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Comment by chiefalchemist | Hacker News Reader

> When polls opened in the Phoenix area Tuesday morning, some vote-tabulation machines weren’t working; within half an hour, conspiracy theories

But why isn't this suspect in some form?

Anyone reasonable would presume the machines are tested and get check up type service before their big day. Certainly they don't go from storage to stage without being thoroughly tested.

Next, anyone reasonable would presume there's a know rate of failure and given that data an appropriate number of machines are on-hand as back ups *so that the integrity of the process is maintained.*

Maybe there is no conspiracy per se but someone / something failed. I'm tired of the "omg the conspiracy theories..." trope being front and center (read: a distraction) when there are legit questions to be asked and answered.

Unless failure arw mitigated and when possible prevented, there are going to be theories, conspiracy or otherwise.

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It's still the case that since their inception, voting machines have been analyzed and described by the infosec world as a disaster. What has changed, other than the popularity and demagogery of the people who are talking about them? Just because they're not remotely updated from Venezuela doesn't make them accurate or secure.

The same folks who are saying it's all a conspiracy theory were making the same accusations in 2004. I wouldn't be surprised if they're all rigged. Dems win, we lose, 'publicans win, we still lose. The lobbyists and their masters win either way.

Take your pick...

https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=diebold%20election%20cons...

> Anyone reasonable would presume the machines are tested and get check up type service before their big day. Certainly they don't go from storage to stage without being thoroughly tested.

> Next, anyone reasonable would presume there's a know rate of failure and given that data an appropriate number of machines are on-hand as back ups so that the integrity of the process is maintained.

These would be reasonable thoughts if this was an industrial process that was done regularly, but it’s not. It’s done once every 2 years, and the voting machines are relatively new. There is no reason to assume they’ve done all this testing and contingency planning, and frankly they don’t need to.

A small glitch that is resolved doesn’t compromise the integrity of the process. There is absolutely no logic to that idea.

> These would be reasonable thoughts if this was an industrial process that was done regularly, but it’s not. It’s done once every 2 years, and the voting machines are relatively new. There is no reason to assume they’ve done all this testing and contingency planning, and frankly they don’t need to.

Fair enough. But then THAT is where the reporting starts. Lede'ing with "blah blah blah conspiracy theory..." is lazy and dangerous.

If The Fourth Estate is going to play the "omg...preserve the democracy" card then The Fourth Estate needs to do a better job of keeping its own house clean and fulfulling its obligations to the democracy. TFE feeding status quo tropes - for profit - is not a good look, and it's dangerous.

Otherwise we're going to be stuck with what we have, or worse.

I’d prefer the press reports it more reasonably too, however it is a conspiracy theory, so why shouldn’t they say so?

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