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[PTTG??]

Relevant XKCD.

It should be so easy to make reasonably-secure voting machines that the fact that they are unreasonably vulnerable feels, itself, like evidence of something untoward.

[Wolfhunter107]

Let's no go into conspiracy theories, please.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There's nothing conspiratorial about it. There is no other possible motive but the corruption of voting machines, not that we should use those at all anyway.

[Flying Dice]

Yeah, there's literally no justifiable reason to use voting machines at all, let alone ones with exploitable vulnerabilities and no audit trail to follow, unless you're deliberately trying to manipulate elections. It's not as if electioneering isn't a venerable tradition in the 'states, gerrymandering is about as old as voting districts.

[misko27]

This documentary was shown to my class by my professor, who I should note is so anti-conspiracy, moderate, and thoroughly vanilla that I'm sure that it would disgust some of you.

The point is massive flaws exist. Fortunately, it's much easier to detect electoral rigging than it is to pull off manipulation in the first place, due to [ur=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_lawl]Benford's law[/url] making it relatively easy to scan for it, and we can say with some relative safety that despite these holes, most (but not all! particularly at a local level) elections in the US are conducted fairly.

[muldrake]

There's nothing conspiratorial about it. There is no other possible motive but the corruption of voting machines, not that we should use those at all anyway.

I wouldn't say there's nothing conspiratorial about it, but it has more to do with run of the mill corruption, incompetence, and the universal practice of always picking the lowball bidder even when they provide an absolutely defective product.

However, the glaring vulnerabilities are an open invitation to engage in villainy for the sort of people who are already inclined to that sort of thing.

[PTTG??]

It'd be amazing if Trump didn't exploit it. And he'd think he was "correcting" the record, too.

[Frumple]

There's nothing conspiratorial about it. There is no other possible motive but the corruption of voting machines, not that we should use those at all anyway.

I wouldn't say there's nothing conspiratorial about it, but it has more to do with run of the mill corruption, incompetence, and the universal practice of always picking the lowball bidder even when they provide an absolutely defective product.

Hey now, not really universal. Even exempting pork barrel stuff. US just has hella' incentive to cut corners on a lot of things gov't funding wise, due to that whole "we keep refusing to raise taxes" thing. Personally met a fair few more than one acquisitions/contract-seeking type critter in public works say they'd love to hire someone that's better than the absolute baseline, even if it cost more, but it can be complete goddamn misery to fit anything major into the budgets a lot of these areas are workin' with. And particularly when it's something that's used like maybe a week or two every other year or so, and doesn't involve something that's going to directly kill people if it doesn't work at 100%, well...

E: Also extra bonus fun time rolls in when some degree (sometimes relatively little, sometimes almost entirely) of the ones who ultimately hold the purse strings for that area are elected officials. A common source of kvetching vis a vis fanfiction is the absolute lack of qualification and quality control on what's produced/who's writing/etc. What we're talking about is basically the governmental equivalent :V

It can make for fun times. Actually had an illiterate alcoholic elected as mayor of a town near me, a handful of years back. He didn't last the full term

E2: And that wasn't hyperbole or exaggeration. Literally someone that'd done a round or two through rehab (it didn't stick) and was not able to read.

[smjjames]

It can make for fun times. Actually had an illiterate alcoholic elected as mayor of a town near me, a handful of years back. He didn't last the full term

E2: And that wasn't hyperbole or exaggeration. Literally someone that'd done a round or two through rehab (it didn't stick) and was not able to read.

Lol, what did the guy promise to do if he was elected?

[EnigmaticHat]

US politicians clearly have a "don't rock the boat" attitude towards cheating in elections as well.  It seems there's an unwritten rule that you can kick and scream as much as you want during an election, but the second its called you need to fall back in line and shut up.  I don't think its about protecting cheaters either, its about preserving appearances.  What's the point of holding an election if you can't convince anyone it was legitimate?

Edit: If we really want to have change, we need a white hat election hijacking.  Make every unopposed election in several states have 90% write in votes for the same meme character or "anonymous" or something like that.  A show of force, "I didn't change the outcome here, but I could have."

[Strife26]

America: current record holder for peaceful transitions of power.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm pretty sure it's actually Britain, Iceland, or Ethiopia that has that. The Civil War is definitely too recent for that record to go to us.

[itisnotlogical]

Edit: If we really want to have change, we need a white hat election hijacking.  Make every unopposed election in several states have 90% write in votes for the same meme character or "anonymous" or something like that.  A show of force, "I didn't change the outcome here, but I could have."

If I was smart enough to do that without getting caught, I might.

inb4 v&

[Strife26]

I'm pretty sure it's actually Britain, Iceland, or Ethiopia that has that. The Civil War is definitely too recent for that record to go to us.

Civil War wasn't a issue with the transition of power, although it looks like someone's nuked the nice Wikipedia page on the topic.

[EnigmaticHat]

Edit: If we really want to have change, we need a white hat election hijacking.  Make every unopposed election in several states have 90% write in votes for the same meme character or "anonymous" or something like that.  A show of force, "I didn't change the outcome here, but I could have."

If I was smart enough to do that without getting caught, I might.

inb4 v&

The problem is, if you want to do that, you need to make as big a statement as possible so there's no possible way it could be misinterpreted or ignored.  And that would require a lot of boots on the ground, in a lot of different places at the same time.

Which means you need multiple people who agree with what you're trying to do and are willing to go to jail for it.  I don't doubt that there are plenty of people out there who could be convinced to do that, but there's ALSO plenty of undercover FBI agents out there.  Not an easy undertaking; which is probably for the best.