Hours after being convicted of tampering with voting machines in Colorado in the name of Donald Trump, former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters griped that the outcome was a “sad day for our nation and the world” while continuing to spout false election-related conspiracy theories about “vote-flipping software that is basically in Serbia.”
Peters was found guilty Monday on seven of ten charges after she granted unauthorized individuals access to county voting machines in order to transfer data to Trump allies. Peters faces up to 22 years in prison.
Later in the day, Peters responded to her newfound status as a felon by posting Bible quotes and spreading baseless claims about election fraud.
Yeah, but not by much. I remember reports of garbage bags full of D ballots being found in the dumpsters at voting sites in rural areas during the Bush II years. I don’t ever remember any investigations about it.
Yeah you still
notneed a robust auditing system with multiple layers of oversight, and oh, ya know, a federal electoral commission that directly oversees every level.Also the fact voting rules are different per state for a federal election is insane.
Being able to throw out votes should be harder in physical form, because you actually need to transport physical things.
Hack a voting machine? Much more silent.
Edit: typos
I’ve watched 3rd graders hack pencil and paper voting.
🤦♂️ here’s a great Tom Scott video explaining why pencil and paper is better: https://youtu.be/LkH2r-sNjQs
The biggest thing (which he even acknowledged) is that there are dimensions which favor electronic voting over physical. It’s not as simple as “physical is always better” or “never trust electronic voting” because sometimes making sure it’s even possible for everyone to vote is more important than other factors.
Generally, in an election the size of the us presidential election, Tom Scott at least believes paper is heavily favored.
It’s totally possible for everyone to vote with a paper system. We manage just fine here in Australia, and have massive turn out because it’s mandatory to vote as a citizen, you can vote in advance, via mail, and elections are always on a Saturday.
The US has more people, but that just means you have more people to count votes, this scales just fine.
Not to mention, there are places in the US who have paper ballots.
I’m not sure there’s any situation where electronic voting could be claimed to a suitable way to provide more access to voting. It’s very, very easy to vote here in Australia, much more so than many places in the US.
You just have to actually provide the resources to do it.
I think this is a binary, in the case of elections, electronic is worse in terms of security, and the benefit of not needing to count up votes doesn’t make up for this.
Unless you manage to find a more secure electronic method.
I’m not saying that paper ballots aren’t more secure, but there wasn’t as much attention to being given to the questionable elections that got Bush elected. And yes, I do remember the “dimpled chads” in Florida. What I don’t remember was much coverage of the Brooks Brothers riot.
Sounds like a failure in the election procedure. I agree the fact this incident isn’t widely known (I’m not in the US, so I’m taking you’re word for it), is very troubling, and it’s no wonder trust in elections in the US is so low. Republicans wouldn’t be able to claim fraud if the system was entirely standardised across all electorates, and properly overseen. I note, there are other countries where the only election disputes are over the fairness of the voting system itself, and not if there is fraud (Australia, which is where I’m from).
These people you mention should be in prison. If they’re not, then as a country you’re basically asking for election distrust.
My initial point is that while Republicans who claim election fraud are likely wrong (seeing as, you only need to cheat when you’re unpopular, like the Republicans are), as a country, if you stick to your electronic voting, and non-standardised elections, you’re basically asking for voting fraud and distrust in the system.
I find way too many people online defending the voting machines, simply because their team won.
I feel entitled to comment on this as a foreigner, because I live in a vassal state, and this shit affects me.
or per the TV show Succession where there’s a fire in a voting office that swings the election (may be based on a true story)
I feel like a voting office going up in flames would warrant enough attention to cause people to demand a second chance. An old woman walking behind the build with a garbage bag is far more subtle.