Hacker News Reader

Comment by owlbynight | Hacker News Reader

This is Orwellian bullshit.

And I'll take it because I think the alternative is leading to a few greedy assholes using analytical data to successfully weaponize millions upon millions of uninformed people against logic and common sense.

Do we add restrictions to voting to weed out people who habitually vote anti-facts? No. Disenfranchisement.

Do we make fake news illegal? No. Censorship leading to state run media.

Do we have a civil war because it's so bad that people are being evicted and dying of starvation because their neighbors are being convinced by propaganda that they're less than? Hopefully not.

So we're kind of left with this option. We're stuck with speaking with our wallets through corporations because our voices in government have been corrupted.

It sucks.

View on HN

I’m asking as sincerely as I can, I wish no one harm or to lose their right to vote —

How do we have a higher mail in ballot rejection rate in non-pandemic times than we do in pandemic times?

And then follow up, if we assume incredible voter turnout, how do many of these first time mail in ballots follow the process so correctly that the ballot rejection rate is lower?

Were the standards altered? That’s fine with me. Just say it.

Can we see all the ballot signatures side by side with the rolls? I don’t think that’s too much to ask really — I mean it’s a part of the process (we already check voter rolls in state and local elections).

These questions could really begin a true discussion to build a shared world views. It’s what I imagine a forthright and true partner would do for someone with slight reservations... or at least I’d hope.

Shutting it down with Orwellian tactics rather than hard verifiable data is what feels a bit disingenuous that we are all on the same team.

> How do we have a higher mail in ballot rejection rate in non-pandemic times than we do in pandemic times?

Probably because the rejection rate is exaggerated in normal times because the population that relies on absentee voting in regular times is less able to produce consistent signatures.

Also probably because a lot more effort (both official government and outside organization) went into educating people on the rules for mail-in ballots.

> And then follow up, if we assume incredible voter turnout, how do many of these first time mail in ballots follow the process so correctly that the ballot rejection rate is lower?

That's not a follow-up, it's just rephrasing the exact same question with different and more extensive framing commentary.

Thanks for the honest and thoughtful response. I have not heard that explanation, and believe it does give a wider margin for possible rejection rates.

I will have to chew on that new point a bit longer — it feels plausible, and I’d like to find more publicly available data that indicates how much weight should be given to that explanation.

So, now I guess I’ll ask a true “follow up” (thanks for that too ha!)...

From my experience in local and state elections, I know of scenarios where 1-3 people are in charge of “getting out the vote” (read as: not election fraud, but people would look side eyed at it). It is not hard for me to see how those same 1-3 people get out 100 votes when not in a pandemic, because they have to get the actual person voter to the polls. However, in this pandemic mail in voting environment, those same 1-3 people can get 500-1,000 voters information to fill out a ballot request - then have those ballots sent to the small team HQ. once there, the “get out the votes” become certain for the sides you want and you can cover tracks with the ways one fills in the ballot. Also, the team can just copy the signature from the gathering ballot request step. There are approximately a team like this for every 50,000 voters, in off presidential races.

So long story (or background) short, if such a scenario did occur, do you feel that is representative of the people and a valid election?

Then please poke holes in my scenario above if you see something else I missed.

I mean, anyone can make up hypothetical scenarios. Without proof they're just that -- an overactive imagination.

Also there is the reality that this election determined whether Trump would remain in office four more years. There was an optional witness signature block on my ballot and I called a lawyer to make sure I was filling it out right. Can't take any chances. Kids in cages.

I'm sure you know who built those cages :[0]

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/kids-in-cages-deb...

The content of this article doesn't support the point it looks like you intended to make.

The scandal isn't that the facilities exist. It's in how they're now being used: to indefinitely detain _children_ who, unlike before, have been separated from their families. To make matters worse, many of these kids are being abused by their captors, and many were never been reunited with their family members.

> How do we have a higher mail in ballot rejection rate in non-pandemic times than we do in pandemic times?

I mean, here's an explanation for a specific case

> According to the nonprofit, nonpartisan organisation Ballotpedia, Georgia rejected 6.42% of mail-in ballots in total in the 2016 general election and 3.10% in total in the 2018 midterm (here). These totals include rejections because of signatures, but also include, for example, ballots received late or past deadlines, problems with return materials or a voter having already voted in person.

> It may be that Trump was referring to the 0.15% of ballots specifically rejected for "missing or non-matching signatures" when saying that ballots rejected in 2020 were "almost zero", but this percentage is consistent with past years. The higher percentage he mentions for past years is likely based off the total rejected ballots (here) which can not be compared with 2020, as this information is not available.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-georgia-rejecte...

https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/number_of_absentee_ba...

Edit: And just for fun, I pulled data for 2020 and 2018 statewide, November elections from https://elections.sos.ga.gov/Elections/voterabsenteefile.do

I looked at a largeish file (didnt want to deal with the 1gig state wide file), ended up being CHATHAM county. (file name 025).

In 2018, there were 351 rejections for 40683 mail in ballots. In 2020, there were 321 rejections for 110831 mail in ballots.

The interesting thing to me was that in 2018, 286 ballots were rejected for being late, but in 2020, only 191 were rejected for being late.

Which tells me at least some of the higher acceptance rates can be attributed simply to people being more diligent about mailing their ballots in.

> The higher percentage he mentions for past years is likely based off the total rejected ballots (here) which can not be compared with 2020, as this information is not available.

This is also the same style of reasoning that helps people explain away the abnormally high voter turnout in WI. Please understand I mean no disrespect in this - I just think changing definitions to cure the abnormalities isn’t necessarily correct (and is frighteningly Orwellian in the bad way).

If I had ever turned out 90% of voters measured as (votes/total registered voters) I would have more money than Elon. The way these shocking statistics get diluted is by placating to people with no experience in the process. The goal is to make them feel better by offering an alternative (however misguided) representation, that will stop the line of questioning.

So when confronted with an extremely implausible voter turnout, people say the real turnout is votes/total eligible voters... which is very different than every other time I’ve experienced voter turn out

> So when confronted with an extremely implausible voter turnout, people say the real turnout is votes/total eligible voters... which is very different than every other time I’ve experienced voter turn out

Not sure how whatever conjured view of voter turnout YOU have is relevant. You can go to https://elections.wi.gov/elections-voting/statistics/turnout grab `Voter Turnout Partisan-NonPartisan Through August 2020.xlsx` and see that turnout percentage is computed as `number of votes cast` / `voting age population`.

Which puts Wisconsin turnout at 72.3% [1]

We were talking about ballot rejection, and you start going off about "shocking" voter turnout statistics because you had no retort to the rejection stuff. Either you have an axe to grind or you are a troll. Or maybe you're a masked free speech crusader. The hero we deserve. But I kind of doubt that.

1: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/11/05/fac...

> Not sure how whatever conjured view of voter turnout YOU have is relevant. You can go to https://elections.wi.gov/elections-voting/statistics/turnout grab `Voter Turnout Partisan-NonPartisan Through August 2020.xlsx` and see that turnout percentage is computed as `number of votes cast` / `voting age population`.

This is funny -- here's a single example from the WI.gov page to show how little care is given to cultivating and maintaining this data...

HINDI: 56184

County: ST. CROIX COUNTY

Municipality: VILLAGE OF SPRING VALLEY

Total Electors 2012: 4

Voting Age Estimate 2012: 6

Voter Turnout 2012: 66.67%

Total Electors 2016: 319

Voting Age Estimate 2016: 10

Voting Turnout 2016: 3190.00%

So I can find slivers that support wild claims too. I think the more productive discussion is just doing a side by side of signatures and rolls - not that hard, no real argument about it - and everyone can stop trying to dig for little things and becoming unbearably pedantic with each other.

Agreed 100%.

YouTube’s massively outsized impact is obviously the problem here. This wouldn’t be Orwellian if they didn’t have so much power. We wouldn’t need it if YouTube didn’t allow for such insane manipulation of people.

But if we’re going to have YouTube, by god do I prefer people NOT proliferating this madness freely.

> I prefer people NOT proliferating this madness freely.

Just the madness you happen to agree with, right?

Let's not pretend that this is a matter of opinion vs opinion. This is a matter of truth vs counterfactuals. There may be edge cases where the distinction isn't so clear cut; this isn't one of them.

That wasn't the point the person you are responding to was trying to get across... unless you somehow think everything you believe is 100% true.

"truth", "counterfactuals"

Words that no longer have a definition aside from whatever the user finds favorable for their own means.

I prefer we remove all the stops and see what the chaos brings. Survival of the fittest. Zero censorship of political speech true or false by whomever's standards.

At which point in history did words have a centralized and objective meaning across all usages?

Bothsideism is not a good argument for preserving dangerous untruths.

Also, this is a free market. Those who feel they are being censored can freely start their own AntiTube service.

>Those who feel they are being censored can freely start their own AntiTube service.

I'm pretty sure that's been tried, no? And then the same regressives have ensured those services are:

- Deplatformed by infrastructure providers

- Stripped of support from payment providers

- Deindexed, banned from advertising, etc. from search engines

- Silenced on social media so as to not be able to get their brand / product out

But hey, I mean it's a free world, right? I, as an impartial observer free from any consequences, honestly welcome the US tech industry to continue backing half of the US population into a corner, and believe me I will spare the same industry not one iota of sympathy when those same people inevitably snap.

Do you have any examples of that happening to people for actions that aren’t straight up pedophilia or racism (ie Stormfront)?

Hate speech is free speech, in US law. Racism is absolutely protected.

Free speech is about government laws, not private action. Racist speech is protected, but so is the right to not propagate racist speech on private infrastructure.

This is what will lose them section 230 though, right? The bloc that "snaps" is going to vote, and those votes are going to have consequences.

it is funny how people with liberal tendencies resort to "it is a free market" when it is convenient to the them and if not they say it is rigged for people with power

That was exactly my point. It being a “free market” is why it sucks in the first place — but if it’s going to be a shitty adtech-driven brain-sludgifying monstrosity, the very least we can do is not actively promote the worst things people put into it.

The same will cry for net neutrality and government provided internet. Go start your own ISP if you don't like Comcast (or whoever).

Two competing camps trying to fork the nation because they both believe the guys upstream keep making shitty commits, year after year. Unless those 9 reviewers properly do their job, it's only a matter of time before the whole project is deprecated.

Such a tricky situation, but I think what youtube is getting used for is actually the Orwellian bullshit. The power of youtube videos to convince people of untrue things is quite astounding. I have no idea what the right answers to any of this is. At he moment nearly any action is considered as dire in that it will either make America a communist state or it will bring a right wing dictator to power. Hopefully, what we are witnessing is robustness of the legal system and constitution amongst all the chaos.

There is another option: use anti-trust enforcement or similar regulatory actions to ensure a competitive market, so people can be always get access to information, and no single private provider can become a universal censor.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com