By Robert Willmann
An election has three parts — a voter registration list, voting procedures, and counting the votes — unless you divide the last one into two. That will make it: a voter registration list, voting procedures, counting the votes, and an official announcement of the results.
If we wanted to rig and steal an election, which of the four parts would we use? If you think about it, there are opportunities in all four, especially in this computer age with electronic databases.
In the old days, the technique was to have friendly counties or precincts delay in counting or producing the ballots until you knew how many votes you needed to win. Lyndon Johnson used this technique when running for the U.S. Senate in the 1948 Democratic Primary in Texas. Around 200 extra votes were “discovered” in Jim Wells County which gave Johnson an 87 vote win and his nickname, Landslide Lyndon.
Human nature has not changed, but technology has. Electronic voting and counting machines can be designed and programmed to make voting fraud very difficult or impossible to detect, especially when related to voting procedures. The electricity flowing through the machine is not visible to the voter or to election workers who are to count votes. When used with electronic voter registration lists and databases, the opportunity for shenanigans is amplified.
After problems were revealed with voting in the 2020 presidential election, nothing helpful has changed. Nothing. No details of the construction and operation of electronic voting and counting machines have been disclosed to the public. Everything remains hidden: the software source code; the hardware microcode; the design of all semiconductor chips and their manufacturer; the design of any central processing unit (cpu) and its manufacturer; the design of any memory chips and storage medium; any connection ports and interfaces on the machine; the design of the circuit board (or motherboard, or logic board, as Apple Computer calls it); the machine’s ability to communicate externally by a wired, wireless, infrared, or other connection; and so forth. The creation, maintenance, vetting, and use of voter registration lists is not thoroughly explained, and keeping the lists current and accurate is turning into a bad joke.
If this conspiracy theory is to be believed, one could easily posit that don the con stole the election from Hillary Clinton.
Or is this conspiracy theory only valid when a republican candidate loses?
The “baseless claims” faction is heard from.
I’ve voted by paper absentee ballot from 1972 until my first in person vote in 1996. In Virginia, it’s hand marked paper ballots. They toyed with electronic voting for a while as an option, but wisely abandoned that. Electronic voting is too prone to errors, glitches and, yes, nefarious manipulation. It’s even more prone to generating conspiracy theories. Paper ballots that can be manually recounted, if needed, seems the best option. And, as you stated, registration is also key. Registration is checked with absentee ballots and with in person voting. Seems like a good system to me.
All the talk about voting machine manipulation by Dominion, the ghost of Hugo Chavez, Italian master computers or Jewish space lasers are fairy tales meant to scare the children or impressionable MAGA types.
** voting machine manipulation **
It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.
As a Canadian I envy you Yanks your 1st amendment, but I am extremely happy with our paper ballot voting system. I helped count votes in one election years ago and I consider our system unrigable … and we seem to get our results faster than you. To paraphrase an old English expression “It is not enough for elections to be free and fair, they must be seen to be free and fair”.
I agree but then, how many Canadians are there (and no counting the Indians, native that is).
Our population is 1/10th of yours – but if we had 10 time our current population we would just get 10 times as many people counting ballots on election night. I think the methodology scales just fine (I also think that we stole our system from the British).
This posting was pure speculative dribble when 1st posted, even more so now!
That’s amusing and you don’t even know why.
Having had responsibility for design and maintenance of a nuclear-capable system, I have some appreciation of the problems involved in ensuring the system works and only works as intended. It’s a mix of both technical and administrative procedures. We’re probably not going to do psychological evals of poll workers to determine their reliability but there is clearly more we could do, and it doesn’t require prior assumption of conspiracy theories.
A cornerstone of the admin procedures was the so-called “two person rule”, that physical proximity (access) could only be gained with two persons each having knowledge of the procedure to be performed and being able to observe performance of the other.
For technical concerns, there was independent design and software code analysis. There was also a split technical approval authority, as the weapon was owned by DoD but the warhead by DoE.
From the initial look it appears that in every state that didn’t have electronic machines or “irregularities”, the vote matched with pre-election polling. In every state that reported “irregularities”, the vote didn’t agree with pre-election polling. On the high profile cases, Trump backed “Oz” sucked more than the wizard, and Fetterman. Georgia looks to be a run-off, no telling how Walker will do with regards to getting out the vote. Overall it looks like Trump has peaked and beyond his hard-core support is an actual drag in many otherwise winnable places.
Worse than Trump was the GOP establishment machinery. Just what have they managed regarding candidate selection and assistance? (That’s a complaint I and others made regarding the DNC back when I was still active in the party. (Howard Dean being the biggest, but not very successful, proponent of such a strategy at the local and state level.)).
In my state of Michigan we cast ballots on the opti-scan system. We hand-mark legal paperboard ballots which are then fed into a machine for counting and storing. But at least the process starts with the physical analog paper ballot marked by hand with an analog ink pen as the first foot-print in the trail.
If questions were pressing enough to demand calls for a recount, the legal paperboard ballots could indeed be counted by hand.
If our system were pure electronic ( touch screen or other such), I would stay registered to vote but I would not vote until such a pure electronic system were replaced with a legal-paper-first-footprint system at the very least. ( Or if there were an absentee or mail-in voting alternative available in such a pure-electronic-on-election-day state, and the absentee or mail-in alternative involved physically marking an analog paper ballot with an analog ink pen, I would cast my ballot that way.)
From the point of view of an election thief, one of the nifty things about using electronic machines for fraud is that political parties are irrelevant. You can focus on the candidate you want or do not want.
Some people in the Democratic Party complained about events in the 2004 presidential election between John Kerry and George W. Bush, which included the issue of electronic voting machines. And Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee put out a report called, “What went wrong in Ohio: the Conyers report on the 2004 presidential election”.
Dominion Voting Systems made a pitch three times for its machines to be used in Texas — in August 2012, January 2019, and October 2019. But the Texas Secretary of State’s Office denied the sytem all three times. The letter denying Dominion’s application of October 2019 said that–
“The examiner reports identified multiple hardware and software issues that preclude the Office of the Texas Secretary of State from determining that the Democracy Suite 5.5-A system satisfies each of the voting-system requirements set forth in the Texas Election Code. Specifically, the examiner reports raise concerns about whether the Democracy Suite 5.5-A system is suitable for its intended purpose; operates efficiently and accurately; and is safe from fraudulent or unauthorized manipulation.”
http://www.sos.texas.gov/elections/forms/sysexam/dominion-d-suite-5.5-a.pdf
An election has three parts — a voter registration list, voting procedures, and counting the votes — unless you divide the last one into two. That will make it: a voter registration list, voting procedures, counting the votes, and an official announcement of the results.
There is another part: verification that the vote is a valid vote. Florida uses the sign and dated vote by mail ballots certificate which are then verified against the voter registration list, signature verification process, and finally the ballots and the security certificate are stored. You can request to see your personal ballot if you want.
Counting the votes means they are tabulated and results are published within a certain time period. Tabulation begin before the election after a request is granted by the Secretary of State for x number of ballots on y day. Ballots are held in closed rooms with limited access and under camera with a Dade county police officer who looks like he is about to fall asleep. Access to the ballots are limited and they track entry. The tabulation process is broadcast on the web.
If rejected, you have the option to request an text message, email or robocall in English, Spanish and Creole Haitian (Dade County is officially trilingual). The process of curing your ballot is simple but, might be too much for older people. You can request help. If you cheat there is an election crimes division of Florida.
I’m expert since SWMBO forgot to sign her ballot and it was my fault.
Technology is very helpful when used for good not to steal elections.
Look at Philadelphia they change the rules of the vote on election day concerning verification of ballots. Detroit had magically appearing ballots in the middle of the night, again. Arizona does not know how many people voted or apparently how to run voting machines or count. Maybe their neighbors Mexico can show them how to hold free and fair elections.
Jose,
I’ve been impressed with how Florida manages the vote since 2016. They went hog wild in fixing the system after the hanging chad fiasco. I think they were one of the few states that began processing absentee and mail in ballots long before election day. That should be a no brainer for every state.
You can request to see your personal ballot if you want.
How does the ESS DS200 you use as voter and the DS 850 systems manage this easy personal verification? A machine could of course not only count the votes/voters, but also prints out a slip of paper proving you cast vote no 758 at precisely 11:10:02. Does it?
You ever tested it?
According to Florida election authorities Miami Dade uses those machines:
https://files.floridados.gov/media/705877/voting-systems-in-use-by-county-20220830.pdf
https://www.essvote.com/products/
correction, changed something here:
but also print out …
TTG,
That included forcing Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes from office.
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fl-ne-broward-elections-supervisor-brenda-snipes-pension-20181126-story.html
I’ve been following issues of computerized voting for years. As a (now retired) Programmer, I heartily endorse Randall Munroe’s take on this:
https://xkcd.com/2030/
https://xkcd.com/463/
Ballotpedia has a good list of Voting Procedures used in different States (see link at bottom).
The worst “voting procedure” currently in use in USA is “Direct Recording Electronic” systems (DRE), where voters touch a screen to indicate their choices and the machine (theoretically) records the results. Some of these machines produce a “Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail” – a printout of the choices the machine recorded. These can be stored for verification of Recounts (but there can be other problems). The worst case is “DRE without VVPAT”, where there is absolutely no way to verify or audit the results.
There are only eight State where “DRE without VVPAT” was used in the 2020 election; seven of those are solid Red States, where Republican officials controlled the process. Louisiana is the only State where *all* voters use DRE without VVPAT; six others (IN, KS, KY, MS, OK, TN) use it in some cases but not all. New Jersey is the only Blue State (though with GOP Governor 2010-2018) which used some DRE without VVPAT in 2020.
So I have a hard time taking Republican complaints about vote-rigging seriously.
https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_methods_and_equipment_by_state
It’s a mystery to me how one can pass on these stories without taking a closer look. Filter bubbles:
Look at Philadelphia they change the rules of the vote on election day concerning verification of ballots. Detroit had magically appearing ballots in the middle of the night, again. Arizona does not know how many people voted or apparently how to run voting machines or count.
So you force Philly to count more slowly … The Detroid case of 2020 was of hyped in curious ways. …
https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2022/11/pa-election-2022-philadelphia-double-voting-lawsuit/
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/live/election-2022-results-pennsylvania-senate-governor-candidates-voting-updates-news-20221108.html#card-2076970891
I don’t understand [the point of] your reply. Do you think that “DRE without VVPAT” is OK? Do you object to my characterization of LA, IN, KS, KY, MS, OK, and TN as “Red States” where the election procedures & process are determined by Republican officials?
Note that I don’t claim that Democrats are squeaky clean in this, just that GOP claims of election-rigging are not very credible because they ignore the most likely problems with computer voting (as they occur mostly in reliably Red States).
Plz clarify?
willmann,
My point is that the machines might be flawed but, flaws can be exploited.
Stormy Patriot Joe
@stormypatriotjoe . 1h
22 million people live in FL
7 million people live in AZ
In FL we provided same day results
So why can’t a state with less than 1/3 of the
population do the same?
A.) Cheating
B.) Cheating
C.) A & B
Jose,
Florida begins processing early ballots long before election day. That’s the way it should happen. In Arizona, and especially Maricopa County, it’s a different story. This is from an AZCentral opinion piece addressing Mark Finchem’s impatience with the slow vote count.
“It’s what happens when you and your fellow election deniers tell Republicans to drop off their early ballots at polling places because they can’t trust the mail or a drop box. As a result, 290,000 early ballots were dropped off on Election Day — compared with 175,000 in 2020. Another 80,000 were returned or voted in the three days leading up to Tuesday’s election.
Now those ballots must be processed and the signatures on each one verified to ensure they are legitimate votes. Or would you, Mr. Finchem, rather the county skip that part?”
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2022/11/10/arizona-election-results-delayed-lake-finchem-hamadeh-grow-up/8323470001/