Please critique my proposed policy to ensure an honest vote

[Flopper]

The point is not so much whether there was enough fraud to swing an election. The links I've provided in this thread are evidence enough that in many elections, there have been questions in people's minds.

The point is that many millions, more than half the electorate, have serious questions about the ethics and accuracy of our elections. It should not be that way. No honorable American should want it to be that way. So even if you or anybody else think elections are just fine the way they have been conducted, there should still be the will and incentive to clean things up to remove the high degree of suspicion that exists.

I suspect that ever candidate who lost a race unexpectedly, has backers, and most supporters questioning the results. There is very little difference in the way this presidential election was conducted than those in past. However, this election is different from any presidential election. Trump questioned the process itself and has created the Big lie, that our election was a fraud . He lead an army of republicans supporters occasionally finding a real case of voter fraud but most of the time lies and superstitions about what could happen. The end result was an attack on the US capital.

There were about 150 million votes cast, nearly 80 million for Biden and bit more than 70 million for Trump and you're telling me that 75 million voters have serious question about the accuracy of the election. "Overall, 58% said they trust elections in the country either a great deal or a good amount. But while almost 9 in 10 Democrats and 60% of independents said so, just a third of Republicans agreed." So how about stopping all bullish that most of the country is questioning the accuracy of elations when in reality it's about 30% to 40% of republicans

 

[Foxfyre]

I suspect that ever candidate who lost a race unexpectedly, has backers, and most supporters questioning the results. There is very little difference in the way this presidential election was conducted than those in past. However, this election is different from any presidential election. Trump questioned the process itself and has created the Big lie, that our election was a fraud . He lead an army of republicans supporters occasionally finding a real case of voter fraud but most of the time lies and superstitions about what could happen. The end result was an attack on the US capital.

There were about 150 million votes cast, nearly 80 million for Biden and bit more than 70 million for Trump and you're telling me that 75 million voters have serious question about the accuracy of the election. "Overall, 58% said they trust elections in the country either a great deal or a good amount. But while almost 9 in 10 Democrats and 60% of independents said so, just a third of Republicans agreed." So how about stopping all bullish that most of the country is questioning the accuracy of elations when in reality it's about 30% to 40% of republicans

But it wasn't a big lie because the process was so altered in so many of the swing states that widespread fraud was evident to anybody with a brain who isn't blind partisan. However, because so much of the evidence was destroyed or concealed, there was insufficient evidence to say there was sufficient fraud to change the outcome. But there also was insufficient evidence to convince millions that the processes used produced a legitimate election either. And we will likely never know.

That millions now say they don't KNOW whether it was an honest election is a situation that should never again exist.

And I have to question the motives of anybody who thinks it's okay for more than half the electorate to be questioning whether their vote will be honestly counted or not or whether people who are not eligible to vote will be allowed to vote or whether voting machines are rigged or whether ballots are created out of thin air to pad the ballot boxes. Why would any honorable person condone a system that results in so much distrust?

 

[NotfooledbyW]

but never did we have an electorate as suspicious and convinced of malfeasance or as fearful that elections can be stolen as we have now.

NFBW: Just heard that 60% of American voters in November will have at least one election denier candidate on their ballot. All Republicans.

An election denier is one who believes Trump won and was denied the presidency because of massive fraud committed by Democratic Party operatives - but it’s just not known where the evidence that fraud was committed could be.

Is that a problem that you plan to address at some point on this thread? Or do you think changing voting machines and a few election process rules with resolve it?
END2210142159

 

[NotfooledbyW]

But it wasn't a big lie because the process was so altered in so many of the swing states that widespread fraud was evident to anybody with a brain who isn't blind partisan.

Wow? Altered? Be specific if we are looking for solutions to eliminate election fraud. What alterations caused election fraud to be evident to anybody with a brain. Are you saying Trump’s legal team did not have a brain among all of them?

 

[candycorn]

But it wasn't a big lie because the process was so altered in so many of the swing states that widespread fraud was evident to anybody with a brain who isn't blind partisan. However, because so much of the evidence was destroyed or concealed, there was insufficient evidence to say there was sufficient fraud to change the outcome. But there also was insufficient evidence to convince millions that the processes used produced a legitimate election either. And we will likely never know.

That millions now say they don't KNOW whether it was an honest election is a situation that should never again exist.

And I have to question the motives of anybody who thinks it's okay for more than half the electorate to be questioning whether their vote will be honestly counted or not or whether people who are not eligible to vote will be allowed to vote or whether voting machines are rigged or whether ballots are created out of thin air to pad the ballot boxes. Why would any honorable person condone a system that results in so much distrust?

Why would anyone start bitching and moaning about something that was around for years unless they have some daddy issues with a big orange blob?

 

[candycorn]

And there are 113754 polling places and you say 6 people will count. That's nearly 700,000 people. And who is going to check the counting to make sure they count it correctly. Then there are the recounts. Today automated vote counting is very accurate and election fraud in the counting is extremely rare. The method you are proposing is less accurate and more subject to election fraud.

Also keep mind a presidential ballot will average about 30 items to be voted on with about 3 or 4 choices. That mean about 100 running totals. So that precinct with 1200 ballots turns into 120,000 counts. After the first counting of votes recounts would have to done until the recounts agree. That is not a couple hours works.

And the dingbat wants everyone to have an observer watching all 700K counters too.

 

[NotfooledbyW]

However, because so much of the evidence was destroyed or concealed, there was insufficient evidence to say there was sufficient fraud to change the outcome.

You are an election denier. Why should any voting American consult with you on how to put an end to make believe election fraud?

 

[candycorn]

Every one of those polling places has personnel assigned to check in the voter, give then a ballot, instructions on where and how to fill it out, and what to do with it when they have done that. Some small town precincts are places where everybody knows everybody and people respect the law and those are never any problem. One person can count and tally a few hundred ballots as rarely does every person in a precinct show up to vote. It is the larger precincts with heavy turnout that 5 or 6 people might be needed to complete the count in a few hours. It was done that way for many generations. It needs to be done that way again. New fangled, modern technology is not always an improvement over the more primitive methods.

When was the last time a place like Orange County counted every vote by hand?

 

[NotfooledbyW]

And I have to question the motives of anybody who thinks it's okay for more than half the electorate to be questioning whether their vote will be honestly counted or not or whether people who are not eligible to vote will be allowed to vote or whether voting machines are rigged or whether ballots are created out of thin air to pad the ballot boxes. Why would any honorable person condone a system that results in so much distrust?

NFBW: it's not okay for more than half the electorate to be questioning whether their vote will be honestly counted or not because it is caused by disinformation from the recent loser of the presidential election.

It’s not ok for people who are not eligible to vote to be allowed to vote and that is why they don’t.

It’s not ok for voting machines to be rigged and that is why they already can’t be.

It’s not ok for ballots to be created out of thin air to pad the ballot boxes and that is why they aren’t.

 

[Flopper]

Hope you all understand and I wish you well, but I am not wasting time by reading or responding to posts by those trolling this thread and/or trying to make it about something other than the thread topic. Disagreement is good and, when sincere, I appreciate it.

But to recap just some of the evidence that there is widespread distrust of the system and why that distrust exists whether or not there is proof justifying the distrust:

This requires only a minute or two to listen to for the meat of the discussion:


Again in defense of Rasmussen polls, they consistently give Biden some of his highest poll ratings indicating the polls are NOT weighted in favor of Republicans or conservatives:

Election Integrity: Most Voters Still Suspect Cheating

Protecting the integrity of elections remains a high priority for American voters, most of whom still suspect there was cheating in the 2020 presidential election.

www.rasmussenreports.com

Election Integrity: 50% Think Cheating Likely in Midterms

Many voters still believe cheating affected the 2020 presidential election, and a majority fear the upcoming midterm elections could be tainted by cheating.

www.rasmussenreports.com

Election Integrity: 61% Say Issue Is Very Important

Preventing cheating in elections is a priority for voters, who expect the issue to be important in next month’s midterm elections.

www.rasmussenreports.com

This study strongly states its purpose is NOT to contest the outcome of the 2020 election, but affirms that there was widespread fraud:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/03/28/new_peer-reviewed_research_finds_evidence_of_2020_voter_fraud_147378.html#!

If you dig down into that evidence of voter fraud in the link, what you have is a calculation of voter fraud based on alleged cases of voter fraud. Here is description of the calculation. I compare voting precincts in a county with alleged fraud to adjacent precincts in neighboring counties with no allegations of fraud. I compute the differences in President Trump’s vote shares on absentee ballots in those adjacent precincts, controlling for the differences in his vote shares on ballots cast in person. I also control for registered voters’ demographics and compare data for the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, If you take a small allegation and you extend it you get a big allegation and still no evidence.

Do you know what most allegation of election fraud are? They are poll monitors and poll workers reporting violation of election laws and regulations such as poll workers allowing voters to vote without proper ids, people entering polls without going through the voter lines, people that don't speak English voting and appearing to be foreigners, political signs being carried to close to the polls, poll workers making improper comments to voters, what appear to be illegal aliens hanging around a polling place, poll workers refusing to discuss ids accepted with a monitor, poll workers who influenced voting, voters bringing alcohol or drugs into a polling places, threats against poll workers, voters campaigning for candidates within the polling place. These are reported as Alleged Violations of Election law and regulation violations. These figures are often called Election Fraud but very few are actually illegal voting. Very few of these cases appear in court and very few of them are illegal voting.

 

[Flopper]

The point is not so much whether there was enough fraud to swing an election. The links I've provided in this thread are evidence enough that in many elections, there have been questions in people's minds.

The point is that many millions, more than half the electorate, have serious questions about the ethics and accuracy of our elections. It should not be that way. No honorable American should want it to be that way. So even if you or anybody else think elections are just fine the way they have been conducted, there should still be the will and incentive to clean things up to remove the high degree of suspicion that exists.

Election fraud dates back to the elections in ancient Greece. You can't have democratic elections without it. It is always there. The purpose of democratic election is to elect people that are the choice of the people. Only if there is enough election fraud that defeats the purpose of the election is there a problem. Investigations by State Election Commissions, the FBI, the Justice Dept. and dozens of political non partison organization all agree, the election was not stolen, Donald Trump loss the election.

 

[Flopper]

Since 2020, 25 states almost all red states that have made it harder to vote.
Since 2020, 19 states almost all blue states have made it easier to vote.


We now have 8 states with all mail voting
We now have 2 states that have made mail voting a county option
We now have 9 states that allow mail voting in small elections.
We now have 4 states that allow mail voting in certain jurisdictions
A total of 23 states allow mail voting. Ten years ago only 2 states allowed mail voting. Progress is slow but it continues.

 

[Foxfyre]

If you dig down into that evidence of voter fraud in the link, what you have is a calculation of voter fraud based on alleged cases of voter fraud. Here is description of the calculation. I compare voting precincts in a county with alleged fraud to adjacent precincts in neighboring counties with no allegations of fraud. I compute the differences in President Trump’s vote shares on absentee ballots in those adjacent precincts, controlling for the differences in his vote shares on ballots cast in person. I also control for registered voters’ demographics and compare data for the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, If you take a small allegation and you extend it you get a big allegation and still no evidence.

Do you know what most allegation of election fraud are? They are poll monitors and poll workers reporting violation of election laws and regulations such as poll workers allowing voters to vote without proper ids, people entering polls without going through the voter lines, people that don't speak English voting and appearing to be foreigners, political signs being carried to close to the polls, poll workers making improper comments to voters, what appear to be illegal aliens hanging around a polling place, poll workers refusing to discuss ids accepted with a monitor, poll workers who influenced voting, voters bringing alcohol or drugs into a polling places, threats against poll workers, voters campaigning for candidates within the polling place. These are reported as Alleged Violations of Election law and regulation violations. These figures are often called Election Fraud but very few are actually illegal voting. Very few of these cases appear in court and very few of them are illegal voting.

The thesis of the OP is not whether or not there was voter fraud though there is strong evidence that there was. But alleged or not, it was not Trump or any other person but what is strongly perceived as voter fraud in the 2020 election that has caused the strong suspicion for millions of Americans.

The OP is about a proposed policy that will not only ensure the integrity of our elections but restore confidence in the process to the electorate.

You on the left can talk til the cows come home that in your opinion there is no justification for that suspicion. You can accuse/blame any number of people for the fact that the suspicion exists. And it will not change the fact that a majority of Americans do not have confidence in the process. That will not change until the process itself is changed.

 

[Foxfyre]

Election fraud dates back to the elections in ancient Greece. You can't have democratic elections without it. It is always there. The purpose of democratic election is to elect people that are the choice of the people. Only if there is enough election fraud that defeats the purpose of the election is there a problem. Investigations by State Election Commissions, the FBI, the Justice Dept. and dozens of political non partison organization all agree, the election was not stolen, Donald Trump loss the election.

More than 50% of Americans do not trust the process of our elections. It does not matter whether the election was stolen or not. It doesn't matter whether Biden or Trump won. That was decided when Congress certified the election. That a substantial majority does not trust the system or process is what this thread is about. I don't how to explain why that should not be shrugged off or ignored any better than what has been explained in this thread. If you don't agree, you don't agree. We may never agree. But your arguing something entirely different than what this thread is about will certainly not bring us closer to agreement.

 

[scruffy]

Talking about tabulators, their security, and need for programming from cycle to cycle.

Question: Was there any hand recount of the 2020 Election results in a state or local jurisdiction where the follow-up hand recount was not statiscally accurate to the tabulation machine count?

I don't think there was, meaning that the security measures and certification process of the tabulators works.

(I seem to remember something about a data entry error when plugging aggregate date in the range of 6000 vote occurring in one precinct. However the QA measures, a standard practice, for cross checking quickly found it and it was corrected.)

WW

"Tabulators" is an ambiguous word.

Did you see the Dominion system architecture I posted in an earlier thread?

Precincts "aggregate". They tabulate hand votes and mail votes, each voting machine "uploads" its information, and the mail scanners upload too, either directly or indirectly. The total votes are the sum of the various sources.

From the precinct aggregator the information goes to the Secretary of State, and from there to all manner of third parties.

The problem is not necessarily in the computers. Plenty of problems happen "before" the computers, that a hand recount won't catch. The signature verification is the low hanging fruit, and in "most" states people can register to vote with just a utility bill. Dead voters stay on the registration rolls and therefore receive ballots. Many problems in the registration systems. Very little security there.

 

[scruffy]

My daughter, in the military, has to have what they call a CAC card (Common Access Control?) to be able to use computer systems.

Not only does it allow for controlled access to the computer, such control cards limit the ability of what an individual "can do" with the computer. This type of thing can be a chipped credit card style or a "fob" plugged into a port.

The advantage is that it not only can control what can be done with the device, each card/fob is unique allowing for the tracking of who, did what, when. Control access to the devices AND control access to the cards/fobs greatly enhances security.

Security footage shows Georgia county Republican chair, election official present during breach of voting equipment

Security video from a rural county in Georgia shows local election and Republican Party officials were present when voting equipment was accessed in what the secretary of state's office calls an unauthorized breach.

www.pbs.org

By tracking who, what, where, when - along with video surveillance - it even makes it more difficult for election officials to "hack" the machines.

WW

Exactly.

Bingo.

See, from a security professional's standpoint, "you're talking sense now".

For a while I was helping out a large national medical provider, in CA alone they had 50+ hospitals, 400+ clinics, a large pharmacy distribution center, several buildings dedicated to IT, etc.

They had 4000 corporate laptops in the field at any given time. All of them had access to the central computers. You know how the field works, people loan their laptops to others, who knows what happens out there. So we set them up with a version of exactly what you're talking about, not as sophisticated as the mil but it served for login authentication and every 15 minutes thereafter - kind of an RSA key where the number changes every 15 seconds and you only have 15 seconds to type it in.

And, we set them up with managed intrusion detection and a heads up display where they could see the entire network at a glance. This way they know who logs in and when and from where, and they can "instantly" see any threats or anomalies. With a little extra work you can do the role based access control you're talking about.

These devices are not expensive. 100 dollars, maybe.

 

[scruffy]

I know. I understand that. I was just figuring out how much that could practically factor into election security. Or whether it would be important enough to do that.

It's just I have studied and provided counsel to improve security for various businesses--it was one of our services in our business. But I always allowed for the possibility--and made sure our clients and their customers were aware--that there was somebody smarter than me out there who could figure out a way around the security that was in place. Alertness and attention to the systems was always advised. And outside contractors who programmed their computer and security systems should be licensed, bonded people that could be completely trusted.

With more than 170,000 voting precincts in the USA and its territories, a simple and inexpensive method of a secure vote is essential. Probably only a few, and those few would likely be in swing states, are most likely to be targeted in presidential elections but political operatives are pouring millions into elections for senators and representatives and governors as well as D.A.s and others with unusual power too. We can be reasonably certain at least some of those operatives are also looking for ways they can scam the system.

So whether or not there has been actual massive fraud, there is sufficient reason for millions to suspect there is. And we do have means to reassure the suspicious that elections are as fair and honest as we can make them.

Human engineering is always the biggest vulnerability, anywhere

A security clearance is not a bad idea.

Bonding, licensing... all good

 

[scruffy]

Nothing is perfect but vote counting scanners come pretty close. The scanner error rate is about 1 to 3 errors per 10 million documents in the typical counting center.

lol

In Michigan in one county in 2020 they had a scanner error rate of nearly 60%

 

[NotfooledbyW]

Flopper

More than 50% of Americans do not trust the process of our elections.

NFBW: I see you have come down from 60% but your Rasmussen question was a push poll style question. Resolving an alleged crisis of the existence of fraud in the 2020 election between DJT and Joe Biden which was the focus of the Rasmussen question, should have been not ‘do you believe that election fraud was likely possible’ but instead ‘do you believe there was evidence of actual fraud proven to exist in a court of law’ which means Joe Biden cheated Trump out of a victory that the majority of voters wanted.

Then Rasmussen would get 33 percent responding ‘yes, which would be entirely made up of Trump voters who believe the BIG lie to be true with no evidence that it could possibly be true.

I am not a troll because my criticism here is that you are attempting to fix our election process on a generalized hypothetical basis of misinformed voters having a mental and emotional breakdown based on heresay, ignorance’ lies and propaganda by the losing party.

That is the fact you are avoiding and I further contend that our election process cannot be fixed unless you begin evaluating why when and where parts of the physical infrastructure actually, not hypothetically, caused specific fraud in the 2020 presidential election that gave Trump voters, the losers, the justification for their white grievance emotional mental condition that induced the belief that the 2020 election was stolen from them.

Yes there is a racial component to the mental breakdown.

My critique of your idea is you need to focus on the deprogramming the aggrieved mental state of the white Trump voter instead of focusing on the dark and dishonest character of poll workers who don’t deserve your smug implied character assassination plus the potential lack of technological security of machines that did not fail in a massive election that was used under the duress of a pandemic. Many of which passed muster in 2016 when Trump won.

END2210150411

 

[scruffy]

You are an election denier. Why should any voting American consult with you on how to put an end to make believe election fraud?

There's no such thing as an election denier, you fucking idiot.

There's only people who take the electoral process seriously, and people who don't

YOU don't