https://medium.com/@spencergundert/hillary-clinton-and-elect...
http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/ he has some good points.
My country, Ireland, briefly flirted with the idea of voting machines areound the same time, and decided to scrap them at enormous expense and go back to paper ballots: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/opposition-condemns-e-voting-...
> The public needed Russia (!) for a fresh dosis of unpopular truths about those machinations. This documents more evidence on machinations.
I'm not convinced the "Russian hackers" angle is correct, it seems like a convenient cover story for the DNC, to draw a distinction between Hillary and Trump with regard to Putin. They know many older voters don't understand this stuff (no offense to older HN readers!) and will likely buy it. It's just like the North Korean hackers story for the Sony hack. It could just as easily have been disgruntled DNC insiders, and Wikileaks is happy to have the real source of the leak disguised.
I think John Oliver described it best in his video a couple of days back. People seem to be motivated by feelings, not facts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNdkrtfZP8I
While it was written for the creationism/evolution argument, this[1] article is one of the better descriptions of this mode of thought.
While the typical HN reader uses language to convey ideas, to the creationist or the RNC attendees on John Oliver's show language instead is used first for phatic expression and social hierarchy. This is a language barrier; one side argues facts, while the other side defers to authority and feelings. Before any real communication can happen between the two sides, you first have to solve the language barrier.
[1] http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/05/31/more-than-just-resi...
Shortly before the primary election, the California Secretary of State issued a clarifying statement about how the process worked for NPP voters. It included these options for NPP voters who wanted to vote in a primary:
Contact your county elections office no later than May 31
to request a [party specific] vote-by-mail ballot... OR
Bring your vote-by-mail ballot to an early voting location
or the polls on Election Day and exchange it for a ballot
with presidential candidates
NOTE: If you have lost your original vote-by-mail ballot,
you will have to vote a provisional ballot at the polls—your
vote will still be counted.
Since I was planning to vote in person anyway, and since I wanted to vote in the Democratic primary, I decided to bring my valid vote-by-mail ballot with me to exchange for a standard non-provisional Democratic party ballot at my assigned polling place.
When I got there (the lobby of the local Catholic church), I waited (briefly) in line, presented my mail-in ballot, and was told that exchanges for Democratic ballots were not being allowed. I mentioned the Secretary of States memo, and was (politely) told by the volunteer at the desk that they they knew nothing of this, and had been instructed that only provisional ballots were to be given.
Not wanting to hold other people up, and not wanting to accept a provisional ballot that would not show up in the end-of-day count, I left my place in line, went outside, and researched my options on my cell phone.
I discovered that indeed, Contra Costa County historically has had a policy of not exchanging mail in NPP ballots for "real" partisan ballots, that the Secretary of State's memo was part of the attempt to make clear that this was against state law, and that the day before the election the County had begrudgingly agreed to temporarily change its policy:
After hearing reports of Contra Costa County’s practice,
the Secretary of State’s Office contacted local elections
officials. On Monday, they announced they would change
their practice and offer these voters replacement ballots.
But apparently no one had told the volunteers working at the polls!
So seeing no way to solve this on my own, I went though the line again, and accepted a Democratic "provisional" ballot. I was told that I needed to take the "provisional voting class", and directed to a table with 4 or 5 confused people already seated at it. A few minutes later, another volunteer (elderly, bewildered, apparently having a very hard day) tried unsuccessfully to give us instructions on how to fill out the form on which we were to affirm our identity, electoral status, and reason for requesting a provisional ballot.
Then the volunteer left, and we filled out the forms as best we could. The process was sufficiently confusing that one of the voters gave up and left. After 5 minutes, the volunteer returned, and then mentioned that I wasn't supposed to have filled out the line that said "Reason for requesting provisional ballot", crossed out my complicated answer.
He then went to fetch the actual ballots for us. Most of us filled them out at the table, although I think one person went to a voting booth to do so. A second person gave up at this time. Or maybe they hadn't understood that they were supposed to sign and seal the envelope and drop it in the box on the way out? Or maybe they had to go to the bathroom and planned to return.
Eventually, the volunteer returned and I was told I was told to tear off the "receipt" from the provisional ballot and drop the ballot itself in an official looking bag next to the exit. The instructions on the receipt said that after 30 days, I could check online or by phone to see whether my ballot was accepted.
I came home, and immediately filled out and faxed a Voter Complaint form, which I hoped the State would be sympathetic too as the County was directly disobeying their directives and failing to uphold their agreement: http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/additional-elections-informa...
I never heard back any followup from the complaint. I've checked online several times, but 45 days later it still shows up as "No ballot found". That's right, so far as I can tell my vote was neither counted nor rejected, just lost. I might try phoning or going in person to see if I can learn more, but at this point I feel it's a lost cause.
Edit: I should point out that I don't blame the volunteers --- they were poorly trained, and doing as they are told. But why are we relying on poorly trained volunteers for our elections? I do blame the County, since they failed to follow through on their pledge to the State and the press, but assume this is mostly poor communication rather than any specific ill-intent.
Here's an interview with Julian Assange when asked about the source of the leaks, with direct quotes from Clinton's campaign manager, quoting unnamed experts: https://youtu.be/axuJfX3cO9Q?t=12m50s
"On Sunday morning, the issue erupted, as Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, argued on ABC’s “This Week” that the emails were leaked “by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump” citing “experts” but offering no other evidence."
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/25/us/politics/donald-trump-r...
I mean anyone can quote anonymous "experts" to craft a narrative. Doesn't make it true.
Here is a better example (ignore the cheesy setup, the actual analysis is very insightful into Trump's media manipulation tactics):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55NxKENplG4
If you look at his blog posts written during the primary, he was saying quite early that Trump would win also.
One good thing came of this. When I read your comment, it occurred to me to add "Presume good faith" to our provisional list of new HN guidelines.
The way flagging works is that users click the 'flag' link that appears after the timestamp underneath a story title. A user needs a small amount of karma (31 or more) before such links appear. Flags have a number of effects, one of which is to downweight a story so that it is more likely to fall in rank. If there are enough flags on a story, the software will eventually kill it (close it to new comments and hide it from users except those with 'showdead' set to 'yes' in their profile).
The purpose of flagging is to indicate that a story does not belong on HN. Frivolous flagging—e.g. flagging a story that's clearly on-topic by the site guidelines just because one personally dislikes it—eventually gets an account's flagging privileges taken away. But there's a new 'hide' link for people to click if they'd just like not to see a story.
Flagging of comments is important, too. If you see a comment that breaks the HN guidelines, such as by being uncivil, you should flag it. But there's one extra hoop to jump through in the comment case: you have to click on the comment's timestamp to go to its page, then click 'flag' at the top. That's a speed bump to dampen impulsive flagging.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/us/politics/spy-agency-...?
FYI, the Sony hack was very likely not committed by an insider (https://www.operationblockbuster.com/wp-content/uploads/2016...). DISCLAIMER: I worked with the team who did operation blockbuster.
Motive is less clear. In reality, they probably hacked the DNC because everybody hacks everybody; that's the reality of modern cyberespionage. America hacks the Russian political parties, they hack us back. But this time someone screwed up and they got caught, so now we need a cover story.
The coverstory of trying to manipulate the election is basically convenient for all involved. It is far fetched enough to sound unbelievable, so it provides diplomatic cover. It also provides cover for why there's no similar story at the RNC, which is better than admitting either the Russians couldn't do it, or they could and they got away with that one. It provides cover to Clinton who can now claim the Russians want to elect Trump so please focus on that instead of anything to do with email, and it provides cover to Trump who would like to keep the word email in the news. This is the story that all our characters are happy to go with.
But the Russians being the perpetrators? That part is definitely true. There is way too much evidence over way too many years. The DNC did not create a Russian intelligence organization in 2007 in order to cover up their email leak in this election.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofacy_Group
[1] http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/36195/cyber-crime/cozydu...
I looked up one of the referenced incidents -- the botched poll in Arizona -- and based on other articles (see: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/31/ar...) it's hard to tell from a bird's eye perspective whether even that was "rigged".. or whether it was mere "incompetence".
I know FiveThirtyEight, referenced several times in the paper, (http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-system-isnt-rigged-a...) lean against the "rigged" argument, which is where I stand from a big picture perspective. Political shenanigans always happen, but regardless of this, demographics explain the result of the Democratic primary more than anything else. (That being said, in my opinion, the same demographics should frankly tell the Democratic Party to handle the Sanders supporters much better than they have been so far.)
I haven't read the entire document yet but have sampled a couple of parts. The exit polls section, by the way, is irresponsibly flawed.
It's well-known that the primary purpose of exit polls in the US is not to audit elections. It's not even to project winners. It's to update demographic models. It's well-known that using the vote count to update an exit poll's model is normal and expected practice, and not evidence of conspiracy. Yes, there have been cases where exit poll divergence has been used as evidence to point out likely fraud. But that only happens when the divergence reaches a certain level, and - this is more key - this determination is made by the exit poll organizations themselves.
Here, in order to believe that exit polling shows evidence of fraud, you'd have to not only believe that the exit poll divergence does not have simpler, alternative explanations, and that the level of divergence goes beyond a reasonable range, but that our exit poll organization - a non-partisan coalition of several different independent news organizations - was aware of it and unanimously chose to suppress the information. This is tinfoil hat territory.
I call it irresponsible because the point of view advanced in this report is willfully ignorant of how exit polls even work.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/22/ho...
in for nearly $1m
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/clinton-foundati...
The standard is that if the prosecution intentionally "cheats" and obtains a conviction through unconstitutional means, the conviction cannot be appealed unless it can be shown that there was a "reasonable probability" that the verdict would have been different without the violation of rights. Worse, in our adversarial system, prosecutors are essentially obligated to argue that any misconduct had no effect. One might even conclude that they are "obligated to cheat".
Ken White, a former prosecutor and legal blogger at Popehat has an excellent explanation of this in his recent piece "Confessions of an Ex-Prosecutor". I'm tempted to just quote entire sections from it, but perhaps better just to link to it. If pressed for time, start with the section "Prosecutors Are Duty-Bound to Argue That Rights Don't Matter": http://reason.com/archives/2016/06/23/confessions-of-an-ex-p...
So, while your point is excellent, one might ask whether our voting system should be more like an athletic contest, or a legal proceeding? And if the answer is "like an athletic contest", what does that say about our legal system?
[0]https://twitter.com/Elect_Justice/status/758376021674561536
At this time, I'm still unable to reach their site.
It turns out that satisfying the ballot requirements is already a challenge requiring organization, and that organization is called a political party.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/22/republican_it_special...
Ok here is some reasonable disagreement
Voter impersonation is a very rare type of fraud [0] and ID laws tend to make it hard for some but not all voters to vote [1] meaning they don't prevent fraud, they just prevent democrat votes.
0. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/06/a-com... 1. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/measurin...
So let me bring up some exhaustively prepared articles from the past. A lot of these are from the late 2000s when the "voter ID" issue was in play, but I do not think the electoral landscape has changed that much since then.
A report on voter fraud in 2007 from the Brennan Center concluded a very low rate of voter fraud in 2004. http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/The%...
News21 (part of the Carnegie Knight media initiative) created a database of voter fraud. They found little. http://votingrights.news21.com/article/election-fraud/
We have this Washington Post reporter who tracked voter fraud, and found little. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/06/a-com...
And... another paper on how "voter fraud is in the eye of the beholder." (Harvard Law Review) http://www.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/anso...
So... that's a lot of data (I could link many more reports from this era) that indicates that, frankly, voter fraud from any angle really hasn't been a big issue before (and that any perception may be due to political bias, perhaps). I do believe there's plenty of inefficiencies regarding the American electoral process, and that might be right ("inaccurate, costly, and inefficient" as the Pew Center on the States alleged in 2012, that I buy -- http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_as...). But there's a difference between incompetence and awful systems, and outright fraud.
I must acknowledge that this isn't the only paper alleging fraud in the 2016 primaries (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6mLpCEIGEYGYl9RZWFRcmpsZk0...). I will note however that, for this one, Snopes was skeptical in that the numbers had not been peer reviewed by independent parties (http://www.snopes.com/stanford-study-proves-election-fraud-t...) and note counter-viewpoints ala Joshua Holland of The Nation (who does not think much of "exit poll conspiracies": https://www.thenation.com/article/reminder-exit-poll-conspir...)
This is why I'm very cautious. Bias is huge in politics; it may be exhaustively prepared, but if they are using bunk statistics, it's not worth much.
Indeed, and I like this set of visualizations to demonstrate that: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim
This alone is ample reason for those two parties to resist any change to the voting method. Anything else might undermine their duopoly.
So we know why the major parties would oppose voting system change. Is there something beyond the parties' word that keeps non-partisan members of the public from wanting to change voting systems?
On one hand, we have an electronic vote count which can't be verified and on the other, we have raw exit polls data that are kept secret. What kind of Democracy is that??? Isn't transparency one of the most fundamental principal in a Democracy?
The American election process isn't transparent at all... How can we claim our elections to be democratic?
To run for a county office, such as Sheriff, Coroner, Treasurer, Commissioner/Constable, or School Board, as an independent, I would need 5000 verified signatures. To list a party affiliation, I would need about 36000. Based on the experience of the Libertarian Party in 2015, I might face a 60% rejection rate for signatures, meaning I would need to collect 12500, costing roughly $25000.
To keep my party listed as a "qualified party" for the next election, it would need 20% (!) of the votes cast in a statewide race.
The major parties do not need to collect that many signatures, which gives an innate funding advantage for campaigning.
And you might expect that the other major party might not run an opposition candidate for Sheriff in a county where the incumbents are heavily favored every election, but how about allowing the candidate for U.S. Senate to run unopposed? [0] What about three of the seven districts for House of Representatives? [1]
I don't tilt at windmills.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_... : "An independent candidate would have been able to challenge Sessions if at least 44,828 signatures had been submitted by June 3, 2014."
[1] https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_House_of_Representativ... : Districts 4 and 7 were completely unopposed; district 5 had only an independent challenger.