2016 Presidential Race AND POLL

[natedagg]

How about some facts?

The researchers estimate that up to 3.9 million absentee ballots were requested but not received by voters in the 2008 presidential election. Another 2.9 million ballots sent to voters requesting them were not returned for counting. And 800,000 returned absentee ballots were rejected for one reason or another. In all, 21 percent of requested absentee ballots were never counted in 2008—35.5 million requests for absentee ballots led to 27.9 million mail-in ballots being counted.​

7.6 million people tried to absentee vote but weren't able to for one reason or another. I find that pretty alarming.

There is another report that hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots arrived late in the mail. Why would you trust the US Post Office over the internet?

This is exactly the type of post that adds to the conversation and brings up new facts and an interesting angle. This is alarming for sure, for those that requested and did not receive ballots, or scary thought - those that sent them in and they simply were not counted and marked as "never returned".

Now, one could posit that the more-informed voters are being selected against here and all of this is occurring to suppress the votes for a certain party... But do you see how crazy that is?!? This is about a fair process to be allowed to cast your vote.

I have never had problems voting absentee, so this is the best argument that I have seen against my position so far. So once again, here's where I am at: having to mail in a vote does not make it prohibitively oppressive or against a right that we have as citizens.

Too long of lines where you actually have to leave because of obligations of work/family? Not OK.

Trying to vote absentee and not getting to b/c not receiving your ballot? Not OK.

Getting your absentee ballot and not sending it back? OK. Your fault.

Sending it back with errors? OK, your fault.

Sending it back and having someone throw it in the trash and never count it? Not OK.

Online system? It's a good idea, and I think the tide is headed in that direction. However, you don't get to stand on some moral high ground and talk about all of those poor, hard working people who don't get to vote now, and act like I am opposed to it. That's just a veil, and that's what's annoying.

@gourimoko seems to think it's doable. That's just not enough for me, particularly when he has worked for campaigns that it would benefit - despite his debate skills, it's just not enough for me. It's like this guy comes in and tells you that it'd be secure and how the hackers can break the current system, so good, let's just check the box for online voting. Ok, presto! Now we have it because banks have ATMs! So are we to believe the current system is only in place because some powerful interests want it that way, and they are rigging the elections that they just lost? Is that the story where we get to root for the poor American working 90 hours a week? Do you think that there is more to it? I sure do. It's not a snap decision to make this work effectively, AT ALL.

We will find out in the next couple of decades, because that is where the tide is going.

So when you click that FB add to register, or you click it to "learn more about the candidates", and that leads you to that green box that says "click here to vote", just know that $ is changing hands, and you just got someone paid, because they already analyzed who you were going to vote for if they got you to register and vote. I have a client, very wealthy, pretty red-neck republican, conservative guy. He has a ton of money and an online ad agency. He once said "Nate, you could shit on a plate and I could sell it online." He'll be in there looking for 3 impulsive clicks too, from millions of people.

When the first scandal breaks where someone created emails for thousands of people and got them to vote via these emails, then perhaps you will reconsider those of us who don't want to hear these concepts of democracy and be told how this is class warfare.

When the democracy index shows that clearly we are more democratic because instantaneously more people voted, don't raise an eyebrow. At least, not until your email is hacked and someone posts your voting record.

Imagine all of the websites that will look official and get people to "vote" on them, only to capture SS#s and DOBs for fraudulent activities. Just smoke a mental bowl on the whole array of crazy that will happen. It's fascinating.

We now have a better quality of democracy because you can click 3 times to vote. Does that even make sense? The best argument of all for an online system is if you can verify that you voted and your vote has counted. That's important and a great idea.

@Maximus and it's all fun and games, votes flowing like bubbly, until... you guessed it... EMP BLAST.

It's an imperfect system as is, and with new technology comes a new set of headaches, and I have concern over a new system. When you are talking about headaches regarding who is leading your country, this isn't some trivial thing. Because some grand-master debater tells you so, and because it passes the sniff test as an idea, it doesn't mean it'll fly.

That's really all I have to say. I am not going to dissect line-by-line any posts or respond to any dissections. It's folly and apparently I am getting crushed in here.

 

[KI4MVP]

There's really no point in going through the exercise with most of you. I don't vote along party lines, and I have no vested interest in making it harder for all of the "victims" out there, who are apparently poor people that "these guys" don't want voting.

Yet that is exactly what the debate is about. The people who have to wait in line 2 to 9 hours to vote are the ones who predominately vote democrat. A significant number of people in these areas can't vote because of the issue because they have other obligations (job, family). Nothing is done to fix it. I can guarantee that people in Mercer Ohio (the most republican county in ohio) have waits that are a fraction of the time people who live in Cuyahoga county (the most democrat county in ohio) wait. I can guarantee that if there were a 2 1/2 hour wait in a place like Mercer Ohio they would add more voting machines and/or polling stations to fix it. Why are the polling stations so sparse that large groups of people in highly populated areas need transportation to get there. I don't live in an area like that and yet my polling station is close enough to walk to.

That voter ID laws target a group of people who predominately vote democrat. The same demographics are targeted with laws that set early registration deadlines.

Aside from the military, absentee ballots are predominately democrat. Yet we have stuff like this going on

But a bill that passed the Iowa House 56-41 on March 11 would require that absentee ballots arrive at county auditors’ offices by the time polls close on the election day in order to be counted. An exception would be given to military personnel and their families and others working outside the country who apply for ballots and return them by mail in time to be counted.​

Replicans use the patriotic stance of "we don't want to deny our military the right to vote" while at the same time eliminating as many votes as possible from other americans who have the same issue that the post office didn't deliver mail in time. How does it make any sense at all to take a the mail that comes into the election office the day after the election and throw out all of the votes fro the predominately democrat group votes will accepting all of the predominately republican group. For both groups the issues is the same, the post office failed to deliver the mail on time.

The list of issues goes on and on. Obstacles for voting consistency target people who predominately vote for democrats because of the demographics of the groups that face those obstacles.

 

[KI4MVP]

I have never had problems voting absentee, so this is the best argument that I have seen against my position so far. So once again, here's where I am at: having to mail in a vote does not make it prohibitively oppressive or against a right that we have as citizens.

How do you know your absentee vote was counted? That was a major point of my post.

 

[natedagg]

Yet that is exactly what the debate is about. The people who have to wait in line 2 to 9 hours to vote are the ones who predominately vote democrat. A significant number of people in these areas can't vote because of the issue because they have other obligations (job, family). Nothing is done to fix it. I can guarantee that people in Mercer Ohio (the most republican county in ohio) have waits that are a fraction of the time people who live in Cuyahoga county (the most democrat county in ohio) wait. I can guarantee that if there were a 2 1/2 hour wait in a place like Mercer Ohio they would add more voting machines and/or polling stations to fix it. Why are the polling stations so sparse that large groups of people in highly populated areas need transportation to get there. I don't live in an area like that and yet my polling station is close enough to walk to.

That voter ID laws target a group of people who predominately vote democrat. The same demographics are targeted with laws that set early registration deadlines.

Aside from the military, absentee ballots are predominately democrat. Yet we have stuff like this going on

But a bill that passed the Iowa House 56-41 on March 11 would require that absentee ballots arrive at county auditors’ offices by the time polls close on the election day in order to be counted. An exception would be given to military personnel and their families and others working outside the country who apply for ballots and return them by mail in time to be counted.​

Replicans use the patriotic stance of "we don't want to deny our military the right to vote" while at the same time eliminating as many votes as possible from other americans who have the same issue that the post office didn't deliver mail in time. How does it make any sense at all to take a the mail that comes into the election office the day after the election and throw out all of the votes fro the predominately democrat group votes will accepting all of the predominately republican group. For both groups the issues is the same, the post office failed to deliver the mail on time.

The list of issues goes on and on. Obstacles for voting consistency target people who predominately vote for democrats because of the demographics of the groups that face those obstacles.

To your point, I don't know whether my vote was counted. I thought you could tell that I think you made a good point? Was it not clear when I said it was a good point, multiple times?

As far as the above, no, that's not what this debate is about, it's what you've come to make it about. Have fun with that. I went on a tactical, preemptive strike that this was exactly what this ISN'T about, in the context of the debate we were having. It appears that despite my best efforts, my position has come to represent a pro-republican lobbying effort to stifle democratic votes. That's why it's annoying and that's why I am quitting...







...If. I. Could. Only. Let. Go.

 

[gourimoko]

@gourimoko seems to think it's doable. That's just not enough for me, particularly when he has worked for campaigns that it would benefit - despite his debate skills, it's just not enough for me. It's like this guy comes in and tells you that it'd be secure and how the hackers can break the current system, so good, let's just check the box for online voting. Ok, presto! Now we have it because banks have ATMs! So are we to believe the current system is only in place because some powerful interests want it that way, and they are rigging the elections that they just lost? Is that the story where we get to root for the poor American working 90 hours a week? Do you think that there is more to it? I sure do. It's not a snap decision to make this work effectively, AT ALL.

It's a topic that has been researched thoroughly. My argument is that there is no rational basis to argue that online voting is somehow less secure than voting at your local polling place, especially if that polling place uses touchscreen voting.

We will find out in the next couple of decades, because that is where the tide is going.

So when you click that FB add to register, or you click it to "learn more about the candidates", and that leads you to that green box that says "click here to vote", just know that $ is changing hands, and you just got someone paid, because they already analyzed who you were going to vote for if they got you to register and vote. I have a client, very wealthy, pretty red-neck republican, conservative guy. He has a ton of money and an online ad agency. He once said "Nate, you could shit on a plate and I could sell it online." He'll be in there looking for 3 impulsive clicks too, from millions of people.

When the first scandal breaks where someone created emails for thousands of people and got them to vote via these emails, then perhaps you will reconsider those of us who don't want to hear these concepts of democracy and be told how this is class warfare.

But I've already addressed all of this. An email address is insufficient criteria to register to vote. We've gone over it extensively, that a person would need to validate their biometric data and geolocation to match their registration.

Since everyone has a cryptographic receipt that is viewable online by everyone else, committing widescale fraud would be extremely difficult.

When the democracy index shows that clearly we are more democratic because instantaneously more people voted, don't raise an eyebrow. At least, not until your email is hacked and someone posts your voting record.

This isn't how secure systems work. Hacking someone's email is simply insufficient. You'd literally need to steal not only their identity, but their biometric data - and - find a secure way of uploading that data to government servers with a unique, geolocated IP, for every identity you've stolen.

Nothing like that has ever been done before.

Imagine all of the websites that will look official and get people to "vote" on them, only to capture SS#s and DOBs for fraudulent activities. Just smoke a mental bowl on the whole array of crazy that will happen. It's fascinating.

Yes, again, that wouldn't be enough to steal someone's vote.

We now have a better quality of democracy because you can click 3 times to vote. Does that even make sense? The best argument of all for an online system is if you can verify that you voted and your vote has counted. That's important and a great idea.

If you can verify you voted, and that your voted counted; as in, when doing your taxes, you can minimize potential fraud.

Moving the tax deadline for individuals back from April to January would alleviate almost any concerns of an invalid election.

@Maximus and it's all fun and games, votes flowing like bubbly, until... you guessed it... EMP BLAST.

EMP Blast?

We've left the realm of reality if we're talking about online voting and that somehow brings in a conversation regarding EMP blasts.

You realize that any wide-scale EMP phenomena would almost assuredly mean a high atmosphere nuclear detonation? That's beyond the capability of any terrorist organization and would like be a state action -- meaning -- it'd likely be followed up, in an immediate sense, by a nuclear attack.

So yeah, I guess online voting breaks down in the event that we have a nuclear exchange with another country./

It's an imperfect system as is, and with new technology comes a new set of headaches, and I have concern over a new system. When you are talking about headaches regarding who is leading your country, this isn't some trivial thing. Because some grand-master debater tells you so, and because it passes the sniff test as an idea, it doesn't mean it'll fly.

But this isn't an argument. It's not an argument at all; in fact, it's an anti-argument. You're trying to assert a case with the absence of any rationality.

The "imperfect system" you're defending results in significant percentages of people not voting. The system being described would result in a more representative government, with a more secure system.

We know that DieBold machines can be hacked, and there's video evidence demonstrating how. @spydy13 posted this upthread.

You're describing this imperfect system as the guarantor of democracy but in 2000, this imperfect system gave us someone that almost assuredly did not win the election - not the popular vote of the people, nor the electors of the prerequisite states. If the votes are counted based on intent, Bush doesn't win Florida; there is no debating that -- and I voted for him in that election.

There are many arguments to be made with the rampant problems of the 2004 election. The 2008 early voting issues. The list goes on and on.

That's really all I have to say. I am not going to dissect line-by-line any posts or respond to any dissections. It's folly and apparently I am getting crushed in here.

That's fair enough. I felt as though your post required a response, so I'll leave it at this.

I just don't understand how you can look at our present system and describe it as anything but a failure given the last 16 years of issues including the wrong man being installed as President by the Supreme Court.

 

[KI4MVP]

To your point, I don't know whether my vote was counted. I thought you could tell that I think you made a good point? Was it not clear when I said it was a good point, multiple times?

As far as the above, no, that's not what this debate is about, it's what you've come to make it about. Have fun with that. I went on a tactical, preemptive strike that this was exactly what this ISN'T about, in the context of the debate we were having. It appears that despite my best efforts, my position has come to represent a pro-republican lobbying effort to stifle democratic votes. That's why it's annoying and that's why I am quitting...

You don't know if your vote is counted, yet say you had no trouble absentee voting.

That is what the debate is about when laws are passed. Every single time without exception that obstacles are placed on people's ability to vote, the people most effected by those obstacles vote predominately democrat while the people passing the laws are republicans. If those laws have the potential to impact a predominately republican group like the military, that group is made an exception to the law.

What the country should do is make it easy for everyone to exercise their right to vote and stop making it more difficult for some to vote than it is for others to vote. Voting is a right granted by the consitution and is a central part of any democracy. Our country would express their outrage if the same sort of thing happened in any other democracy that happens here.

 

[natedagg]

Yet that is exactly what the debate is about. The people who have to wait in line 2 to 9 hours to vote are the ones who predominately vote democrat. A significant number of people in these areas can't vote because of the issue because they have other obligations (job, family). Nothing is done to fix it. I can guarantee that people in Mercer Ohio (the most republican county in ohio) have waits that are a fraction of the time people who live in Cuyahoga county (the most democrat county in ohio) wait. I can guarantee that if there were a 2 1/2 hour wait in a place like Mercer Ohio they would add more voting machines and/or polling stations to fix it. Why are the polling stations so sparse that large groups of people in highly populated areas need transportation to get there. I don't live in an area like that and yet my polling station is close enough to walk to.

That voter ID laws target a group of people who predominately vote democrat. The same demographics are targeted with laws that set early registration deadlines.

Aside from the military, absentee ballots are predominately democrat. Yet we have stuff like this going on

But a bill that passed the Iowa House 56-41 on March 11 would require that absentee ballots arrive at county auditors’ offices by the time polls close on the election day in order to be counted. An exception would be given to military personnel and their families and others working outside the country who apply for ballots and return them by mail in time to be counted.​

Replicans use the patriotic stance of "we don't want to deny our military the right to vote" while at the same time eliminating as many votes as possible from other americans who have the same issue that the post office didn't deliver mail in time. How does it make any sense at all to take a the mail that comes into the election office the day after the election and throw out all of the votes fro the predominately democrat group votes will accepting all of the predominately republican group. For both groups the issues is the same, the post office failed to deliver the mail on time.

The list of issues goes on and on. Obstacles for voting consistency target people who predominately vote for democrats because of the demographics of the groups that face those obstacles.

and just so anyone is actually reading this thread can see, KI didn't link the article that he posted about the Iowa Bill. No, since he has an pro-democrat agenda, he plucked out what fit and left the rest. Here's some more, and here's where it is from: http://iowawatch.org/2015/03/19/data-show-democrats-older-iowans-use-absentee-ballots-most/

Regardless of who feels the impact, Republican and Democratic state legislators trying to amend Iowa’s absentee voter registration law agree that changes are critical because ballots are not being counted when they probably should be.

The reason: U.S. post offices are not putting time-stamped postmarks on many of the absentee ballots. “So we are throwing ballots out, and we don’t want to do that,” state Sen. Jeff Danielson, D-Cedar Falls, said.

A Senate bill says ballots clearly postmarked by the day before an election and received by the elections office by noon the following Monday should be counted, as well as any ballot received by 5 p.m. the day after the election. A decision on whether to vote on the Senate bill or to take up the House bill was pending.

Danielson, chairman of the State Government Committee where the matter now rests, said differences in what the House and Senate propose are not deal breakers. “I think they can actually be resolved,” he said.

“The lack of a ‘clear postmark’ on return absentee ballots is a concern due to inconsistent postmarking practices throughout the state,” Clinton County Auditor Erin Van Lancker wrote in a position paper for the county auditor association.

Stanerson said the House bill was a response to the auditors’ complaints. “We ran with what the auditors’ language was,” he said.

Rep. Quentin Stanerson, R-Center Point

“There was no political motivation,” Stanerson said. “This was brought to us from auditors across the state.”

Stanerson said the goal is to count absentee votes that otherwise would be disqualified for lack of an adequate, dated postmark. “In no way was this bill put out there to disenfranchise folks,” he said.

It sounds to me that there's a problem that everyone can agree upon, not some mass of evil republicans holding down the downtrodden democrats.

Bro, it's fine to take your position and defend it, but how is this not intellectually dishonest? I read the County Auditor Association's position (linked in the link I provided), and it sounded like it had nothing to do with your current meme that it's all shady republicans keeping the status quo. I might have missed the point, my eyes hurt.

 

[natedagg]

It's a topic that has been researched thoroughly. My argument is that there is no rational basis to argue that online voting is somehow less secure than voting at your local polling place, especially if that polling place uses touchscreen voting.



But I've already addressed all of this. An email address is insufficient criteria to register to vote. We've gone over it extensively, that a person would need to validate their biometric data and geolocation to match their registration.

Since everyone has a cryptographic receipt that is viewable online by everyone else, committing widescale fraud would be extremely difficult.



This isn't how secure systems work. Hacking someone's email is simply insufficient. You'd literally need to steal not only their identity, but their biometric data - and - find a secure way of uploading that data to government servers with a unique, geolocated IP, for every identity you've stolen.

Nothing like that has ever been done before.



Yes, again, that wouldn't be enough to steal someone's vote.



If you can verify you voted, and that your voted counted; as in, when doing your taxes, you can minimize potential fraud.

Moving the tax deadline for individuals back from April to January would alleviate almost any concerns of an invalid election.



EMP Blast?

We've left the realm of reality if we're talking about online voting and that somehow brings in a conversation regarding EMP blasts.

You realize that any wide-scale EMP phenomena would almost assuredly mean a high atmosphere nuclear detonation? That's beyond the capability of any terrorist organization and would like be a state action -- meaning -- it'd likely be followed up, in an immediate sense, by a nuclear attack.

So yeah, I guess online voting breaks down in the event that we have a nuclear exchange with another country./



But this isn't an argument. It's not an argument at all; in fact, it's an anti-argument. You're trying to assert a case with the absence of any rationality.

The "imperfect system" you're defending results in significant percentages of people not voting. The system being described would result in a more representative government, with a more secure system.

We know that DieBold machines can be hacked, and there's video evidence demonstrating how. @spydy13 posted this upthread.

You're describing this imperfect system as the guarantor of democracy but in 2000, this imperfect system gave us someone that almost assuredly did not win the election - not the popular vote of the people, nor the electors of the prerequisite states. If the votes are counted based on intent, Bush doesn't win Florida; there is no debating that -- and I voted for him in that election.

There are many arguments to be made with the rampant problems of the 2004 election. The 2008 early voting issues. The list goes on and on.



That's fair enough. I felt as though your post required a response, so I'll leave it at this.

I just don't understand how you can look at our present system and describe it as anything but a failure given the last 16 years of issues including the wrong man being installed as President by the Supreme Court.

So every internet vote is going to utilize biometric verification? Is that what you are suggesting? I just want to make sure that I have this right. It sounds... out there...

The EMP thing was a sarcastic joke. It's an ongoing thing that's funny to the audience for which it was directed. And if it isn't funny to him, then it's even funnier to me, until it isn't funny at all because it happens!

If you can get a biometric scan system up-and-running for Kanye 2020, more power to you. It sounds... ambitious. And yes I am kidding about Kanye 2020 and any involvement you would have for or against him.

 

[gourimoko]

So every internet vote is going to utilize biometric verification? Is that what you are suggesting? I just want to make sure that I have this right. It sounds... out there...

I'm suggesting a secure system, and yes, I think every internet vote should use a combination of security techniques including biometric data.

I'm not sure how it's "out-there?" I'm really not referring to any future technology, but what already exists in many (almost all) smartphones and many PCs, tablets and laptops.

I'd be happy to explain what I mean if you'd like.

The EMP thing was a sarcastic joke. It's an ongoing thing that's funny to the audience for which it was directed. And if it isn't funny to him, then it's even funnier to me, until it isn't funny at all because it happens!

I see.

If you can get a biometric scan system up-and-running for Kanye 2020, more power to you. It sounds... ambitious. And yes I am kidding about Kanye 2020 and any involvement you would have for or against him.

Your phone is more than capable of recording the following data (in fact, it does at all times that it's powered-on; you can check this data and it's recordings by cat'ing the various files in your /proc and /dev directories of any rooted Android device):

Your GPS location (if the radio is turned on, your exact location).
Your unique MEID/ESN.
Your 4G LTE unique private key (DOCSIS 3.0)
Your paired phone number.
Your tower (your broad location)
Your routed IP address (your near location)
Your picture (yes, your camera is ALWAYS on).
Your facial structure (Android 4.4+ monitors your eye lids).
Your session state and browsing history (all cookies).

I say to you that with this given data, I can, with far greater certainty, validate a person's voter registration, than an elderly lady working the polls can going through a book or looking at a signature.

Any phone with a camera can do what I'm talking about.

To commit a fraudulent vote might require an individual to hack the entire phone system. Now, mind you, if you were able to do this, you could already control the votes as the individual polling places upload their data as it is to state servers to be counted. So if you had control of the grid in such a way, you could already alter the vote on either side of the equation via a MITM attack.

Even still, in an End-to-End cryptographic voting system, an MITM attack still doesn't insure controlling the outcome of an election because of auditing. Simply engineering the vote is not enough. Since the vote is persistent and public, at any time, the entirety of the vote can be audited since a vote can and is tied to an individual. This prevents ballot stuffing as a person could be required to validate their vote when they file their taxes, for example.

Thus, even if one could someone take control over the entire phone/GPS/internet system of the United States and create millions of votes; those votes would be invalidated after they were audited.

We have never been able to successfully cheat these types of public/open cryptographic systems (think Bitcoin) since anyone and everyone is actively working to continually audit their results.

p.s.
The reason I suggest biometrics is because, as I said, 64% of Americans already have smartphones. Many millions have laptops and tablets. If you can't get to the polls, you could vote from your smartphone at a known location. Banks use the same geolocated security conditions. If you attempt to login overseas, or from an unknown location, additional measures are required including a phone call and a verification process.

 

[KI4MVP]

and just so anyone is actually reading this thread can see, KI didn't link the article that he posted about the Iowa Bill. No, since he has an pro-democrat agenda, he plucked out what fit and left the rest. Here's some more, and here's where it is from: http://iowawatch.org/2015/03/19/data-show-democrats-older-iowans-use-absentee-ballots-most/



It sounds to me that there's a problem that everyone can agree upon, not some mass of evil republicans holding down the downtrodden democrats.

Bro, it's fine to take your position and defend it, but how is this not intellectually dishonest? I read the County Auditor Association's position (linked in the link I provided), and it sounded like it had nothing to do with your current meme that it's all shady republicans keeping the status quo. I might have missed the point, my eyes hurt.

What are you talking about. The article says the majority of absentee ballots are democrat, a well known exception is the military. It also talks about how many absentee ballots are not being counted when they should. It also only references a single bill that was passed, that bill only fixes the problem for military absentee ballots. How did I misrepresent anything?

And for the record, for the first time in my life I'm not even sure I'm voting democrat. Some of what they are pushing, like a $15 minimum wage, is bad for the country.

I think most americans would agree with the principal that we every eligible voter should be able to vote and that every vote should be counted. This is a central principal to any democracy.

America is supposed to be the world leader for democracy, yet we allow things to happen here that we wouldn't allow in other democracies. Including the administration of the brother of a candidate blocking the counting of votes for his opponent. In some parts of the world if something like that happened we'd send in troops to make sure all of the votes were counted.

 

[FiveThous]

I'm suggesting a secure system, and yes, I think every internet vote should use a combination of security techniques including biometric data.

I'm not sure how it's "out-there?" I'm really not referring to any future technology, but what already exists in many (almost all) smartphones and many PCs, tablets and laptops.

I'd be happy to explain what I mean if you'd like.



I see.



Your phone is more than capable of recording the following data (in fact, it does at all times that it's powered-on; you can check this data and it's recordings by cat'ing the various files in your /proc and /dev directories of any rooted Android device):

Your GPS location (if the radio is turned on, your exact location).
Your unique MEID/ESN.
Your 4G LTE unique private key (DOCSIS 3.0)
Your paired phone number.
Your tower (your broad location)
Your routed IP address (your near location)
Your picture (yes, your camera is ALWAYS on).
Your facial structure (Android 4.4+ monitors your eye lids).
Your session state and browsing history (all cookies).

I say to you that with this given data, I can, with far greater certainty, validate a person's voter registration, than an elderly lady working the polls can going through a book or looking at a signature.

Any phone with a camera can do what I'm talking about.

To commit a fraudulent vote might require an individual to hack the entire phone system. Now, mind you, if you were able to do this, you could already control the votes as the individual polling places upload their data as it is to state servers to be counted. So if you had control of the grid in such a way, you could already alter the vote on either side of the equation via a MITM attack.

Even still, in an End-to-End cryptographic voting system, an MITM attack still doesn't insure controlling the outcome of an election because of auditing. Simply engineering the vote is not enough. Since the vote is persistent and public, at any time, the entirety of the vote can be audited since a vote can and is tied to an individual. This prevents ballot stuffing as a person could be required to validate their vote when they file their taxes, for example.

Thus, even if one could someone take control over the entire phone/GPS/internet system of the United States and create millions of votes; those votes would be invalidated after they were audited.

We have never been able to successfully cheat these types of public/open cryptographic systems (think Bitcoin) since anyone and everyone is actively working to continually audit their results.

p.s.
The reason I suggest biometrics is because, as I said, 64% of Americans already have smartphones. Many millions have laptops and tablets. If you can't get to the polls, you could vote from your smartphone at a known location. Banks use the same geolocated security conditions. If you attempt to login overseas, or from an unknown location, additional measures are required including a phone call and a verification process.

Biometrics is both fascinating and down right terrifying.

 

[Pioneer10]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/scott-walker-drops-out-2016

Holy smokes was I wrong about Walker. What a flame out

 

[KI4MVP]

^ they need a bunch more to drop out.

 

[Sebastian]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/scott-walker-drops-out-2016

Holy smokes was I wrong about Walker. What a flame out

What a tragedy. He sold out his own state for nothing.

Live by the Koch, die by the Koch.

 

[gourimoko]

What a tragedy. He sold out his own state for nothing.

Live by the Koch, die by the Koch.

Stealing it.. hahahaha....