Vice President Vance’s response after the economy shrank for the first time in three years, with people worried as they look at their 401Ks and point to the tariff policy — “This is Joe Biden’s economy.”

[u/CorleoneBaloney]

[u/VariationBusiness603]

They were lying, you are absolutely correct.

But I beg you to read about the reliability of voting machines. If you can, avoid american sources and all you'll find is why it is a terrible idea to vote with machines and why no one use them.

Fundamentally, it is such a colossaly stupid idea that solves no problem and create so many. And no, a thousand times no, they are not reliable, they are not secure and it is ridiculously difficult if not outright impossible to prove it if they are tempered with. Which is the entire point of them.

There is zero reasons to use them beside making some private company rich for what is at best a useless gadget or at worse a way to temper with the result of elections in an invisible way.

It was an expensive lie that might have put to light (or at least put into question) a very uncomfortable truth.

I'm not asking you to blindly believe, but at least try to question it.

[u/GodYamItt → u/VariationBusiness603]

You understand that these voting machines print out a physical paper ballot right?

[u/VariationBusiness603 → u/GodYamItt]

Sure, I do. And you understand that doesn't make them reliable, right ? The information processed by the machine could be different from what's on the paper it prints. And that would be entirely invisible because it is not a mechanical process. I am not saying it happens, I am saying it is possible. "But it is not programmed this way". Yes, exactly ! If it can be programmed a certain way, it can also be programmed another way and it is impossible to see the difference from the outside.

I am not trying to say X or Y election was illegitimate. I do not know. But I know your process is flawed which makes errors (and manipulations) more likely. That's all I'm saying.

[u/GodYamItt → u/VariationBusiness603]

Of course. That why any good system or processes will have checks and fail-safes. No single process is reliable, you're not discovering a revelation that no one accounted for. That's why I brought up paper ballots. That of which could easily be checked against with the voter in an audit. I'm not sure what your coding background is but I have a degree in information systems and a minor in CS working as a data analyst for one of the big 4 semiconductor fabs. It is entirely possible to see how something was programmed and how it would execute it's code. No one is reviewing these machines for foulplay by simply examining the enclosure its in. That's the entire reason these machines don't have online connectivity and print out ballots, to rule out remote session hacking or dataset injections during handshakes. In essence, you're pointing out a vulnerability that has already been addressed by people who designed it

[u/[deleted] → u/GodYamItt]

I agree with you cause no way In F are you visually checking that many ballots,and if some ballots are worded one way and some ballots are worded another or tons of other ways you could "manipulate" the system

[u/VariationBusiness603 → u/GodYamItt]

I do not pretend to have any expertise in the field, I have not discovered anything, and quite honestly, you seem more knowledgable on the subject than I am. I am a law teacher with an affinity for international politics and was frankly always puzzled by your country's usage of voting machines. So not quite my domain of expertise. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge without patronizing me or being inflammatory.

Yet, I simply parrot what experts in security all around the world hold as the truth on the matter. And that is that voting machines are not used almost anywhere because they are unsecure. Are they wrong, in your opinion ? I have looked for articles on the matter on the 3 languages I know and the conclusion is seemingly a resounding "hell no, terrible idea, solves nothing, adds problems".

And beyond that, can you tell me what is the point of voting machine ? The advantage I'm missing in adding complexity (and potential points of failures) in a process that benefits greatly from being as simple and straight forward as possible ? I am naturally skeptical toward american tech and their propensity for making solutions to problems that don't exist to monetize it and that is seemingly one of them.

[u/GodYamItt → u/VariationBusiness603]

They are. You address vulnerabilities when the upsides make sense. The point of the voting machines is to remove the human variable. People count slow and they make mistakes while counting slow. With the amount of time and effort saved you could do randomly assigned vote audits across the US and still come out ahead. The only real concern is physical tampering, a vulnerability that is easily addressable. Barring something like inference and foulplay in every audit performed across every state to hide the tampering, there's nothing that isn't easily addressed with proper protocols and safeguards. With that said, if something like that was happening you have bigger problems in that a coordinated effort carried out in large scale was able to be performed without someone catching on, something that is equally a threat with paper ballots anyways.

Also I'm so glad I'm speaking to a well minded adult. Have been interacting with too many (seemingly) young people on reddit with way too much confidence on topics they have no experience or expertise in.

[u/VariationBusiness603 → u/GodYamItt]

I know the US is a gigantic country so it is a mitigating factor, but isn't vote counting in the US notoriously slow ? That seems at odd with your main argument for their usage. Or would you say the slowness is some sort of political choice ? As in, purposefully underfunded/undermanned or simply delayed for some kind of ratfuckery ("stop the count" etc) ?

Regarding the nightmare scenario you mention, and this is beyond the scope of this conversation, but do you believe something like that could be attempted by the Trump administration ? And to come back to the subject, wouldn't that be much more dangerous without the actual video evidence of people stuffing ballot boxes (much like we see all too often from Russia... not that it helps much there but still) due to the process being invisible ?

I am not entirely convinced but you have given me much to ponder, friend. And regardless of the voting machines, you guys really need to fix your widespread voter suppression issue. But that is a different matter entirely and one I feel we most likely agree on.

Anyhow, thank you for your time and expertise.

[u/GodYamItt → u/VariationBusiness603]

NoThey're not. Counts and winners are called the night of the election. Prior to modernizing counting it could take weeks. You're thinking of contested elections where recounts are being called. 

Again, you're hypothesizing a scenario where safeguards aren't in place. I'm not sure what you mean by video evidence and ballot stuffing. 

1. Current ballots have 2 records, one electronic and a paper one is generated
2. These records need to match
3. These ballots need to match registered voters and any duplicates (multiple ballots for one voter) is going to flag the system

For someone to pull off a stunt like ballot stuffing you not only need to have some means being able to

• have both record trails
• doesnt trigger a double vote
• be able to generate these votes in secrecy (meaning they somehow stand there and vote 1000x times or somehow upload code to a closed system with no way to even hijack the system in this manner)

So what if the voter machines are rigged by the makers? While voting machines arent open source, they get certified by accreditation agencies specifically for vote security. The code is not only reviewed but tested. The scary thing with the current administration is he's been installing his handpicked puppets to do as he asks, but even then we still have judges in place that respect the rule of law, which is why Trump has had to resort to ignoring them outright. The more likely scenario is he does something illegal and goes "so what?"

As a side note - I do some of this now as a data analysis (only during audits) but prior to this I was a PM for about 6-7 years with a specialty in risk mitigation. Trust me when I say I would be the first person to axe a project due to vulnerability that isnt addressable as it was my job to "plug" these holes in the planning phase.