Recounts or no, US elections are still vulnerable to hacking

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Jill Stein's bid to recount votes in Pennsylvania was in trouble even before a federal judge shot it down Dec. 12. That's because the Green Party candidate's effort stood almost no chance of detecting potential fraud or error in the vote — there was basically nothing to recount.

Pennsylvania is one of 11 states where the majority of voters use antiquated machines that store votes electronically, without printed ballots or other paper-based backups that could be used to double-check the balloting. There's almost no way to know if they've accurately recorded individual votes — or if anyone tampered with the count.

More than 80 percent of Pennsylvanians who voted Nov. 8 cast their ballots on such machines, according to VotePA, a nonprofit seeking their replacement. A recount would, in the words of VotePA's Marybeth Kuznik, a veteran election judge, essentially amount to this: "You go to the computer and you say, 'OK, computer, you counted this a week-and-a-half ago. Were you right the first time?'"

These paperless digital voting machines, used by roughly 1 in 5 U.S. voters last month, present one of the most glaring dangers to the security of the rickety, underfunded U.S. election system. Like many electronic voting machines, they are vulnerable to hacking. But other machines typically leave a paper trail that could be manually checked. The paperless digital machines open the door to potential election rigging that might not ever be detected.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/recounts-or-no-us-elections-are-still-vulnerable-to-hacking/ar-BBxznL0?li=BBnbcA1&ocid=edgsp

[Chasstev365]

1. And we put up with it.......

[Igel]

2. There are a variety of claims that fall into this category.

Voter fraud is like this. Repeated studies have shown a very low incidence of voter fraud, nearly never happens. Then again, they typically look at drivers license info versus voter registration records. If there's a drivers' license with your name or something close to your name on it and it matches your voter registration, it's presumed a valid voter registration record.

I've known undocumented immigrants with good documentation, just not legally acquired. But the studies' methodologies are incapable of spotting this. In fact, often if there's a name similar to what's on file with the election board it's presumed to be the same person. What "similar" means can be a bit squishy. We cite these studies as authoritative in proving a negative. To be honest, the only way to definitively check voter registration records would probably be found to be very intrusive, and it would certainly be insanely time consuming.

I personally doubt there's much voter fraud. It's a low-interest crime that wouldn't amount to much in nearly any election. But those who need to believe apparently find it really necessary to believe.

It's very much the same with election hacking. The "studies", that is, the recounts, are often incapable of spotting hacking. But every recount that has been done has failed to find anything but trivial and completely understandable errors in ballot counting.

I think of these as book ends bracketing the middle. We accept flawed methodology as definitive when we like the answer; we reject flawed methodology when we don't like the answer.

In both cases, it's the flipped version of creation-science's belief in their "God of the gaps": Lack of evidence that disproves something is taken as evidence that that something is true. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps)