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[sluissa]

Not to mention being able to vote online, which would go a long way. Just need to make sure that it's as free of problems as possible.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yeah, because electronic voting machines worked perfectly, weren't suspect at all, and generated no distrust or controversy.

At least physical ballot-stuffing is difficult to conceal, and it's more difficult to efficiently disenfranchise people that way.

I agree, but as long as we're using electronic machines anyway (and I don't see them going away.) Might as well do it online. Still, paper would be preferable, despite the downsides it poses.

[Frumple]

Democrats are almost as bad about it as well. Election scheduling is a painful issue and Democrats try to keep numbers low on odd years.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-democrats-suppress-the-vote/

Would call the scale of that different, m'self, as well as in part (though only in part -- it's the roughly the same category as having the bloody election day on a weekday, but different from outright preventing people from voting ala vote ID et al "reform") the nature, but if you hadn't caught on, th'folks trying for that can go bugger themselves with improperly maintained cleaning supplies, too.

[smjjames]

Anyhow........ any guesses as to who falls into the undercard debate for the 10th? According to http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-gop-primary, it looks like Huckabee and Christie have both fallen below the cutoff point.

Although, to be honest, the undercard might actually get interesting with Christie in there.

[Sheb]

So, as the resident Belgian, I must say I'm quite fond of "mandatory" voting ("mandatory", because in effect they don't prosecute offenders). During the last elections, we had a 90% participation rate, of which 5% were blank or otherwise not valid. For starter, forcing the vast majority of relatively moderate voters to vote tend to favor more moderate parties. Forcing youngsters to vote also probably create a more progressive electorate.

Claiming spending 20 minutes of your Sunday to vote once every few year is an assault on your freedom is just ridiculous, especially for a country which routinely force people to perform jury duty.

But what I'm really surprised is that no one mentioned the greatest benefit of mandatory voting in the US: no more voter suppression. If everyone has to vote, you cannot prevent people from voting.


P.S.

... What would happen if a majority of the votes were for none of the above?

Go ask that one country what they did.... the one in Europe that couldn't elect a government... Denmark? Netherlands? Belgium? one of those, I forget.

Belgium.

That's wrong, the reason we had no government is not because a majority of people voted blank, but because our various political parties couldn't agree on a coalition.

[sluissa]

So, as the resident Belgian, I must say I'm quite fond of "mandatory" voting ("mandatory", because in effect they don't prosecute offenders). During the last elections, we had a 90% participation rate, of which 5% were blank or otherwise not valid. For starter, forcing the vast majority of relatively moderate voters to vote tend to favor more moderate parties. Forcing youngsters to vote also probably create a more progressive electorate.

Claiming spending 20 minutes of your Sunday to vote once every few year is an assault on your freedom is just ridiculous, especially for a country which routinely force people to perform jury duty.

But what I'm really surprised is that no one mentioned the greatest benefit of mandatory voting in the US: no more voter suppression. If everyone has to vote, you cannot prevent people from voting.


P.S.

... What would happen if a majority of the votes were for none of the above?

Go ask that one country what they did.... the one in Europe that couldn't elect a government... Denmark? Netherlands? Belgium? one of those, I forget.

Belgium.

That's wrong, the reason we had no government is not because a majority of people voted blank, but because our various political parties couldn't agree on a coalition.

Sorry, I'd forgotten the details, but the main point I wanted out of that example was that, even in the scenario where you had no defined leadership, your country didn't, in fact, destroy itself.

[smjjames]

Interesting article from FiveThirtyEight: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-gops-primary-rules-might-doom-carson-and-cruz/

[Zangi]

Voter suppression is a real thing in the greatest land of Murrica.  Except its dressed up benignly where it occurs.

[smjjames]

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-gop-primary#!

Looks like Mike Huckabee and Rand Paul are going to fall into the undercard. Though I guess depending on how strict they do the 2.5% requirement like if you're 2.45% or something or if you can be rounded up or if theres no rounding, even if they're at 2.49%, Rand Paul could still be on the main stage.

Those two have been pretty much irrelevant the past two debates (or all three so far), so, hopefully some of them start actually dropping out soon.

[Reelya]

Not to mention being able to vote online, which would go a long way. Just need to make sure that it's as free of problems as possible.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yeah, because electronic voting machines worked perfectly, weren't suspect at all, and generated no distrust or controversy.

At least physical ballot-stuffing is difficult to conceal, and it's more difficult to efficiently disenfranchise people that way.

Sadly, other countries have already come up with amazing ways to secure electronic voting machines, but America isn't doing any of those things. here are some ideas:

1- open source the code in the machines. then you can have a digital signature for the operating system in the machines and ensure it hasn't been tampered with. There should be no trade secrets here, everyone should know what code the machines are running on, so that scams or bugs can be detected.

2- store the vote in the machine's drive, plus transmit the votes to a central register, so there's an instantly tally. Each machine would also send/store timestamps of all votes. If lots of votes appeared in a flood from one machine, you'd basically have proof of tampering.

3- encrypt each machine's storage, and multiple opposed parties provide a portion of the encryption codes for each device. one for election officials, one for Dems, one for Reps etc. So you can make it so that nobody can tamper with the device without all representatives providing their keys. After the election we backup and upload the data for each machine, and all parties swap their encryption keys, so full audits can be done of the vote trail, times etc per machine.

4- print out a paper receipt, which goes into a box. This is more to assauge fears of the unseen digital stuff going on, but it gives you a third way of auditing the machine, which should match the data from the other two methods.

The above are all about making in-person electronic voting rock solid and more efficient however, and would not be relevant to online voting.

[nenjin]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/04/middleeast/ayatollah-death-to-america/index.html

The Ayatollah clarifies the meaning of "Death to America."

I thought we only saw that level of backpedaling out of American politicians. There has never been a more unambiguous statement than "Death to (something)."

[nenjin]

Could be. Then again, it also seems like this is a way to try and keep the support of the hardliners to whom "Death to America" has been their bread and butter since the 80s.

[mainiac]

An interesting economic example I came across that I think puts an interesting light on people not bothering to vote when voting isn't mandatory.

Life saving vaccination use in rural India is low, really low.  This is despite the fact that the vaccines are free.  However you have to bring your child to the clinic on five different scheduled days and maybe wait for the nurse to be there (clinics are shut about half the scheduled hours in rural areas).  So a 2010 study found that the immunization rate was only 6% (Although 78% of children received at least one of the five shots in the two year age window).  They tried offering a minor financial incentive, every time you brought in your kid for a shot you got two pounds of free daal and after all five shots you get a set of dinner plates.  In the target group, 38% of the kids the right age got all five vaccines in the target villages and parents even brought their kids from other villages miles away to participate in the program.  Rural India is poor but two pounds of daal is hardly a fortune, the mothers could earned more then that if they had spent the day working instead of taking their kids to the clinic.  It trifles in comparison to the cost of medical treatment for a child who is sick after not getting vaccinated.  Parents value the life of their children a hell of a lot more then two pounds of daal.  But the daal removed the barriers that get in people's way, it's easier to replace your trip to the market for daal with a trip to the clinic for daal then it is to give up several hours of your day to go to the clinic.  Even if you are giving up your entire day because you are walking form a village miles away, it makes it easier.

So if you think that requiring people to vote or somehow or other tricking them into the voting booth is a bad idea, consider that example.  They valued the shots (two pounds of daal didn't fully compensate them for their time) but just couldn't find the time to look after the health of their children.  The fact that someone doesn't vote isn't a sign that they are a bad voter or someone we dont want voting.  It shows that they only love democracy about as much as a mother cares about keeping her child healthy.

Could be. Then again, it also seems like this is a way to try and keep the support of the hardliners to whom "Death to America" has been their bread and butter since the 80s.

Pssssh, it's all a scheme by the Axis of Evil to catch us off guard.

[smjjames]

An interesting economic example I came across that I think puts an interesting light on people not bothering to vote when voting isn't mandatory.

Life saving vaccination use in rural India is low, really low.  This is despite the fact that the vaccines are free.  However you have to bring your child to the clinic on five different scheduled days and maybe wait for the nurse to be there (clinics are shut about half the scheduled hours in rural areas).  So a 2010 study found that the immunization rate was only 6% (Although 78% of children received at least one of the five shots in the two year age window).  They tried offering a minor financial incentive, every time you brought in your kid for a shot you got two pounds of free daal and after all five shots you get a set of dinner plates.  In the target group, 38% of the kids the right age got all five vaccines in the target villages and parents even brought their kids from other villages miles away to participate in the program.  Rural India is poor but two pounds of daal is hardly a fortune, the mothers could earned more then that if they had spent the day working instead of taking their kids to the clinic.  It trifles in comparison to the cost of medical treatment for a child who is sick after not getting vaccinated.  Parents value the life of their children a hell of a lot more then two pounds of daal.  But the daal removed the barriers that get in people's way, it's easier to replace your trip to the market for daal with a trip to the clinic for daal then it is to give up several hours of your day to go to the clinic.  Even if you are giving up your entire day because you are walking form a village miles away, it makes it easier.

So if you think that requiring people to vote or somehow or other tricking them into the voting booth is a bad idea, consider that example.  They valued the shots (two pounds of daal didn't fully compensate them for their time) but just couldn't find the time to look after the health of their children.  The fact that someone doesn't vote isn't a sign that they are a bad voter or someone we dont want voting.  It shows that they only love democracy about as much as a mother cares about keeping her child healthy.

Or, to put it another way, the fact that someone doesn't vote shows that maybe they do want to vote, but are unable for various reasons such as job getting in the way, access to polling stations, various forms of voter obstructionism.... There are a small minority who really don't care about politics for whatever reason, I know someone who does.

[Flying Dice]

Not to mention being able to vote online, which would go a long way. Just need to make sure that it's as free of problems as possible.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yeah, because electronic voting machines worked perfectly, weren't suspect at all, and generated no distrust or controversy.

At least physical ballot-stuffing is difficult to conceal, and it's more difficult to efficiently disenfranchise people that way.

Sadly, other countries have already come up with amazing ways to secure electronic voting machines, but America isn't doing any of those things. here are some ideas:

1- open source the code in the machines. then you can have a digital signature for the operating system in the machines and ensure it hasn't been tampered with. There should be no trade secrets here, everyone should know what code the machines are running on, so that scams or bugs can be detected.

2- store the vote in the machine's drive, plus transmit the votes to a central register, so there's an instantly tally. Each machine would also send/store timestamps of all votes. If lots of votes appeared in a flood from one machine, you'd basically have proof of tampering.

3- encrypt each machine's storage, and multiple opposed parties provide a portion of the encryption codes for each device. one for election officials, one for Dems, one for Reps etc. So you can make it so that nobody can tamper with the device without all representatives providing their keys. After the election we backup and upload the data for each machine, and all parties swap their encryption keys, so full audits can be done of the vote trail, times etc per machine.

4- print out a paper receipt, which goes into a box. This is more to assauge fears of the unseen digital stuff going on, but it gives you a third way of auditing the machine, which should match the data from the other two methods.

The above are all about making in-person electronic voting rock solid and more efficient however, and would not be relevant to online voting.

Oh, yeah, but I'd be genuinely surprised if any of that was implemented here. We've used electronic machines for two presidential elections in places, both with suspicious happenings, and barely anyone gave a shit about how vulnerable they were.

[smjjames]

It might be easier to adopt electronic voting machines if they 'tested the waters' first (even if using tried-and-true-and-reliable methods used in other countries) by using them in local elections for a while rather than trying to introduce them in a presidential election right off the bat. If I remember right, they were trying to use those electronic voting systems for the presidential election right off the bat and they hadn't been used previously.