Discussion
No matter the outcome of tomorrow's elections, Wednesday will likely be "the election was rigged by hackers!" day for many disgruntled supporters of losing candidates.
Remember, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Think before you boost, especially when the message tells you what you want to hear.
@mattblaze There's also this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psychology)
One of the problems is that there have been so many claims in recent years (from both left and right) that some election was "hacked" that people who aren't paying close attention think that it actually happens all the time. "So many cases that it's not even possible to list them all" is the impression.
Except there are no documented cases of technical attacks altering US election outcomes. None. Nada. Zilch. Bupkis.
Maybe it could happen, but no evidence of it yet (fingers crossed).
@mattblaze As someone from a country where we still mark a paper with a cross, put it in a box, and have the counting done by hand, I still think America over-complicates the whole process with the voting machines. But maybe I just don't trust machines to have actually counted my vote. I'm even dubious about voting by post unless I really have to, as I don't trust Royal Mail either to actually get my postal vote to the Civic Centre.
@mattblaze The people who believe this are not thinking for themselves and not bothering to consult actual facts. But consider for a moment the things that people believe that are guarding the way they vote. I actually heard a person saying on TV that they would not vote for Talerico because he was going to allow sex change operations in schools. WTF? How freaking stupid does a person have to be to believe something like that? The same people who believe that elections are rigged.
I'm not in the US, and we do paper based voting.
The problem for me is that I can clearly point to the process chain: there is the voting place where the votes are cast. Those are probably safe, enough people are watching those. But what happens then? Votes are counted and passed up a hierarchy. And that hierarchy is not transparent. I don't have proof that they do their job correctly and I'm not allowed to observe that step. 😐
Voting is still better than not voting though.
@mattblaze that's the problem with adopting a voting system that's impenetrable for most voters.
You don't even need to actually hack it, just the fact that almost no one has the ability to tell whether or not the result actually reflects the voter's will is enough.
Pen and paper ballots, which only require elementary grade education to verify, don't have that problem.
Yes, it may take a few more hours to get the result, so what?
@gnpar You do realize that's how most US voters cast their ballots, right?
@mattblaze I did not realize that, I thought they were still mostly using touchscreen machines.
I also did not realize this was a maga talking point.
Sorry for the noise, thanks for the education.
Not anywhere close to an expert on this myself.
The only ones I have seen are touchscreen systems that once you have completed voting physically print a completed ballot on physical paper that can be checked/reviewed by the voter prior to being physically scanned into a separate vote tallying system with the physical printout being kept as the proof. The physical printout has the identity of the voter printed on it. The identity and registration of the voter is checked prior to receiving a blank ballot and choosing a voting machine at random.
I am not aware of any purely electronic voting systems being used by states that do not have a physical audit trail, but states differ. Would be interested in hearing if those are in use.
@mattblaze I get the impression that "The election was hacked/rigged!" is more of an admission of "I'd compromise the election in a heartbeat if I could, so everybody else _must_ be doing it, right?".
Anyway, if you haven't yet cast your ballot, go vote!
@mattblaze Kids on the playground: YOU CHEATED!
@tonyangelo Zero cases of election outcomes fraudulently altered by technological means. ZERO.
@tonyangelo The closest thing to a documented case of “voting machine hacking” used to alter an election outcome was the Clay County, KY conspiracy. But there, a group of corrupt election officials (who sold local offices) provided incorrect instructions to voters and then snuck into the voting booth after a voter left without actually casting their ballot and “corrected” it for them. No actual technical attacks involved.
@mattblaze @tonyangelo A Mister Chad, Hanging is on Line 1 for you.
@shermozle @tonyangelo Really? Those machines were HACKED? That’s huge news if true.
@mattblaze @tonyangelo "election outcomes fraudulently altered by technological means"
@mattblaze you didn’t use the phrase “voting machine hack” in the op, which is what I was responding to. There are many ways to hack an election, like in the 2018 NC CD 9 race where the GOP candidate’s consultant was doing all sorts of absentee ballot shenanigans.
@tonyangelo read the thread you responded to. Done playing word games with trolls.
@mattblaze dude, read your own post where you never refer to voting machines specifically. Like, why are we parsing this? Elections have been hacked before in this country, does the means of the hacking really matter?
@tonyangelo I can’t help you with reading comprehension, sorry.
@mattblaze
Vote fraud and election interference are two different things that could both be labeled "election rigging".
Vote fraud is a very minor issue with minimal impact (this sounds like what you're talking about).
Election interference happens on massive and small scales, both in the past and now. The Cambridge Analytica scandal was very real, very impactful, and very illegal. Making voting less convenient by closing polling stations (happening in my city right now), intimidating legal voters, having the USPS interfere with mail in ballots, etc, is all a very real and dangerous problem.
@mattblaze So I think this has the same root cause as the "Ukraine killed the Russian bots and Twitter became usable" myth.
Which is to say, it's exculpatory. There is a desperate USAmerican impulse to reassign the blame for USAmerican carnage to others. It would be a neat little world if RuuuUUuUUuUUssia was responsible for Trump, and for fascism, and for global collapse. But the reality is that it's the USA that's responsible for that.
It's the same energy as "all homophobes are secretly gay" being implicitly equivalent to saying "straight people aren't the ones doing homophobia".
@mattblaze Except for the gerrymandering.
The fact that Spanky is so freaked out about 2 Dan Sullivans in Alaska should reassure folk that it’s not so easy to hack the machines.
@CStamp I used to work with a guy named Dan Sullivan. I wonder where he is now. I should check around and see if he's listed on a ballot somewhere.
Is everyone a Sullivan down there?
@mattblaze Awww yeah! Election security! Love it when Matt plays the hits!
Encore! Risk Limiting Audits!
FREEBIRD!!!!!
@mattblaze "The election is rigged" for many people is easier to take than "a majority of people are have chosen to ruin the country"
@mattblaze It is frustrating that when people say "the election was rigged" they usually mean it in the context of actual fabrication, which is without evidence, and without some extraordinary measures to do so covertly, utterly implausible.
Meanwhile "the election was rigged" is very real in the systemic, political sense (gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc), with plenty of documentary evidence and far too commonly a reality. It is a shame people fall back on the former.
@mattblaze the psychology behind it is also so weird. Why is it so hard for someone, anyone, to accept that most people who voted disagreed with them? Sometimes your opinion, even if it's correct, is in the minority!
I hate, hate, HATE that "the election was rigged" has become the go-to explanation (across the US political spectrum) for any election that doesn't go your way.
Remember: despite real progress, there are still vulnerabilities in parts of our election infrastructure. But there is NO EVIDENCE that any US election outcome has ever been successfully altered by technical means.
It's not IMPOSSIBLE, but it's not something that we've actually seen happen (so far). Perspective, please.