Ask HN: Analyzing Ballot Images of all 50 states?
It seems like could settle all these conspiracy theories, disputes, and just move on.
Is this a bad idea?
It seems like could settle all these conspiracy theories, disputes, and just move on.
Is this a bad idea?
As for analyzing, you don't necessarily know what you're looking for before examining them. For example - if there is a distinct pattern of markings suggesting ballot stuffing by the same person, you'd need to identify those first. Then you could train a program to identify all occurrences. But without ground truth (knowing for a fact you really spotted fraudulent ones) this wouldn't be strong proof. Absence of anomalies also wouldn't prove absence of fraud, might merely disqualify some forms of fraud.
[0] and even if you do, it's still not that plausible
Unfortunately, facts aren't very effective against such conspiracy theories. People who believe in them aren't (typically) engaged in a pursuit after the truth.
It's a social phenomena and has to be treated as such.
That was funded by UC Berkley and has a tabulator part that appears to work on the common voting systems.
Readme states "Tabulator currently supports optical-scan ballots associated with Diebold (Premier), ES&S, Hart, and Sequoia ballot styles"
Since Dominion acquired Sequoia in 2014, I am guessing some small changes would make this work for the current ballot images used in 2020.
I was not aware that signatures are compared electronically.
Basically they compare the ballot signature with the one used on your license. Not everybody has a license, so I'm guessing there is more to it than just that. Probably something in regards to the voter registration itself.
Also - in the video that RG cites as proof that they counted some ballots more than once, I believe they are actually re-scanning signatures. The machine in the video pretty much looks exactly like the one this article refers to.