Hacker News Reader

Comment by cmdshiftf4 | Hacker News Reader

>Weaponized misinformation has existed as long as human speech has existed. What is new is the democratization of it, hence the establishment’s hostility.

Beautifully put.

Better get ahead of it lest the proles gain class consciousness and use it against us.

View on HN

I'm sure you mean that sarcastically, but you shouldn't. It's fun to complain about "the establishment," until it isn't there anymore. In the current case, "the establishment" means American democracy, which is built on people's faith in the institution of elections. If you erode that faith, democracy no longer works. That may be fine with you, but it's not fine with me.

>That may be fine with you, but it's not fine with me.

It is fine with me. If the choice is between continuing down the path we're on and some unknown chaos, I'm willing to roll the dice on the chaos.

At least it would be interesting.

Have you lived in a country where the establishment fails? Iran (1979), Soviet Union (1989), Turkey (take your pick)?

Yep, interesting times.

If boredom is the greatest difficulty you face, you're very fortunate. At least have consideration for those who value stability.

I said it would be interesting at least, and you can't deny that.

May I ask your opinion the below ? In your opinion, is this disinformation ? Something that should be suppressed and censored and to keep the establishment glowing ?

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/election-integrity-...

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/dec/14/forensic-au...

https://americanmilitarynews.com/2020/12/mi-judge-approves-r...

Then why base it on faith? Make it impossible to vote multiple times/places, or as someone else. Invalidate registration [6] for , and immediately flag when, a dead person tries to vote. Make it so you can instantaneously see that your vote was entered and confirm it to help with the anomaly detection. I think this is what everyone wants, and I think it would appease many worries. Unfortunately, this would almost certainly require voter ID, which has mixed popularity, and a reporting system, which requires tech, which the governments lowest bidder mentality appears to be wholly incapable of.

Additionally, harden these electronic voting machines, which have had constant press about their vulnerable for the last two decades [1][2][3][4]. Open source the software stack. Even simple, human, steps like each person puts a provided penny into the machine, so counts can be correlated, would be an improvement and add a real world aspect that people could personally understand, over the counter in memory that has no traceability.

The thing that I find most frustrating part about all of this is the perspective. Rather than silencing talk about fraud, hoping it will go away, we should tackle the reality of it and ask why people distrust the voting system, and find real world solutions, to increase that trust. The fact that every election before this one ended with sensational headlines of examples of voter fraud, but this year it's journalistic silence and social taboo, probably doesn't help (as insignificant as those previous stories were).

[1] 2018: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-vulnerabiliti...

[2] 2015: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/meet-the-e-votin...

[3] 2010: https://www.texastribune.org/2010/10/22/e-voting-suit-reveal...

[4] 2004: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/29/technology/security-poor-...

[5] https://www.city-journal.org/html/how-steal-election-12824.h...

> harden these electronic voting machines

Make that voting computers, and abolish. If even HN readers can't get this right, there is no hope of electoral reform in the USA to raise it to an acceptable democratic level:

ODIHR election observers must not be blocked anymore.¹ Elections are to be held on a Sunday to not disenfranchise the working population. Votes are always counted and tallied manually.² Postal votes that arrive after the election date must be invalidated. Amend the constitution to require elections to be universal, direct, free, equal, secret, transparent and effective.³

If anyone is against these reforms, well, I'm certain Taibbi will not hesitate to call you too un-American, wrong and other things.

----

¹ The USA are a member state.

² This must be done so that the proper following of the procedure can be verified by anyone. Voting computers cannot be verified by just anyone. –– Using voting computers, being general purpose computers, are inherently easy to manipulate. Cracking just one model enables wide-spread fraud. Counting manually however means that wide-spread voting fraud requires undermining each location separately which is much harder to pull off and also multiplies the risk of detection.

³ These words have a specific legal meaning.

> Make that voting computers, and abolish.

I understand this perspective, and mostly agree, but I think that having a deep level of verification, traceability, and limits could really help with trust. I don't think that having a box of votes disappear into a, from our perspective, somewhat mysteries process filled with rooms full of volunteers counting things in relative secrecy, could provide as much confidence in the process. I'm not sure how that could be achieved without some digital system. Maybe a required mix of physical and digital systems?

For any system, I think some form of adversarial counting is required to know that someone "on your side" had a chance to count your vote. This could be implemented by having each party of interest select the counters, along with an "unbiased" automated system/digital results. The votes could be randomized between them. Some portion is then feed back through to help catch if any of the intentionally biased counters tried to tilt the system, to keep everyone honest. Regardless of the system, I think the minimum requirements for the counting process should be enough to obtain some level of trust, and be at a federal level, since we all have to live with the results.

Sure, but you also need to pair it with free Gov issued IDs for all individuals. The Voter fraud canard is a red herring when electoral fraud is an order of magnitude worse.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com