Voting machines are inherently a challenge to verify. Even if the voter herself compiles source code and loads the resulting object into the machine before voting, it's impossible for her to verify the hardware is actually using that object. The paper ballots produced by these machines have marks next to candidates, but they also have an opaque bar code and that's what gets scanned when votes are "recounted". On top of all this, considering the design and code of these machines to be commercial secrets ensures error and distrust.
Count a subset of the ballots by hand, if they match, then your confidence in the system increases. Continue verification until confidence in the system reaches acceptable levels.
The voting machines that I've used recently are systems that automatically count paper ballots as they are submitted. There's a clear chain of custody with these, and these results have a 100% audit trail. Not only that, but these systems work in tandem to identify errors in either system.
The likelihood of discovering some injected irregularity is pretty high. Especially since we have systems in place for automatic hand-recounts in tight races. So if the system were going to nefariously alter the election outcome, it would have to be done at such a magnitude as to exceed the threshold for automatic hand-recounts, but be small enough to not be discovered. Plus, candidates can request a manual recount, further increasing the reliability of the system.
As with all systems where reliability is paramount: it's important to lean on redundancy in the system, rather than try to make a single component as reliable as possible.
Historically, “interference” has broadly included things like providing financial support to candidates, running news stories about candidates (or running news stations in the US, at all), and so on.
The lifting of these restrictions led directly to Fox News (which is an Australian company), which has long been a mouthpiece for the Republican Party. All of this happens despite the fact that it would be illegal for the Republican Party to take campaign donations from Australians.
We need to reinstate media ownership laws in the US.
The notion that there's any degree of shadiness about them is completely unwarranted. The company and tech are perfectly legit.
If there are any 'issues' at all with the election, it's more rooted in the fact that the US can't very easily identify people, doesn't know who is dead, who is alive, and who are actual residents.
If you dig into the 'voter roll purging' issue in Georgia, it reveals that much of the problems derive from the grey areas there.
That said, the elections are clean and fair, these ambiguities don't provide necessary for widespread fraud.
"Dominion Voting Systems Corp (Canada) owns 100% of Dominion Voting Systems, Inc (US Subsidiary)."
Source: https://votingsystems.cdn.sos.ca.gov/dominion-voting/part-2....
Apple, Cisco etc. might very well have >50% ownership from non-American sources, that doesn't make them 'not American'.
The outrage hyperbole over Dominion is completely fabricated, there's no basis it.
Their machines + system have the level of integrity necessary for satisfying the use case they are used for.
The possible 'loopholes' relate to who is using the ballots and machines, not the ballots or machines themselves.
https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voting...
I think it's really interesting how you can completely flip people's reaction to a scenario by flipping one variable, and the people perceive themselves to be perfectly logical. The human mind is such a mystery.
Is it surprising that people switch their viewpoint after their major concern was satisfied?
Now, they are scantrons. You fill out a big paper ballot, and the machine counts it. It's exactly the system I want in place.
It seems unlikely they’ll replace mail in ballot scantrons any time soon, but with mail-in ballots you have increased vectors for fraud and stuff like the recent political interference with the US Postal Service.
One step forward, two steps back, I guess.
Disclaimers:
Since I mentioned mail-in ballot fraud, and the 2020 election just happened: I have heard of no credible evidence of widespread fraud during the 2020 election or Georgia runoff.
Electronic machines might be able to serve a useful purpose: I think the best option involves most people voting in person on paper ballots, despite universal access to mail-in ballots, and universal access to machines that print filled-out ballots for people with accessibility issues. Machines that print scantrons for everyone might be a net win if they reduce adjudication, and if people actually double check that the printout matches their intended vote. Alternatively, people could scan their own ballot at the polling place, and confirm it scans correctly. Either way, the paper ballot must be the authoritative record.
Is this documented anywhere on some authoritative site?
> Is it surprising that people switch their viewpoint after their major concern was satisfied?
No, however, an (un)observed change in viewpoint does not necessarily represent satisfaction, or prove that all shortcomings have in fact been remedied.
Is this a glitch in the matrix? A bug in the code?
> I think it's really interesting how you can completely flip people's reaction to a scenario by flipping one variable, and the people perceive themselves to be perfectly logical. The human mind is such a mystery.
Is his date of hire relevant to this conversation?
> Do you have a bias?
Not only do I have bias, but I suspect I also suffer from shortcomings in knowledge as well as precision in my thinking.
Do you suffer at all from these three things, or anything else that I may have overlooked? If no, how did you obtain that knowledge?
Frankly, I hope they both lose.