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

[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

[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

[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.

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!

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

[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

[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.

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.

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: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: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.

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.

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.

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

[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.

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.

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.

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: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: 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: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.

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.

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: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: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.

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.

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: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..