maine just agreed to use: https://ballotpedia.org/Maine_...

Or even better, abolish the electoral college and implement such a ranked system based on the popular vote, but that will probably be even harder to implement I guess.

Verifiable votes.

[BigBuckHunter]

The case for verifiable and reproducible ballots/votes is extremely strong and is entirely independent of the current Clinton/Trump issue. The only thing I question is why so many people think that this somehow requires "paper", as if it will somehow magically prevent tampering and beget accurate recounts and election integrity.

Re:Verifiable votes.

[dgatwood]

Digital signatures help, but they are not sufficient. What is needed for proper digital security is multiple independent counts that can be independently verified, using equipment produced by different manufacturers. For example:

• Voting machine by manufacturer A. Vote is signed with voting machine's digital signature.
• Validator machine by manufacturer B. Voter takes electronic ballot card and walks it over to that machine to verify vote recorded correctly. Vote is re-signed or a revocation vote is signed with that machine's digital signature.
• Vote counter machine by manufacturer C that processes the final vote and records it in a centralized database along with the entire signature audit trail.
• Each device boots from a RAMdisk image stored on an EPROM that cannot be modified by the device itself, and reboots itself after every vote.

This would mean that someone would have to compromise all three systems in such a way that the voting machine displayed one vote but recorded a different vote, the validator displayed one vote but recorded a different vote, and the vote counter recorded the real vote without detecting whatever additional annotations were recorded by the compromised machines to allow the validator machines to show the voter's intended vote instead of the recorded vote. And they would have to do it in such a way that the compromise gets written to the memory card by the device that erases it before subsequent votes (which should be impossible without someone tampering with its EPROM).

An ideal implementation would involve four or five different manufacturers for each of these products, with a rule that each polling station must have more than two manufacturers' products, and that the validators cannot be made by the same companies as the voting machines.

Re:Five stages of grief

[skam240]

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.

NOT Russian Hackers?!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like someone's been lying to me to fit a political-media narrative.

The Democrats Conceded the Election

[Geoffrey.landis]

I just don't understand why the Democrats insist on blaming things like the electoral system, hacks, counting errors, or in this case the physical ballot mechanism,

Pay attention. The Democrats are not claiming hacks, counting errors, or the physical ballot mechanism are the cause of Trump winning. Not. The Democratic party accepted the election result. The discussion in question is other people saying that the Democrats should audit the election, not Democrats contesting the election.

see for example many many news stories http://learningenglish.voanews...

when it's patently obvious that the Democrats would have gotten a landslide win if they had gone with anyone but Clinton.

This is not clear at all.

Re: The Democrats Conceded the Election

[tomhath]

That depends on who you mean by "the Democrats". The people circulating petitions sure aren't Republicans.

It's the new old thing

[zifn4b]

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.

Re:It's the new old thing

[arobatino]

That's the thing, Hillary ALREADY conceded. It's done and on the books.

In 2000 Gore conceded, then retracted his concession, then conceded again. It's not legally binding.

Re:It's the new old thing

[Gravis Zero]

Why people keep ruminating about this is beyond me.

because this isn't just about this election, it's also about all the elections after this one. if one election was stolen, that's one thing, if every election is stolen, that's a total loss of democracy.

Re:It's the new old thing

[Weirsbaski]

Because it's about the trustworthyness of the election system- these calls aren't about changing this month's election results, they're about reliable future elections.

Put another way, if someone told your org about a potentially serious glitch in their public-facing firewall, would you wait for a major intrusion before checking it out?

Re:It's the new old thing

[zifn4b]

Because it's about the trustworthyness of the election system- these calls aren't about changing this month's election results, they're about reliable future elections.

ZOMG, everyone knows the ENTIRE election system it out of date and doesn't reflect that state of the union as it existed 200 years ago. No one does anything about it. Are you going to do something about it? Furthermore, do you believe that our elections have always been accurate down to every last single vote. Think about that for a second. Do you think that's slanted in any particular candidate's favor, really?

Someone honest modded it

[HBI]

The reason you don't recognize it is because you're still in your media bubble. Rub some elbows with people in rural America.

Re:Someone honest modded it

[squiggleslash]

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.

Re:Someone honest modded it

[serviscope_minor]

The reason you don't recognize it is because you're still in your media bubble. Rub some elbows with people in rural America.

How will rubbing shoulders with rural Americans make me reailse that "most liberals have extremely vile personalities".

Would it be too much to ask for you to read the context of the threads you're replying to rather than mindlessly jump to partisan talking points?

Re:Someone honest modded it

[harvey the nerd]

Everyone should read the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It gets worse.

Re:Someone honest modded it

[dgatwood]

Historically he was your typical wealthy New York Democrat.

And historically, Hillary Clinton was a Republican. Even her record in Congress (e.g. the failed video game violence ban that she sponsored) seemed pretty far to the right of center. This election seemed completely and utterly bizarre to everyone who was paying attention.

Re:Someone honest modded it

[GoChickenFat]

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.

Why should we care to listen to any group then? They're all getting tiresome to listen to. If anything, this election was about being tired of being minimized because you don't fall into any of the chosen groups for the last decade.

paper, yes. computerized, also yes.

[Gravis Zero]

The best ballot system I've seen so far is computerized but it prints out a paper ballot which you can examine before you put it in a ballot box. This gives you the security of paper but also uniformity of computerized voting so that votes can be quickly scanned. Frankly, I wish there was a little bit of extra data encoded on the printout to prevent things like ballot box stuffing but it's still pretty good.

a breakdown of how this works during our elections

[nimbius]

1. $candidate loses. outrage ensues. this year outrage gets a +20 to property damage.
2. the electoral college is briefly and vigorously crucified as a source of corruption the likes of which not seen since the Crucifixion of Christ our lord.
3. $object is seriously flawed. during Bush, it was hanging chads. Now for Clinton, its "fake news." if only that cursed fake news hasnt existed then maybe we could have a good president.

paper ballots wont help us get past our weird and albeit rather skewed approach to counting votes in general. We need an open source solution to do this, and it needs to be independently monitored by a foreign coalition. 600 million votes cannot be hand counted.

now on to the ancillary matter I hope slashdotters will forgive me for being offtopic about. Hillary was a turd of a candidate who lambasted americans as deplorables and avoided campaigning in places like wisconsin. She was implicated in numerous scandals. She had a hard time identifying with regular americans like auto mechanics, welders, truck drivers and others. If Democrats had run Sanders, he would likely have won. He had a practical message that spanned conservatives and liberals for the most part, and was willing to tackle several of the populist issues Trump had championed. The key being, Sanders never alienated an entire segment of the US population just because they didnt wear Dior and drive a Tesla.

What media were you looking at?

[Anonymous Coward]

All I heard for months was shit about emails, crooked Hillary, Benghazi, and shut about her husband.

No one really liked her.

the only thing that gave her any positive light was Trump himself.

No, you're right, that wasn't the message

[HBI]

The 2008 and 2012 response was that the people in rural America were evil and the hopey changey shit would put all those old people out of the political calculus until the grave took them, because the Left won.

That didn't work out, did it?

Re: No, you're right, that wasn't the message

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re: No, you're right, that wasn't the message

[harvey the nerd]

The Democratic machine has long manufactured more votes than Ferdinand Marcos...

Re:No, you're right, that wasn't the message

[dywolf]

so what youre saying is that you were in coma in 2008 and 2012 and have confused the dream you had while you were asleep with reality.

Re: No, you're right, that wasn't the message

[dywolf]

saying it don't make it so.

Re: No, you're right, that wasn't the message

[dywolf]

yes....AFTER they gave conservatives everything they wanted.

see, that's how compromise works for republicans, with two easy examples, out of many, from the passing of the ACA:

-"we demand you drop the public option"....so dems did

-"if it's so good, then why dont YOU have to use it?"...but dems said, "hey no, that's a good idea, leading by examples, etc", and so they made it so all of Congress does have to use the exchange

-"well...screw you we wont vote for it anyway"

Re: No, you're right, that wasn't the message

[fustakrakich]

Not just Chicago as pointed out above, but Humphrey. The machine worked its magic quite effectively, just like it did for Clinton, who was counting on Trump to scare voters her way. Yes, the democratic primary was rigged. Well, all I can say is "schadenfreude"! But since they really don't really oppose the republicans, nothing is really going to change anyway. You still got a 97% reelection rate in congress.

At least Trump is trying to talk to you

[HBI]

The fuck-all Obama ever did to try to reach the people who didn't like him.

Re:At least Trump is trying to talk to you

[Dutchmaan]

I actually remember Obama being pretty bi-partisan in his first term. The conservative reaction was to take what was given and demand more, then point the finger when they didn't get things 100% their way

Re:At least Trump is trying to talk to you

[Anonymous Coward]

He wasn't bipartisan when he shoved in his healthcare law. The Democrat-controlled Congress enabled that.

It would have been bipartisan to give conservatives something in exchange. If he offered to deport illegals, end abusive visa work programs, and rebalance trade, I would have been happy to give him single payer healthcare. (Christ, this what I expect Trump to do.) I believe his original plan was to shove healthcare down our throats, then shove amnesty down our throats and achieve absolute domination of the political system forever.

Re:At least Trump is trying to talk to you

[MightyMartian]

And yet both sides agree that health care is a huge problem. They may differ on the solution, but as it appears that even the Republicans are not so insane as to removing the pre-existing condition aspects of Obamacare, it strikes me that, whatever you think of the ACA, there are aspects of it that have become effectively touchstones of bipartisan agreement.

Re:At least Trump is trying to talk to you

[dywolf]

see? this is how I know were in a coma for the past 8 years:
100% delusional statements like that one, completely disconnected from reality.

read, and be edumicated:
http://www.washingtontimes.com...
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2...
http://www.realclearpolitics.c...
http://www.politifact.com/trut...
https://mic.com/articles/22662...
http://www.liberalamerica.org/...

Re:At least Trump is trying to talk to you

[dywolf]

^^again. not reflected by reality. your comment only shows your own ignorance about the passage of the ACA.

also:
-he deported more undocumented immigrants than the previous 3 presidents combined
-he did call for restrictions on the H1B and an end to its abuse as a tool to threaten/replace native workers. guess who opposed it?????
-OOOO that evil man, making healthcare affordable. the horror.

I'm hoping Hilary steps up

[rsilvergun]

and challenges the election. Trump looks like Bush jr x 100 to me. Here's hoping we learned our lesson and fight this time...

You know, I've been wondering about that

[rsilvergun]

ok, I'll admit I'm a bit of a libtard troll. I make a bit of a game out of it. But I do actually believe everything I type, and I've noticed a libtard post that used to get me a guaranteed +5 insightful will shoot up and then get modded down to -1 troll.

I'll just come out and say it: I think we've got professional trolls (Russian? Doesn't matter really) pushing a right wing nationalist agenda to destabilize our country. If they were just targeting /. it'd be one thing but when you've got pros doing it full time they're canvassing the web. /. is just one stop on their daily routine.

Re:You know, I've been wondering about that

[Rockoon]

translation:

"Even though me and my kind have been calling you and your kind racists since forever, its actually the russians that are out to get me."

I havent..

[God of Lemmings]

been to a county in Michigan that didn't already use paper ballots. Did they specify which counties they had a problem with?

Re:I havent..

[JackAxe]

Michigan's entire system is paper and optical. Which I guess the "computer scientists" didn't factor in. And they've already recounted that state and Trump still won.

Governing for good

[Max_W]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I have got an impression that president Obama and Clinotns are not going anywhere. They will govern still for a long time.

It seems to be the global trend, the queen of England and Norther Ireland, V. Putin in RF, Angela Merkel in Germany, A. Lukashenko in Byelorussia, etc.

I think the time of presidents who left power voluntarily, like Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, etc. is over. Even though Donald Trump selects a team, he could be for a big surprise next year. He may well happen preside over a government in exile.

You do know

[rsilvergun]

she won the popular vote by ~2 million, right? You also know what voter suppression is and that only 50% turned out, right?

Check what your house is made of (glass) before throwing stones please.

Re:You do know

[Max_W]

she won the popular vote by ~2 million, right? You also know what voter suppression is and that only 50% turned out, right? Check what your house is made of (glass) before throwing stones please.

I am not throwing any stones. I am sorry if you have to worry about your house after this election. I have nothing to do with it, I did not vote in this election nor any other US election, as I am not even in the US.

I just wrote in a discussion that I have an impression that the world has changed. You are absolutely right, - two million votes, 50%, doping, hackers, what's not, - this is my point exactly. This is how it works.

The current constitution of the United States does not rely on popular vote, as it wants to consider the opinion of all the states. Look at this map and an explanation: http://www.270towin.com/maps/2...

Re:You do know

[msauve]

Trump won in 50% more states. And in the only vote which matters, Trump is winning by over 30% - 306 to 232.

Personally I am all for it

[Crashmarik]

I just want every state in the union checked for voter fraud. When I say voter fraud I mean, dead voters, districts with more votes than population, bussed voters, illegal aliens voting.

You know, all the things the Dmocrats have been fighting to prevent anyone so much as checking for the past 40 years.

Re:Personally I am all for it

[Nostalgia4Infinity]

This is why there will not be a recount.

Re:Personally I am all for it

[LynnwoodRooster]

Our two neighbors - Mexico and Canada - have national ID requirements for voting. If they can do it - why can't we?

Re:Personally I am all for it

[yuriklastalov]

Because slavery 'n' stuff.

Re:Five stages of grief

[HanzoSpam]

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.

unpossible

[ooloorie]

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

That's just double-plus-unpossible! We all know that people who vote Democratic are inerrant in all matters scientific and factual! I read it in the NYT and the WP!

Why blockchain?

[Geoffrey.landis]

I'd like to see someone investigate the idea of using blockchain technology to create a read-only database of the election results. The entire point of a blockchain is to create a cryptographically signed set of transactions which can't be altered without compromising the database. Banks are investing in this technology, where trillions of dollars are at stake, and in which every penny must be accounted for. Why not voting data as well?

I'm baffled. What do you believe blockchain technology would do for voting? How would it make the system better?

The whole point of voting is that you need to make the votes anonymous: a particular vote can't be traced to a particular voter. Blockchain could give you a verified receipt for your vote... but what is the usefulness of that?

It seems to me to be a technology with no evident usefulness to the application.

Before the election, people were worried...

[Geoffrey.landis]

we proved many times before the election that many elections machines could be hacked. the election officials said no, dont worry, it's not going to happen. now that people are not getting their way they are finding any dumb excuse.

Huh. I would have said exactly the opposite. Before the election many people, including people in government, were saying that we need to worry about hacking, that there were many organizations targeting this election (see here and here and here), but now that the election is over, people are saying don't worry, no problem.

"Elections matter."

[HBI]

"...we won". "You didn't build that" "That's the good thing about being president, I can do whatever I want." Or how about the one where he said health care aka Obamacare would become more popular with time.

Leave out the offensive policy actions even, the attitude was condescending and he offered people on the other side nothing at all.

Re:"Elections matter."

[dywolf]

"WE won"

they did have a clear mandate.
his win was overwhelming.
unlike trump who is still 2 million votes shy of Hillary's count.

"you didn't build that"

still taken out of context and unable to grasp the point as a result.
the point isn't to diminish anything you have achieved, but to get you to acknowledge that you didn't do it alone.
you had help. you had parents, teachers, coaches, etc who taught you how to succeed.
you had a society that has made it possible to do so, through public education, public infrastructure, etc.
only conservatives are so delusional as to think they didn't need any of that and would be where they are today without it.

the ACA is more popular with time.
in fact, public polls have shown that when it was described to people without a name, people loved it and almost every aspect of it, including the penalty once it was explained what hte purpose of that penalty was (the free-rider problem).
THEY ALSO described the law specifically to conservative voters as a GOP proposed alternative. and guess? they loved it too.

again: you are delusional.

Politicians are followers

[HBI]

The Republican legislators would have been compelled to work with him on things if he had gone directly to the people and offered real solutions to their problems. But Jarrett and Emanuel and the rest were convinced that it was a Democratic moment and did all the partisan shit they could during the first two years when this was possible. "Don't let a good crisis go to waste"

And therefore created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Re:Politicians are followers

[GoChickenFat]

Exactly! but your wasting you keystrokes here on Slashdot as its now overrun with liberals too young to have even voted in 2008. Let alone having any connection to reality while being brainwashed in high school and college. It's completely baffling to so many young folks why Hillary was so despised because the media willfully ignored her past while trying to roast Trump with anything they could find. Just wait...the Clinton corruption investigations are not over. There's still that little matter of the scam called the Clinton Foundation. It's absolutely amazing to me that the Clinton's actual actions and wrong doings are overlooked while Trumps words are seen as evidence that he might do something wrong.

Re:Politicians are followers

[HBI]

Like he's the only business that had to settle a fraud suit. Every disagreement is fraud in business. "he advertised something and it wasn't what he said it was!!" I doubt the actual merits of the suit justified settling anyway, he probably did it just to make it go away after winning the election, else he would have fought it to the end.

"Hillary wasn't perfect" - she was guilty of espionage. Period. Probably guilty of selling influence too via the Clinton Foundation. This is pound me in the ass 20+ years stuff, not some stupid civil suit. Trump is letting her off because it's not productive, not because she isn't guilty.

Lastly, vis a vis waterboarding: scruples are perfectly acceptable in your safe ivory tower. When the bad guys with zero scruples come calling, your tune will change quickly.

Re:Politicians are followers

[dywolf]

he did exactly that.
multiple times.
he didn't create the stonewall.
you are delusional.

Re:Politicians are followers

[dywolf]

Hillary's past in a nutshell:
40 years of conservatives making shit up and trying to make it stick, and failing.

Re:Politicians are followers

[dywolf]

almost all the corruption BS you accuse the Clintons of, with zero evidence, Trump has actually done, and much of it the past two weeks since he got elected!!!

you have it entirely backwards. there is no "actual actions" of the cliontons vs trumps words.
its baseless accusations against the Clintons vs trumps actual actions.

he has ACTUALLY treated his foundation as a piggy bank.
he has ACTUALLY profited of political office, and hes not even in office yet!, negotiating things for his businesses as president elect, clearing permits, putting up foreign dignitaries in his hotels, etc.

Re:Politicians are followers

[dywolf]

oh that is just truly pathetic.
I don't whats worse, your lack of education as to the meanings of simple words, or you disconnection from reality.

-no, disagreement in business is not fraud. Fraud is defined as

wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain

, aka, what Trump University did. it wasn't just mere false advertising, though that was part of it, and btw that is also illegal. your doubts on the matter only betray your own ignorance of it.

-no, she was not guilty of espionage. a) guilt only comes following a trial, and a trial requires proof, of which there is none. and b) the definition is

the practice of spying or of using spies, typically by governments to obtain political and military information.

.

-oh F right off. the idea that the America that decried fascism and torture 80 years ago is now fine with both makes me sick. ivory tower? talk to me after putting your ass on the line in the military. I have. And I tell you now: torture is and will forever be un-American. and if you did too, yet your values change that easily, then you had none to begin with. and further you fools that support torture have forgotten what it means to be an American. we cannot be the shining city on the hill, the example to the world, if we are willing to commit evil in its defense.

and your sig reveals your ignorance and further delusion, as well as that of anyone who actually voted trump based on his "economic arguments".

Old doesn't mean unhackable

[Geoffrey.landis]

Pennsylviania -- evoting machines so old they aren't on any network and couldn't possibility be hacked

Just because they claim to not be on the network doesn't mean that they "can't possibly be hacked"!!

First, it turns out that some machines that the vendors say aren't on the network have, in the past, ooops turned out they actually did have undocumented wifi ports.

Second, machines have to be accessed to put the candidates into the machine. This requires access, and any time there's access, they can be hacked.

Third, the machines have to be accessed to get results out of the machine. This is another point at which that the results could be tampered with. Doesn't matter if the machine is reporting 1000 votes for Candidate X and 200 votes for candidate Y if the man in the middle alters that to 500 and 700 as it's transmitted.

Forth, just because a machine is "old" doesn't mean it's hack-proof.

Re:Old doesn't mean unhackable

[Jhon]

"Forth (sic), just because a machine is "old" doesn't mean it's hack-proof."

Fifth, you never read any of the articles on this.

"Third, the machines have to be accessed to get results out of the machine. This is another point at which that the results could be tampered with. Doesn't matter if the machine is reporting 1000 votes for Candidate X and 200 votes for candidate Y if the man in the middle alters that to 500 and 700 as it's transmitted."

There was zero evidence provided of hacking or tampering. Just a sketchy report. They include Michigan in with their "concern" which is only paper ballots (which are optically scanned) but note that "...Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin computer scientists have discovered Clinton averaged 7% worse in counties with e voting machines vs. counties with only paper or optical scan ballots."

Only one example was provided, if you bothered to read any of the articles. They note the following:

"Clinton performed worse on average in Wisconsin counties that used electronic voting machines, but it could be that Trump simply performed better in those counties."

And guess what? The counties where Clinton did worse with evoting machines were RURAL counties. Where she (and democrats in general) do worse.

This basically comes down to "they might have been hacked -- but there's not evidence of it so lets waste a lot of time and cause a lot of angst".

Re:Five stages of grief

[LynnwoodRooster]

Almost all of Hillary's lead in the popular vote is covered by Los Angeles County by itself. Basically, you're arguing that winning one small, compact geographically but dense population area is all you need to become President. Why would anyone campaign outside of NYC, LA, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia? That's 18 million people in those cities. The rest of the US you could just get a wash or slight loss and still win.

Forget total ensurance of privacy, it's dead

[im_thatoneguy]

I think with modern technology the promise of an anonymous ballot being guaranteed is flat out dead. Unless you go through a metal detector like at the airport to screen out all electronics someone will easily bring a phone into the ballot box and with consumer go pros being able to be hidden in a shirt if someone is motivated they'll be able to attain proof that you voted as directed.

Also voter intimidation in this fashion is extremely risky and unsuccessful. It only takes one person giving an anonymous tip that they are being *offered* incentives to sell their vote and you're screwed. In order to sway an election you would inevitably solicit someone who will rat you out. If you are being blackmailed, then you'll be sufficiently motivated to conceal your tracks and with modern technology almost certainly find a way to succeed.

Technology for electronic voting confirmation is trivial but we exclude it because we inaccurately are defending an attribute that is dead and gone due to technological change. I can already track my mail-in ballot. What they should do is offer an independent random tracker to every ballot, then when the election is over you could confirm your ballot was counted properly. And many people could anonymously publish their vote and vote hash to news organizations for exit polling. And if you request enough random samples they should converge on the same result as the total. If Reuters samples 50k volunteers and the outcome of those samples is off from the official tally then you can investigate further. You would have to maintain two separate databases to both respond "correctly" to spot checks but also tally differently. And hashing the total vote database vs. the spot checks would guarantee the data had been tampered.

Re:Five stages of grief

[MightyMartian]

I do agree with this. If there is reforms to be done to the Electoral College, each state is quite capable of altering the way the electors are selected. If they wanted to go to a more proportional system, that would be up to each state. But seeing as big states like California and New York seem to have little desire to muck with how the EC functions within their jurisdictions, I see little incentive.

Re:a breakdown of how this works during our electi

[MightyMartian]

If you really want to fix presidential elections, you need to convince most or all of the states to reform how electors are elected. Imagine if electors were chosen by ranked or proportional voting, as opposed to the winner take all of all but two of the states? It's possible that even under such a scenario Trump would have won, but it would have been a closer thing.

Re:paper, yes. computerized, also yes.

[arobatino]

Optical scan ballots are a bit better because the voter fills in the ballot himself, so doesn't need to verify it.

Re:Five stages of grief

[skam240]

When on earth did I say uncovering fraud wouldnt be huge? Of course it would.

Please go back and read both posts, you're missing what is going on in the conversation.

Prop 101

[harvey the nerd]

Basically the polls have been severely politicized. This is Propaganda 101.

Re:Prop 101

[ShanghaiBill]

Basically the polls have been severely politicized. This is Propaganda 101.

Many polls have been politicized. But many, including professional pollsters that get paid based on their reputation for accuracy, are not politicized. They were all wrong.

bad group theory

[harvey the nerd]

US immigration is not being operated as legitimate melting pot. It is a meltdown fueled by welfare and by subversion - allowing literal enemies of the existing country that could never be allowed in under various laws.

Australia uses paper ballots - best overall

[mfearby]

I would not want to see Australia adopt electronic voting. Paper ballots which are properly secured and monitored is the safest system overall. I would never trust my vote to a "black box" that could easily be rigged. No thank you.

extras

[harvey the nerd]

I'd like to know how many illegals, multiple personalities and dead voted in LA/CA. I'm sure they were overwhelmingly Hillary supporters.

Clinton is AWOL; Jill Stein $4m recount fund

[jsepeta]

Jill Stein is funding the recount.
https://jillstein.nationbuilde...

Paper ballots - yes

[reboot246]

Photo voter ID - definitely

Too many people voted more than once. Too many non-citizens voted. Too many dead people voted.

For example: I know several people who retired to Florida from a northern state. They vote in person in Florida and vote by absentee ballot in their home state. If I know several, how many thousands are doing the same that I don't know about?

We need a nation-side system to identify registered voters to make sure they're registered in only one state. The system would also check to make sure they're not deceased.

"Can't possibly be hacked" is a challenge

[Geoffrey.landis]

There was zero evidence provided of hacking or tampering. Just a sketchy report.

We seem to be talking about different things.
The post I was replying to said that the Pennsylvania machines "couldn't possibly be hacked." You say that there is "zero evidence" that they actually were hacked.

I agree with that. The statement I was disagreeing with was that "the machines can't possibly be hacked."

I think our election results pretty much

[rsilvergun]

answered the question "why not both". Because then you couldn't pull this kind of shenanigans...

Re:Five stages of grief

[jeff4747]

Small states do not gain influence via the Electoral College. They are utterly ignored. Nobody ever campaigns in Alaska or Wyoming in the general election, despite their voters being 3x more powerful than California voters (on an elector-to-population basis).

All of the large states are ignored, because their electoral votes can be predicted years in advance. CA's electors will be voting for the Democrat in 2020. TX's electors will be voting for the Republican in 2020.

The small states in the Northeast would gain the most from ending the Electoral College, since they're currently ignored but have some big cities. The out-of-power party in large states would gain the second most, since their votes would actually be relevant, and those states also have big cities. So those would likely fight for getting rid of the Electoral College.

The second-biggest loser in getting rid of the Electoral College would be the in-power party in large states, since they could no longer guarentee a large bloc of Electors to their party. Tempering that loss would be that (at least parts of) those states would actually be relevant in a presidential election.

The biggest losers would be states like Ohio and Florida, because they'd go from being all-important to just few important counties. They would fight like hell to keep the Electoral College....but there's a lot fewer of them than the states that would see an upside.

Weak? Try non-existent.

[GerryGilmore]

Not to say that the Russians have not been doing shenanigans with releasing leaked emails, fake news sites, etc. but that shit is a far cry from "Hacked Election!" PS - Voted for Clinton, but Bernie supporter.

Re:Five stages of grief

[skam240]

So only Republicans are disenfranchised by the electoral system? That's preposterous. Roughly half the population of the country lives in Red states and Democrats are just as disenfranchised in them. Furthermore, disenfranchisement doesnt not happen just because your state is guaranteed to go the way you want. Plenty of democrats in California and New York don't feel their presidential vote has value given the guaranteed result. As a Californian that generally votes left I can tell you that if the only thing on the ballet was the presidential election it's good odds I wouldnt have bothered voting and for most people that's the only part of the ballot that brings them to the polls.

Also, Trump didn't spend a nickle in California? How profound. Neither did Hillary.

Re:I coulda sworn....

[MoarSauce123]

The contards around Trump indeed claimed that the entire election is rigged, yet they gleefully accept the preliminary results without questioning it at all. If anything, the Trumpists should be on the forefront of recounts to stress their point. As usual, they don't give a damn about what they claimed and promised yesterday. Nothing but a bunch of opportunistic flip-floppers.

Re:a breakdown of how this works during our electi

[dwillden]

Would it have been closer, or would it have given him a greater lead, costing him some electors in some states but granting him electors in CA and NY from those congressional districts outside the big cities. The "By County" map is very, very red. But thanks to WTA, NY an CA were solid blue blocks of electors Hillary didn't even need to campaign for. Of course many of the solid red states would have sent her electors (TX, PA and the like) but based on the by county map I wonder if he wouldn't have won an even greater landslide in the EC.

Re:Audit the results? But why?

[dywolf]

well, two of his advisors have publically talked about it following the election.

and another of his surrogates has publicly stated:

It’s so great our enemies are making themselves clear so that when we get in to the White House, we know where we stand. I would never judge anybody for exercising their right to and the freedom to choose who they want. But let me just tell you, Mr. Trump has a long memory and we’re keeping a list.

Re:Audit the results? But why?

[dywolf]

except for Trump's actual corruption, actual profiteering off his foundation, actual profiting from office (and he's not even the office yet!), actual bigotry, actual complete policy incompetence, actual transition circus.

i mean, thank god we didn't elect that nerd who actually knows what she's doing right?

Would you like some cheese ...

[jodokast98]

with that whine? When are we going to get back to a nation united instead of this division crap that keeps going around. Everyone needs to pull up their big boy/girl/tumblr-gender underroos and look at the entire establishment and not just one person.

Re:I coulda sworn....

[pabloesgalhardo]

Yet Trumps win is not proof of a non rigged election in favour of the democrats. They could very well have tried to steal the election and whatever they did was not enough. SOros owns an electronic voting machine company, dont forget that.

Re:Hey, if they'll stoop to nuking Democratic Unde

[fustakrakich]

Quit your bellyaching. The moderation system is fine. You're just mad it doesn't favor you!

As for the economic model, they have that too. You can create your echo chamber as desired:

Subscribers have the option to restrict posting access on their journals based on their Friends & Foes list.

You just prefer to complain.

Now, post your favorite fantasy in the header please..

Done deal

[ebvwfbw]

She said she'd accept the results and she did. We know that places that they claimed might have been hacked were electronic and their demographics that match other areas in the state with those demographics and had paper had almost identical results. Even if she won all of these states, she still comes up short.

No, she's a loser and couldn't even beat a guy that she certainly should have been able to beat without a problem. I mean, this is industrial suckyness on Hillary's part. Be glad she lost. Be very, very, very, very glad. We dodged a bullet. I know people that know her personally, she's a very nasty person. She'd be a despot.

Moving on, so who the hell is going to be the next candidate? The Democrats really have NO ONE! They couldn't even fill their convention without hiring people to come to it to fill the seats (look it up, it's true). The Democratic party is a party in shambles. Obama has decimated it good. He's been the best thing for Republicans. They now hold more offices since reconstruction. More Governors, More legislatures, More seats overall. Question is, can they do anything better than the Democrats did.

Public masturbation of 163220

[shanen]

Z^3