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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIt is entirely possible votes were tampered with!"
Quote from former Associate Director of National Intelligence.
That contention relies on the notion that Russia did everything in its capability to capture the election, from hijacking social media platforms to recruiting Americans to assist them, and they breached various voting systems in dozens of states, but the one the one thing they held back from doing, was change votes themselves (even though, as the work of Dr. Simons and other experts show, they could do so invisibly). Why would Putin hold back in this one instance, when he has shown no such restraint in any other way?
The answer is, in all likelihood: he didnt hold back. Claims that votes were not changed to ensure the election of Putins tool, are looking less plausible by the day
https://t.co/hKOkwHkUIP
Brainstormy
(2,380 posts)votes were probably tampered with, but the admission of that would be HORRIFIC. And not just for Republicans.
AlexSFCA
(6,137 posts)such a discovery may create permanent damage to our democracy. The entire foundation of western democracies is based on trust. IMO, the best way to deal with it is to protect future elections from hacking, always have paper trail for audit abailable.
Maraya1969
(22,479 posts)I am almost positive you will find evidence of voter fraud in those boxes. Actually you already do, since they have been tampered with as seen from the outside.
librechik
(30,674 posts)onecaliberal
(32,854 posts)and watch them do it again? They must be rolling in the floor laughing at the extent of our naiveté.
LonePirate
(13,420 posts)Qutzupalotl
(14,311 posts)Here is the full link:
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2018/3/9/1747706/-Former-Assoc-Dir-of-National-Intelligence-it-was-entirely-possible-votes-were-tampered-with
t.co is Twitters link shortener.
world wide wally
(21,743 posts)Cohen paid Stormy for something that never happened and Russia hacked our election not to manipulate any votes.
We get dumber and dunberer
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)the USA's 2016 elections.
Blaming "Jews", ummmmmmm, where have I heard that before.
Enoki33
(1,587 posts)onecaliberal
(32,854 posts)dchill
(38,489 posts)Dems legitimately won the Presidency AND the Senate.
pandr32
(11,582 posts)triron
(22,002 posts)Yet there are those that claim exit polls are no good (except in the rest of the world).
dchill
(38,489 posts)tomp
(9,512 posts)mythology
(9,527 posts)how absurd the notion of this claim is. Also you have the problem that the national polls were more accurate than in 2012.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ten-reasons-why-you-should-ignore-exit/
1. Exit polls have a much larger intrinsic margin for error than regular polls. This is because of what are known as cluster sampling techniques. Exit polls are not conducted at all precincts, but only at some fraction thereof. Although these precincts are selected at random and are supposed to be reflective of their states as a whole, this introduces another opportunity for error to occur (say, for instance, that a particular precinct has been canvassed especially heavily by one of the campaigns). This makes the margins for error somewhere between 50-90% higher than they would be for comparable telephone surveys.
4. Exit polls challenge the definition of a random sample. Although the exit polls have theoretically established procedures to collect a random sample essentially, having the interviewer approach every nth person who leaves the polling place in practice this is hard to execute at a busy polling place, particularly when the pollster may be standing many yards away from the polling place itself because of electioneering laws.
https://www.thenation.com/article/reminder-exit-poll-conspiracy-theories-are-totally-baseless/
Heres how exit polling works: In most states, Edison conducts phone interviews before Election Day to capture absentee and early voting. Then, on Election Day, they send staff to between 15 and 50 polling places per state, and they ask between 500 and 3,000 voters to fill out questionnaires indicating which candidate they voted for and what issues are important to them. In order to account for those voters who refuse to fill out a questionnaire, exit pollsters have to adjust their survey data. Lenski says that about 5060 percent refuse to participate. When someone says no, the pollster notes the persons rough age, race, and gender. They then weight their data to match the population that voted at that location.
Some media outlets post preliminary data when the polls closethats the supposedly raw data that, according to the conspiracy-minded, reveal the fraud. But those data have already been merged with the results of those telephone interviews, and they have already been adjusted throughout the day (the interviewers send in their survey results in three waves). Unadjusted data are never released. (If you Google exit polls adjusted New York, youll get back dozens of posts claiming that the unadjusted exit polls varied significantly from the final results. All of those posts are dead wrong, as none of their authors have any idea what the unadjusted data looked like.)
The actual facts are easy to find. I don't get the desire to embrace some utterly unsubstantiated nonsensical conspiracy theory. How is this claim (offered with absolutely zero evidence) any different than Republicans claiming in person voter fraud is a thing?
TheFrenchRazor
(2,116 posts)liberalla
(9,247 posts)cilla4progress
(24,731 posts)IT!
procon
(15,805 posts)effort in hacking into US balloting systems and Democratic servers? That was the whole purpose! The Russian's were not going to all that trouble just to be the electronic version of a snoopy Peeping Tom, and the hacking wasn't done as a lark.
The Russians had a big goal, the quid pro quo deal of getting Trump elected so he would remove their restrictive sanctions. As a side effect, they also proved that they could manipulate any future elections, either keeping Trump in power as long as he played ball, or casting doubts and uncertainty in the voting process that would rock the whole country.
onecaliberal
(32,854 posts)lunatica
(53,410 posts)Its worth billions or maybe trillions of dollars for Putin and Tillerson (head of Exxon), ergo his appointment as Secretary of State.
Their mouths go cotton dry at their ravenous and insatiable craving for that oil! Its also the reason they deny climate change. Putin will and has done anything to get that oil. Murder and even destroy us if he has to.
not fooled
(5,801 posts)and other billionaires anticipating trillions in tax cuts and gain from privatization, selling off public assets, etc. etc. etc.
Who thinks that between putin and U.S. crazy libertarians looking to loot the treasury that these pirates would stick at altering votes?
Of course they did.
Igel
(35,300 posts)Strictly speaking, "voting systems" is too ambiguous when it's well known that all the known hacks are "voter registration systems."
The ambiguity very quickly starts to be either clearly and intentionally ambiguous on purpose, or the writer's incorrigibly unaware of a fairly important distinction on a topic of professed expertise.
My district's grade software was hacked a number of years ago. Teachers were immediately concerned that their personnel files, from Social Security information to any reprimands were public information. Even when it was pointed out that the teachers themselves know that these are two entirely different systems because they have access to the gradebooks but do not have access to changing their own employee information some insisted on saying, "But they're both on computers!" These were not, mind you, the computer science teachers.
Voter registration systems were breached. If they changed voter registration data, there are several possibilities (since more than several systems were breached, odds are most of these happened): Some people had to file provisional ballots and they were okay; backups were used; the information had already been exported for use on election day (this is true in one case that was reported, perhaps more); nothing was changed because there was little point in it.
Now, if they did get access and didn't change anything, what was the point? Perhaps they copied the information. Perhaps they didn't know what was in the database until they got inside, poked around looking for the family jewels, and instead found they'd broken into the garden shed. Maybe it was recon, casing the place out so next election they'd have a plan on what to do.
It's really hard to argue from silence. Every bit as hard as arguing from "cui bono?" Okay, that's wrong, I tried to be civil and it didn't work. Here's another true with a greater nod to accuracy: It's absurdly, ridiculously easy to argue from silence, but it's completely pointless. It's impossible to argue in a principled, valid way from silence.
uponit7771
(90,336 posts)Amaryllis
(9,524 posts)of votes; of course not! They were just having fun...nothing to see here.
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)Dirty Donnie, the republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief, and his republican, Inc Kabal of Kolluding Kristo-Kronies are:
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Last edited Sat Mar 10, 2018, 09:40 PM - Edit history (1)
"protesters" ready to vote against Clinton or sit on sidelines. Ruskies clearly added to lies, etc., leading up to November. But too many leaning Blue were willing to believe the lies, racism, protectionism, America First BS, etc.
Sure it's "possible," but I think we are fooling ourselves if we truly believe that's why we lost.
RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)The big problems are voter suppression, Russian meddling, and targeted voter propaganda through Twitter, Google, Facebook, and other forms of social media. There is no question that the Trump campaign, through Cambridge Analytica, did this -- and that the Russians did this. The only question is how much they conspired together in the propaganda campaign.
We need to figure out how to defend the democratic process from fake news and micro-targeted AI propaganda -- or lose our democracy. https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029576691
DO NOT underestimate the overarching reach AND impact of the Russian bots. They were everywhere, they were fierce, clever, extremely sophisticated and very, very effective.
Trump victory margin in Michigan: 13,107
Michigan Crosscheck purge list: 449,922
Trump victory margin in Arizona: 85,257
Arizona Crosscheck purge list: 270,824
Trump victory margin in North Carolina: 177,008
North Carolina Crosscheck purge list: 589,393
http://www.gregpalast.com/election-stolen-heres/
http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/rigged-election-donald-trump-won-every-surprise-swing-state-by-the-same-1-margin/118/
The most commonly posited explanation of Donald Trumps shocking election victory was that every professional pollster in the nation despite each working independently and using differing methodologies somehow managed to overlook the same pockets of Trump voters in these states. If such pockets did exist, they would have existed in varying sizes in each of the four states, thus resulting in different sized wins in each.
Ask any statistician and theyll tell you that a reasonable distribution of the results would have been Trump winning one of the states by one percent, won one of them by perhaps three percent, won one of them by two percent, lost one of them by one percent, or something along those lines. But instead the voting tallies looked startlingly different from any natural distribution. In fact they looked startlingly the same.
According to the New York Times, the voting results broke down like this: Trump won Florida by just over one percent of the vote. He also won Pennsylvania by just over one percent. He won Michigan by just under one percent. And he won Wisconsin by precisely one percent. Thats not how numbers tend to work in the real world.
On its own, this kind of suspiciously consistent numerical dispersion across the four states that decided the election would be something that could be written off as a mere fluke. But when you put it within the context of the numerous other ways in which the voting tallies make no mathematical sense, it points to the numbers having been rigged or altered.
MikeFarb @mikefarb1
#unhackthevote
Did Trump win Michigan? I don' think so.
Won by 10,704 but wait
75,355 Ballots Thrown Out
87 Machines Broke Down in Detrioit
Link to tweet
onecaliberal
(32,854 posts)RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)Hermit-The-Prog
(33,343 posts)With all of the prongs of the attack, it was not necessary for votes to be "flipped" in order to steal the election. Manipulation of the voter rolls was just one more part of voter suppression and we know the Russians had the opportunity to assist with that.
triron
(22,002 posts)lunamagica
(9,967 posts)Cha
(297,203 posts)to the giant puzzle of why trump is in the wh. And, all of them are egregiously crooked.
I agreed with your post, lunamagica, and then I saw whose it was.
Matt_R
(456 posts)Yep, you are describing the Russian "bots." 99% sure all the Democrats infighting were Russians starting, then getting others to join in on the Hillary hate.
dchill
(38,489 posts)ewagner
(18,964 posts)First, there are too many servers operating independently for counting votes to have this happen on a large scale.
Second, In Wisconsin we mostly use "readers" of paper ballots that are not hooked up to any network whatsoever. In order to hack those machines, each reader would have to have been reprogrammed individually.
Third in my City, like most of Wisconsin, the readers are kept under lock and key by the City Clerk and counts of the total voters recorded manually are compared against the total number of ballots counted by the reader.
Fourth, the state voter registration rolls are subject to hacking and much mischief could (and probably was) done in that data base. But the number of people being turned away for problems with registration was very small and almost always because of no proper ID. The total turned away was pretty insignificant.
I'm sure there are a lot of brighter people out there who can disagree with me but I'm a local elected official and I watch these things pretty carefully.
onecaliberal
(32,854 posts)I tend to believe those in Intel who have more information and facts than we do.
RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)You know, the vendors of all these electronic machines are very quick to point out there's "no internet" involved. I call BS. If results are transmitted over phone lines, and they are, that data transmission is hackable.
Further, whatever electronic "readers" you've got can be pre-programmed to kick in and skew results under some circumstances -- start counting every 4th Dem vote as Republican if the Dem votes start winning. Or many other possibilities. According to Greg Palast, it was the scanners NOT the hanging chads that ultimately gave us a George Bush win in 2000. (Well, enabled SCOTUS to give us Bush.)
However, if you're in Wisconsin, you may be right: Scott Walker has done an amazing job of just disenfranchising people, heading off any actual problem like LOSING any elections. So no need to bother with the more tedious work.
ewagner
(18,964 posts)are hand carried to the clerks office and hand entered into a spreadsheet.
Errors have occurred in this process but they have done two duplicate sheets and checked the data against one another.
True....the readers themselves can be pre-programmed to count more votes for one candidate than another. But there are non-partisan races where that wouldn't make much sense. The programming for each election is done locally and the machines are kept in a vault in City hall. It would take a massive local conspiracy to do any pre-programming.
The voter suppression crap that Walker is pulling is primarily targeted at the major population centers: Milwaukee, Madison, Appleton, Green Bay, Eau Claire etc where there are more minorities and elderly who don't have access to state-issued IDs...and to make sure, he cut down the funding for state drivers licensing offices or cut the hours of operation.
The City Clerk is a friend of mine and I asked how much trouble they had with voter ID in the primary on Feb 20. The answer was that in the entire town we had only ONE PROVISIONAL BALLOT and that was cleared up and counted in the canvas.
I know what the repubs are doing and I hate it but in our antiquated system electronic voter fraud is not obviously present.
RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)Election Fraud most certainly is, and has been.
bearsfootball516
(6,377 posts)Im a cold, hard facts person. And until I see actually proof that votes were physically changed from Clinton to Trump, I dont tend to believe it.
NRaleighLiberal
(60,014 posts)watoos
(7,142 posts)that votes were flipped. When experts say there is no evidence that votes were flipped, they are correct, however, there is no proof that votes weren't flipped. 4 manufacturers supply our voting machines and their programs are deemed proprietary. So you tell me, how many machines were pulled aside and independently audited? My guess is zero. How can we determine if voting machines weren't tampered with if we can't check any of them?
We need paper ballots and need them fast.
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)Thousands that would have been a win for HRC from MI. Suppression of thousands in WI, and so on.
I hope Mueller has an eye on this as well.
MichMan
(11,920 posts)The votes in Detroit were not able to be recounted in Steins recount attempt. They were originally counted and due to incompetence by Detroit election workers were not able to be confirmed in the recount because they were overvotes.
The were counted as originally cast and most likely favored Hillary since Detroit was 98% Democratic
questionseverything
(9,654 posts)https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2016/12/06/sixth-circuit-court-michigan-recount/95044646/
Those seeking the recount argue Michigan's machines are vulnerable to fraud and hackers, and that there were plenty of people with both motive and the ability to interfere with the election. For example, they cited hacking attempts on the Democratic National Committee, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Arizona and Illinois election officials leading up to the election. What raised red flags in the Michigan election, they said, were the 75,000 ballots that were cast by voters who didn't vote for anyone for president roughly double the amount of people who didn't vote for anyone for president in 2012..
"For the voices of Michigan's people to be heard and their votes counted in the 2016 presidential election, Michigan must complete a recount," Stein's attorneys wrote to the 6th Circuit. "In this election, the machines failed to register votes for president in over 75,000 ballots cast ... While many or even most of those ballots may not have contained a vote for president, we know from expert testimony that at least some of them will have simply not been read by the machines. Meanwhile, only approximately one-tenth of one percent of votes needed to have been misread to have affected the outcome of the election. There is also no reason to have confidence that the rest of Michigan's vote was accurately tabulated."
/////////////
https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/05/mismatched-numbers-means-precincts-cant-recounted/95015066/
In Wayne County, about one-third of precincts showed discrepancies during the November canvass, said Krista Haroutunian, chair of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers. Those discrepancies could make those precincts 610, including 392 in Detroit ineligible for recount, though a final decision has yet to be made.
/////////////////////////////////////
75,000 ballots with no choice for president seems very high in a state decided by 10 thousand votes
personally I don't believe anything the powers that be won't SHOW ME
MichMan
(11,920 posts)unless the candidate is registered as a write in candidate. How many of those wrote in Bernie and therefore were counted as not voting for president?
questionseverything
(9,654 posts)see them
elections should be about transparency ,not guessing games after the fact
Eliot Rosewater
(31,109 posts)You dont spend 40 years, billions of dollars on assets on the ground in this country, some so deep they were BORN here, to get a dream candidate like dumbshit and then let YOU and ME decide on election day.
And they are gonna do it AGAIN
lunamagica
(9,967 posts)sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)The GOP-billionaire funded rightwing propaganda machine laid the groundwork
and the Trump campaign and Russia exploited it.
There's a ton you can do with propaganda that doesn't need votes to be changed. In the end, it worked.
samnsara
(17,622 posts)Botany
(70,504 posts)... into them that might allow manipulation of the data and not leave any trace that someone
was there. Ever since they passed HAVA (help america vote act) we have seen a red shift in
voting that does not match what the majority of people want or the change in population dynamics.
triron
(22,002 posts)Dr. Ron Baiman does an excellent analysis of this in 2016.
Link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319205877_Updated_Expanded_and_Corrected_Affidavit_Version_US_2016_Unadjusted_Exit_Poll_Discrepancies_Fit_Chronic_Republican_Vote_-_Count_Rigging_not_Random_Statistical_Patterns
Cheviteau
(383 posts)It's entirely impossible that the votes weren't tampered with.
diva77
(7,640 posts)guarantee that a vote is counted as cast. That is why Germany outlawed use of computerized voting machinery.
TheFrenchRazor
(2,116 posts)Still In Wisconsin
(4,450 posts)changing votes is VERY DEFINITELY possible, and in some cases, depending on hardware and software combinations used, actually easy. This has apparently been demonstrated more than once; sorry, but I don't have a link.
onecaliberal
(32,854 posts)he says it can be done WITHOUT detection because of the setup. The machines are not secure.
Still In Wisconsin
(4,450 posts)when it becomes apparent that a right-wing State Supreme Court candidate is in danger of losing his seat.
diva77
(7,640 posts)that our votes are being counted as cast -- and the vote-grifting gear may have been hacked by anyone anywhere -- not just Russia.
Karl Rove made sure to install rethug elections officials in all levels of government strategically - city, county and statewide and these officials, in concert with aggressive vendors & lobbyists occupying their schedules, certified, advocated for, and purchased the vote-grifting gear, disregarding critical testimony from computer experts.
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)He was director of research at NSA. And worked in tech at ODNI. He was a tech person. Not really an intelligence person.
Also he writes a lot at Psychology Today. And why was this article published in Psychology Today????
Eric Haseltine is a writer with numerous articles in Psychology Today.
1. Unconscious cues that determine sexual attractiveness
2. What to do when doctors haven't helped you
3. What Sex Teaches Us About Leadership
4. Do Some Thoughts and Feelings Live Outside our Brain?
5. How to Find a Husband if You Only Have 60 Seconds
6. Sex and Leadership for Women
7 The Neuroscience of Intimacy
8. You Aren't Who You Think You Are
9. Yes, You Have a Sixth Sense, and You Should Trust It
10 . Why It's Vital to Empty Your Head Every Night
This guy doesn't seem that serious.
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)See above about Haseltine.
No offense intended, but people who write in Psychology Today are not serious national security professionals.
And even if you take Haseltine at face value, he's only speculating.
Finally, he fails to note that Rogers (the real head of NSA) and Comey both said there was no evidence vote tallies were changed.
It's totally plausible that the Russians intentionally did not change vote tallies because that would have given Hillary actual legitimacy for being the real winner of the election.
Far better for them to do what we know they did:
- Alter voter registrations
- Voter suppression via propaganda
- "Hacking minds" via propaganada
as that is deniable.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/rogers-comey-say-no-evidence-vote-tallies-were-changed-in-2016-election/2017/03/20/9a764e16-0d8f-11e7-aa57-2ca1b05c41b8_video.html
onecaliberal
(32,854 posts)Is astounding. Especially in a place for discussing democratic ideas and ideals.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)"progressive" protesters defect to make a point. That's what happened this time with some carefully placed lies leading up to election, Comey, polls that looked so good for Clinton that some folks didn't bother to vote, etc.
There has no been any evidence of changed votes, only people saying it was "POSSIBLE." Sure it was possible, but to change that many votes in several states, a bunch of people would have to be involved and someone would have left a trail and/or talked.
And, that doesn't explain things like early Kentucky votes coming in with Clinton support far less than anticipated. That's when I knew we were in trouble, before 8:00 PM.
onecaliberal
(32,854 posts)Voters and drawing pretzel maps that heavily favor them. Its not a new thing, it didnt just happen in the last election and we damn well better figure out how to shut it down. As for the reicht wing, they are NEVER going to be convinced or come around. They supported a CHILD MOLESTER rather than vote for a dem. Wake up. We dont need them. We need to have ALL our votes counted.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)vote, respond to lies appropriately, prepare for last minute dirty tricks (like Comey), etc.
american_ideals
(613 posts)Someone above posted the authors bio. He worked in the office of the director of National intel. He was not the assistant director.
Can you edit the first post? Thanks
american_ideals
(613 posts)We know that the GOP and Russia both used propaganda to suppress the vote.
We know the GOP bought $100M of now-secret Facebook ads. We have NO IDEA what those said. They could easily have told lies about HRC. Facebook refuses to release them.
Those issues- propaganda and social media ads- are things we KNOW for SURE today. While we wait for evidence about changed vote totals, lets focus on those real problems.
SoCalMusicLover
(3,194 posts)It is pretty much pointless to think the Democratic Party will ever do anything. In fact, perhaps they have some sort of quid pro quo with the repubs, where they're unable to speak about the subject. Either that or they're too blind to see why elections continue to get stolen from them. Perhaps the 2 parties feel they need each other, so one side won't show how corrupt the other is at any given time.
All I know is that I continue to get less interested in voting, since I feel my vote is irrelevant, and the rule of law is as well. Why bother when the outcome is predetermined? Would anybody play the lottery if they were 100% Certain to lose? What is the point?
I've seen several election riggings in the last 20 years, Presidential and otherwise, and have no doubt it happened in 2016.
american_ideals
(613 posts)This poster is saying theyre not going to turn out in the next election because they dont have confidence in the voting system. Its fine to talk about facts, but this post is irresponsible- its just speculation.
And to SoCalMusicLover- turnout is what counts and only by voting can we fix the country. Please vote!!!!!
SoCalMusicLover
(3,194 posts)They would do something about the fact the elections are being rigged by the other side.
And it's not speculation. There is a reason the results look suspicious. No coincidence.
And if you think the Russians spent up to 2 years doing everything possible to get Drumpf elected, and then left it up to the voters, you're out of your mind.
american_ideals
(613 posts)aikoaiko
(34,169 posts)TheFrenchRazor
(2,116 posts)joanbarnes
(1,722 posts)Iggo
(47,552 posts)The_REAL_Ecumenist
(721 posts)And was CERTAIN when I came to DU and saw that it was attacked.
blueinredohio
(6,797 posts)LittleGirl
(8,287 posts)I can say that I felt this past election was invalid because the hackers changed the votes. How else did this happen?
Because they hacked in and set the votes, changed the voted if needed and Clinton lost. We were fucked before November.
The question is what are we going to do about it now?
Are we going to prevent that from ever happening again?
american_ideals
(613 posts)I dont trust the author. As said above he wasnt an operations person in intelligence. Hes writing in a fringe site, Psychology Today. Please people, lets not fall for this.
There are so many real things to be focused on TODAY:
- dark money in politics
- propaganda from the right and from Russia
- voter registration hacking in 2016
Lets not fall for unverified speculation. If votes were changed well hear about it from Mueller. Remember both NSA dir Rogers and Comey said no votes were changed. And they were listening to the Russians conversations! (See Dutch penetration of IRA; Kislyak conversation leaks ) Until then, lots of other things to work on.
triron
(22,002 posts)jimlup
(7,968 posts)Not holding parades for the Traitor 'n Thief.
leanforward
(1,076 posts)It needs to be researched/investigated.
Likewise, I would recommend that any Secretary of State, that did NOT do a critical investigation/assessment of his vote count when compared to voting signatures at the precinct level should spend six months picking up trash on the highway.
We need a national recount.
triron
(22,002 posts)Related to Ohio in 2004 I believe.
triron
(22,002 posts)betsuni
(25,515 posts)summer_in_TX
(2,738 posts)County, TX elections administrator to design a secure voting machine that meets the needs for a secure, auditable vote with a paper trail. It is the Secure, Transparent, Auditable, and Reliable Voting System, or STAR-Vote. It has an encrypted, paper record that matches the electronic record and allows voters to verify the vote they cast.
They've tried to get an existing company to make it, but none of them would because it uses open source software, meaning that their profit model on subsequent updates wouldn't work for them.
They're still hoping to find a benefactor or other way to get them made, but with a design that's done and tested it could theoretically be rolled out in time for the 2020 elections. Most of the current generation machines are aging out and are due to be replaced. Plus the standards for voting machins are about to be updated and this machine apparently meets the proposed standards.
From KUT, Austin's NPR affiliate:
http://kut.org/post/experts-say-electronic-voting-machines-arent-secure-so-travis-county-designing-its-own