Those who follow me on The Bad Place have heard me repeat this a thousand times, but once more won't hurt.
Election security is incredibly complex, full of seemingly impossible tradeoffs. But disinformation about supposed "rigged" elections is perhaps the most serious threat to election integrity today.
The best defense is to learn how elections actualy work! Becoming a poll worker is a great way to do that
Also, this National Academies study is a terrific resource:
@mattblaze The thing I never got is why elections authorities are so drawn to touchscreen machines. Of all the imperfect solutions, it seems the most imperfect. What government agency willingly says "Please dump a convoluted IT hassle on me!"
Paper ballots have issues, but they do have the value of people understanding how the system works intuitively, which makes it a bit harder to sell a conspiracy.
@hakfoo@mattblaze Elections in the US are going to be a complicated logistical and IT hassle no matter what. Consider that you have to march up every voter with the right ballot races they are allowed to vote in, which can vary by precinct. And voter checkins have to be done securely — either by hand, by volunteers or temp workers, or by same assisted by computer… it’s not just a vendor sales job, there are real problems solved.
@hakfoo@mattblaze (But if you mean DRE with no printed ballot, yes, that’s an anti feature, I don’t think those are a growth category now. Almost touchscreens are printing a paper ballot now.)
@jpanzer@mattblaze The difficulty is evaluating the tradeoff-- a check-in computer or a printing touchscreen kiosk might improve throughput over a traditional signature log book and scantron style ballots, but they have more complex failure modes to deal with-- and it's harder to reassure people it's not a crisis when they happen. (i. e. the printer issues in the last Maricopa County election cycle)
@hakfoo@mattblaze True. I worked the 2018 election in my area, the last one with precinct based paper checkin books, and then several elections with vote centers + electronic PollPads for checkins. (They go together — you can’t do larger vote centers with their additional voter covenience with paper hand-signed rolls, not with good security.)
@hakfoo@mattblaze … But the fact that somewhat mundane printer issues were spun into a conspiracy theory in Maricopa also shows that any system’s quirks can be misused for propaganda. It’s a hard problem, I think.
@hakfoo@mattblaze@jpanzer
Also, there is no way to audit the vote with them. It’s trivial to have them show one thing to the voter and something else when reporting votes. How would you know? How would you ever prove it?
@YetAnotherGeekGuy@hakfoo@mattblaze So here we are taking only about the checkin process. The voting process is separate (and you can choose different combinations).
I am a fan of having hand marked paper ballots as an option for voters, as they eliminate the specific concern you mention.
@mattblaze the engineer in me reads those statements and concludes, “there have definitely been election outcomes altered by hacking, we just have poor ability to observe that happening”. Is anyone else thinking along those lines?
@kellogh No. that’s not a logical (or responsible) conclusion at all. There’s some uncertainty, and elections aren’t adequately protected. But that doesn’t mean the worst case scenario has happened or that elections are meaningless.
This is not a topic to be too-clever-by-half about. There was literally a deadly riot because of frivolous claims about election fraud a couple years ago.
@mattblaze “definitely” was a poor choice. As an engineer, I generally only see software systems when they’re failing, so I’m primed in that direction. I’m mainly pointing this out to explain why those two points aren’t the slam dunk you seem to think they are. Lack of evidence is not evidence
@kellogh no one said they were a slam dunk. Quite the opposite. There’s uncertainty, and we need to improve elections. But there’s also no evidence any elections have actually been compromised. That’s not clean or satisfying, but it’s the reality we live in, and that was the point.
If you want to place rhetorical games, pick another topic.
Australia:
Independent election organisation. - no gerrymandering maps.
Everyone over 18 can vote
Compulsory voting (or at least getting name marked off). Token fine if don't vote. ($28 ish)
Three separate elections, local, state and Fed at different times.
Done on a Saturday.( Or prevote/postal)
Pencil/paper /numbered and sealed ballot boxs.
Walk in get name checked against book and marked off. Give pre printed ballot forms. Go to booth, vote, place in supervised box(s) on way out.
Recent referendum took 5 mins including waiting time.
At end of voting, gets sorted into piles and counted in from of scrutineers. Then get transferred back independent electoral organisation for checking/ recount if close.
@mattblaze I second this. My age & the pandemic got me bow out, but I was a poll worker nearly 20 years. There are more checks & balances than most people imagine. It's a good way to help, being a poll worker.
@mattblaze Working elections is definitely interesting. I did one Federal election in Australia, where everything is paper-based. So many checks and balances, tamper evident tape, numbered seals etc. I imagine that computerised voting is a lot simpler, and avoids 1 metre (or more) wide ballot papers.
@mattblaze - I've been an election judge in CO for a couple of years. I got involved after doing some light election hacking and being concerned about things. I can confirm that while the systems have vulnerabilities it's the (almost obsessive) redundancies and audits that make it safe.
I plan on continuing as a election judge for many more years.
@gsternbe@mattblaze I've also been an election judge in CO the last two major elections (I started partially because of Matt's posts about election worker stuff), and honestly Colorado's elections systems are really impressive.
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