2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumWhat is the Democratic Party doing about potential Voter Machine Hacking?
I'd like to think the American public is not so stupid as to make this a close election, but they are! Ohio was clearly stolen in 2004 and I don't trust Trump, Rove, or the Koch Brothers.
For the umpteenth time: What is being done?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)The parties have no power in that.
GhostofFDR
(32 posts)They're a political organization backing candidates, who may be directly harmed by voting fraud and machine tampering.
This is voting fraud, not voter fraud. They wouldn't personally have standing, but organizationally they have resources, manpower, and the ability to power and fund a robust investigation and legal action in coordination with candidates and the voting public who are directly harmed and have standing to legally challenge such irregularities in court.
LiberalFighter
(50,505 posts)The DNC doesn't necessarily have that type of resources especially financial. They do have some but it is limited.
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)The Federal Government could provide funds to the states to update voting machines, but I doubt Republicans in the House and Senate are interested.
This close to the election there is diddly-squat anyone can do. It simply isn't possible to pass a funding bill and acquire or update voting machine in fifty states and several territories.
Political parties are not a government and have no power at all under the Constitution to do anything about voting machines.
As I understand it, we have a US Cyberwarfare Command. Certainly, they should be on high alert during the November election. Hopefully, they are able to detect attempt intrusion into our voting system.
Qutzupalotl
(14,230 posts)It's great. In Oregon, you can take your time and vote from your living room with your voter pamphlet in hand, sipping a lovely beverage. There are free drop boxes or you can spend a stamp and mail it. We get 80%+ turnout in presidential election years. And, of course, there's a paper trail for actual recounts.
I've been here over a decade and have only heard about one problem: an overzealous clerk filled in some undervote ballots herself but got caught, pleaded guilty, and received a 90-day sentence. Otherwise, problems are rare.
http://www.ktvz.com/news/early-look-how-prevalent-is-voter-fraud-in-oregon/38043382
If we can bypass these suspicious machines altogether, that seems like a good way forward.
On edit: to your question, Wyden and Merkley are pushing this nationally:
http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/07/sens_wyden_merkley_propose_nat.html
CajunBlazer
(5,648 posts)Qutzupalotl
(14,230 posts)if you think there is always a physical ballot.
CajunBlazer
(5,648 posts)To my knowledge voting machines are not connected to the internet. Somebody more knowledgeable can comment on that, but if I am correct, that it makes voting machine almost impossible to hack. In order to "hack" into a voting machine one would have to physically download malicious software into a machine. The machines are locked and often kept under physical guard when not in use to keep that from happening
I know that the results generated by voting machines are obtained from the machines and turned in after voting by teams made up of both Democratic and Republican representatives.
All voting machines do is read and count ballots. The physical ballots are still available for a manual recount. The only problem I can remember was in 2000 in Florida where they used ballots on which you physically had to punch out the mark behind a candidate's name to vote for him/her and some people didn't do the punching right. This left the famous "hanging chad". Hopefully they have gotten rid of those types of machines.
Black helicopters are not hovering over the voting precincts.
LiberalFighter
(50,505 posts)The voting on electronic booths are isolated devices not connected to the internet. Tallies are printed out and turned in to central location. In our state, election workers are represented by both parties.
rainy
(6,085 posts)CajunBlazer
(5,648 posts)which my state does not use. It was published/produced in 2006 - ten years ago. The problems with this particular machine will have been fixed and the machines in the field upgraded or the company would have gone out of business by now.
This is old crap.
colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)As far as I know. They couldn't have signed off faster on turning vote counting over to eminently hackable and subject to other hanky panky machines. Pretty much all made my companies run by republicans.
Dubya indeed almost certainly didn't win either time.
We need to get to foolproof counting of elections and that means paper, strict custody of votes till counting on video with impartial witnesses.
There is no real valid argument to keep doing what we have been doing....trillions down the toilets and a world with ISIS later. Consequences.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)I know that doesn't provide the same level of excitement as saying "Nothing as far as I know."
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)In Florida we fill out a paper ballot and then it is scanned. That gives a paper trail for random audits. We also have early voting and have made mail in easier. It's the one thing Scott has not rolled back but progress has also slowed.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)They better not miss another chance like that.
meow2u3
(24,745 posts)Remember when Karl Rove went off the rails because PBO won Ohio? Anonymous was rumored to prevent the hack.
Fresh_Start
(11,330 posts)When people fantasize about a conspiracy to elect Clinton...I can't believe it.
Voter registration and counting votes is performed first at the polling station for vote in person and then aggregated at the county.
We have over 3000 counties in the USA.
Lets pretend that there are only 15 polling stations per county though I'm willing to bet the number is probably much higher than that. So that would give us 45000 polling stations.
Every polling station I ever voted at had multiple officials...but lets say the number was only 2 per polling station.
So to corrupt the vote count, there would need to be at least two people at the polling station willing to commit a crime.
Those polling officials would get the counts and send the counts to the county registrar.
If I were responsible for a voting station, I would certainly verify that the accurate numbers were recorded.
So the same 90,000 people that performed the count would have a large number of people verifying that the counts were accurately recorded.
Do we really believe that there is a conspiracy of 90,000 people to elect Clinton?
Even in states that are under GOP control?
I actually think that vote by mail is easier to manipulate...because instead of needing 90,000 co-conspirators...you'd only need 3000 - 6000 (1-2 in each county). Still highly dubious that there could be that large a conspiracy.
Its just bizarre to me that people think that is possible.
Voter rolls are maintained at the county level...so to control voter rolls, you'd still need 3000-6000 co-conspirators.
To believe that there is any degree of corruption in the process is to believe an impossibly large number of people are both in support of Hillary Clinton and willing to commit a crime on her behalf.
I won't say that individual people could be biases. And obviously the entire voting process has biases because not all people have equal access to the vote.
But a Clinton conspiracy? Let me sell you one of the bridges I have for sale.