Georgia has a poll book. Do you know what a poll book is, and how it works? When a ballot is received, the name of the person is entered into a poll book. Therefore, when you see a poll book and a pile of ballots, you can check that the counts are the same. Entering data into the poll book is therefore one of the most critical parts of an election, and is the part that is critically observed by election watchers.

You cannot merely smuggle in pre-filled ballots, as the ballot counts would not match the poll book counts.

You would also need to explain how poll books were falsely updated.

If someone smuggled in fake ballots, AND somehow managed to falsify the poll book, it would be possible to use the poll book to ASK people if they voted. You could then find people who say they did not vote, but there is a record of them voting.

It is therefore trivially falsifiable with current election procedures.

Or is there something you think I'm missing?

Here is the critical moment where the woman in Michigan argues with a Republican, claiming without evidence that the poll book is off, when it was literally trivial to check it. (Look for the tweet with "Holy smokes the sequel is even better!")

https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/1334311448340795396

> When a ballot is received, the name of the person is entered into a poll book. Therefore, when you see a poll book and a pile of ballots, you can check that the counts are the same. Entering data into the poll book is therefore one of the most critical parts of an election, and is the part that is critically observed by election watchers. You cannot merely smuggle in pre-filled ballots, as the ballot counts would not match the poll book counts.

"When a ballot is received, the name of the person is entered into a poll book."

I'm not familiar with the exact mechanics of this. From where does the ballot originate, where/how is the ballot "received", and what is the procedure for entering it into the poll book?

And, is this process identical (in design, and confirmed practice) for all states and polling stations?

> You would also need to explain how poll books were falsely updated.

Technically, I do not. Fraud (some fraud, not necessarily massive fraud) occurred in physical reality, or it did not. My personal opinion on the matter, or lack of an explanation, is orthogonal to events that occurred in physical reality. The burden of evidence is on the one who asserts the claim. And, that which occurred in physical; reality, is that which occurred, regardless of whether we have "proof" of it. Reality itself, and human measurements/opinions/"facts" about reality, are distinct entities. Related, but different.

> If someone smuggled in fake ballots, AND somehow managed to falsify the poll book, it would be possible to use the poll book to ASK people if they voted.

It may be "possible", but is it practical? How difficult would it be? Is the current approach perfectly optimal, or could it be improved?

> You could then find people who say they did not vote, but there is a record of them voting.

We "could", but would we? Did we spot check any ballots? How much evidence do we have that demonstrates or suggests that there precisely zero anomalies anywhere in the system (and how hard did we look)?

> It is therefore trivially falsifiable with current election procedures.

Only if your premises are flawless.

> Or is there something you think I'm missing?

The above questions. Also, it's probably worth pointing out that neither of us (or a combination of us) are guaranteed to have 100% comprehensive knowledge of all possible points of failure.

> Here is the critical moment where the woman in Michigan argues with a Republican, claiming without evidence that the poll book is off, when it was literally trivial to check it. (Look for the tweet with "Holy smokes the sequel is even better!")

Do any comprehensive conclusions logically (and inevitably) follow from this event, or might the significance of it be more related to the notion of rhetorical/heuristic influence?

I have a bit of an issue with the manner in which we approach this whole situation from an educational perspective. As a society, we've surely spent many tens or hundreds of person-hours participating in meme wars about this topic. If this sort of non-productive (and socially destructive) behavior was going on anywhere we worked, I would expect that someone was assemble a FAQ or Wiki of some sort that laid out the details - fully comprehensive, and fully accurate (across all states), in a format that is approachable by all employees.

Does such a resource exist for the election process?

It's honestly worth going through election monitoring training in your state to find the answers to these questions.

> And, is this process identical (in design, and confirmed practice) for all states

No, of course not. The elections are run, independently, by each State. By design, the rules are different. Because we are a Federal government, made of multiple States. This is on purpose.

> Reality itself, and human measurements/opinions/"facts" about reality, are distinct entities. Related, but different.

Yes, and it is only rational to have beliefs based on evidence. And we live in a system of laws expressing how that evidence is to be gathered, evaluated, and decided upon.

This week, a ton of people rejected that process, because they FEEL like they can't trust it, proposing nothing to replace it instead.

> It may be "possible", but is it practical?

Voting irregularities are investigated, yes.

> Is the current approach perfectly optimal, or could it be improved?

Perfect is the enemy of good.

And we're discussing THIS election. I welcome a different discussion about improving the process for future elections.

> Did we spot check any ballots?

Yes. Please inform yourself. The information is available.

> How much evidence do we have that demonstrates or suggests that there precisely zero anomalies anywhere in the system

You can't prove a negative. Literally, you cannot.

We mitigate the risks. We look for evidence of wrong-doing. And when we can't find it, we look harder. We think about designing a process that is as good as possible, we enact laws, and we move on.

> Only if your premises are flawless.

I propose a method to gather evidence and evaluate it. A system of laws. We have that. We do that. It is not flawless. It is what we have. Improving that system by proposing better processes and laws is wonderful. Rejecting that process by violently storming the Capitol building, smearing feces on the wall, and murdering a police officer, is not wonderful.

> The above questions.

I don't think you asked any interesting questions. You asked questions that indicate you have not invested much time in researching them, and you asked epistemological questions. Neither were very constructive, for the current election, in my opinion.

> Also, it's probably worth pointing out that neither of us (or a combination of us) are guaranteed to have 100% comprehensive knowledge of all possible points of failure.

I don't propose that I do. I propose that we have a system of laws, and courts, and checks and balances, and a Fourth Estate (the media), to helps us evaluate possible points of failure and prosecute wrong-doing.

> Do any comprehensive conclusions logically (and inevitably) follow from this event,

She doesn't know what she's talking about. That is a logical conclusion.

> I would expect that someone was assemble a FAQ or Wiki of some sort that laid out the details

There are literally hundreds of books, hundreds of web pages, hundreds of explanations, millions of hours of explanation.

Here's a 31 minute long video from Georgia alone:

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/04/953321408/georgia-election-of...

> It's honestly worth going through election monitoring training in your state to find the answers to these questions.

If that was the path one had to take to learn such things at your work, would you be as cool as a cucumber with it as you are with the running of your countries sacred democracy?

>> And, is this process identical (in design, and confirmed practice) for all states

> No, of course not. The elections are run, independently, by each State. By design, the rules are different. Because we are a Federal government, made of multiple States. This is on purpose.

Is it also on purpose that one (presumably) has to go through the election monitoring training in each state in order to "educate themselves" on each state's procedures, if they happen to be the type of personality that doesn't take a faith based approach to system integrity? And that just tells you what is supposed to happen, not what does happen.

> Yes, and it is only rational to have beliefs based on evidence. And we live in a system of laws expressing how that evidence is to be gathered, evaluated, and decided upon.

This is a funny comment, but I suspect your mind will refuse to see it - look how many people believe(s) (beginning the morning after the election) that there is/was no(!) evidence of election fraud. Of course this is silly - how does one know that evidence does not exist in physical reality if you haven't even looked for it? Yes I realize this is simply propaganda, but I am referring to how even intelligent people believe such things irrationally without evidence. But of course, they have no idea they are irrational, so therefore continue to believe that "rationalism" is the only tool you need in your kit.

> This week, a ton of people rejected that process, because they FEEL like they can't trust it, proposing nothing to replace it instead.

Technically, neither you nor any of the other know what percentage of the mob "rejected that process" - although, you did only say "a ton", and indeed, surely at least one ton/tonne of human mass of the crowd believes what you say.

> Voting irregularities are investigated, yes.

Gosh this sort of comment drives me up the wall. All it takes to satisfy this assertion is precisely two historic instances of voting irregularities being investigated.

And then there's this:

>>>> If someone smuggled in fake ballots, AND somehow managed to falsify the poll book, it would be possible to use the poll book to ASK people if they voted.

>>> It may be "possible", but is it practical? How difficult would it be? Is the current approach perfectly optimal, or could it be improved?

> Perfect is the enemy of good. And we're discussing THIS election. I welcome a different discussion about improving the process for future elections.

You declare something to be impossible to be fraudulent, and then when I point out the blatantly obvious hole in the plan, you discard it with a catch phrase, and then rhetorically dodge the uncomfortable fact that the system is not actually imperfect as you represent.

It's funny, when a thread is about a technical topic here on HN, however trivial the magnitude of the topic is, people here tend to be very pedantic about what is technically correct. But change the topic to democracy (our "sacred institution" as we were told repeatedly in the last few days), which is "rather important", concerns for the details go right out the window, and attention to detail is not only not important, but shamed. Even funnier, just four years ago, the culture was the polar opposite of this. Funny that eh!

I'll leave it at that, except for this one important thing:

>> I have a bit of an issue with the manner in which we approach this whole situation from an educational perspective. As a society, we've surely spent many tens or hundreds of person-hours participating in meme wars about this topic. If this sort of non-productive (and socially destructive) behavior was going on anywhere we worked, I would expect that someone was assemble a FAQ or Wiki of some sort that laid out the details - fully comprehensive, and fully accurate (across all states), in a format that is approachable by all employees. Does such a resource exist for the election process?

> There are literally hundreds of books, hundreds of web pages, hundreds of explanations, millions of hours of explanation. Here's a 31 minute long video from Georgia alone

Imagine if you started a new job and needed to learn the precise functioning of 50 distinct but extremely similar processes, and someone referred you to something like the above. Once again, it reminds me of one of my favourite parables:

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”

I don't know why I even bother writing these things, maybe I find it therapeutic, or maybe it is so some day in the future I have evidence to point to when the next Capitol-style blowup happens. People's behavior can easily be characterized as being purely based on their imaginations, and mainstream normies will accept that without question (without evidence(!)) - but if it isn't actually true inphysical reality, well sometimes this has a way of biting you in the ass.

A poll book is typically used at a polling location. However, with absentee ballots, it works a little differently. In previous elections, to get an absentee ballot, you needed to request one, which had the equivalent effect to a poll book in that there was a record or paper trail that you were voting absentee. However, in many states in the 2020 election, no such request for an absentee ballot was required. In fact, some states just mailed you an absentee ballot without having to request one. This is where the poll book methodology you laid out breaks down. Suddenly your poll book is the entire voter roll.

The envelope has a name and signature.

The ballot is inside the envelope.

You verify the name is a valid voter, and you keep the envelope.

The envelope, with the signature on it, becomes the poll book.

1) Someone smuggles in completed ballots. There will not be any envelopes, and their illegal acts will be detectable.

2) Someone smuggles in completed ballots and fake envelopes. The name on the envelope can be compared to voter registrations, and you can go to a voter and ask if they in fact voted. Then the illegal acts will be detectable.

What am I missing?

The first thing that happens is the ballot is separated from the envelope. This is to protect the secrecy of the voter's choice. What is supposed to happen is that the signature on the envelope is matched with one on file (usually with the DMV or equivalent), but this rule was relaxed in Georgia in March 2020. This is the only point in the process where a mailed in absentee ballot can be verified. After this point it becomes a "naked ballot" and is not tied to the voter's identity [0]

So to summarize: the only verification method was a name and a signature and the signature verification was rendered useless as a result of relaxed rule changes. Not that a signature verification is a reliable verification method, but this means the only verification mechanism in place other than a voter registration lookup was effectively removed. This means you could have voted absentee on someone else's behalf as long as a) you knew their name and that they were a registered voter, and b) could scribble on an envelope.

[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/technology/georgia-recoun...

The envelope is retained. There was an audit performed on the signatures. They can count the number of envelopes vs the number of ballots. They can AND DID contact people to see if they voted. And most importantly, they can ensure one person didn't vote twice.

Inventing a ballot, forging a signature, and making sure you didn't vote for someone else who would later vote themselves... 11,800 times?

I'm sorry, but you need to provide evidence for that happening. Or evidence of how it COULD happen.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/a-warn...

Someone tested this ironclad verification process and their signature was accepted eight times. [0]

[0]: https://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/opinion-columns/victor...

1) that's a different process, not the process followed for the specific signature audit

2) even that casual process caught 11% of the fraud

3) where is evidence of ANY sizable signature fraud? Your article indicates we should have caught about 11% of it, even without the more strict signature audit.

4) you still haven't answered how you find 11,800 people whose signatures you can fake, and be sure they won't ALSO vote at a later date, which would be detected.

We done yet?

No?

Prove it in court.

Or just accept the outcome of this election, and get started trying to improve security for the next election.