Voter Suppression/Election Integrity

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 At this point I gotta conclude they want elections hacked

[Howl]

 Jenny Cohn is continuing to beat the drum over flawed and hackable barcode voting machines.  

 

[Howl]

And more Jenny

And an article by Jenny Cohn: 

Elections Scholar: Kansas Voting System Would Allow Undetectable Tampering

[Howl]

I'd encourage y'all to follow @jennycohn1 on twitter and to also investigate the status of voting machines and ballots are handled in your state.   Sounds like folks are going to be ultimately successful in getting the word out in Georgia and it does sound like Georgians are waking up to the reality of what Brian Kemp is up to. 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Howl]

More blatant, completely in-your-face shit from the Trump Crime Family.  Yup, Ivanka is getting trademarks to manufacture her own voting machines in China.  Remember the kerfuffle over this from an ancient time, like waaaay back in 2014?  Chinese Android phone maker hides secret backdoor on its devices   Coolpad's backdoor installs apps and tracks customers without their knowledge, say U.S. security researchers

Let's say that maybe special voting machines manufactured in China could have a special back door feature that allows them to be hacked. 

 

[fraurosena]

Paper ballots.

Unhackable.

[Howl]

 

[formergothardite]

15 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Paper ballots.

Unhackable.

When I was little my mom was one of the people who helped count votes. I don't know how it was in other places, but she would count ballots and they were then given to someone else to count. The amounts had to match or they were then given to two other people to count. Yes, it took a hell of a lot longer to get results but I bet it was way, way harder to falsify results when doing it this way. My mom wasn't allowed to know who was counting the votes she counted so it would have been difficult to coordinate a false count plus they had people from both parties counting ballets so it wasn't like one party could come it and lie about the votes. 

I realize we live in a world of instant results, but it is becoming very obvious that machines can be hacked so that elections can be rigged. 

[Howl]

@formergothardite, thanks for sharing that part of your family history.  And vote counting was done that way out of a deep respect for the integrity of the process. 

My sense now, two years into this shit show and watching a spineless Republican party utterly cave to the worst aspects of Trumpian politics and Russian influence, they developed a taste for power at any cost and (IMO) hacking an election at the local/state/national level is no longer out of the realm of possibility.  It's never been out of the realm of possibility for Russians and also Chinese. I'm going to do a little investigating on what kind of voting machines are used in my county in Central Texas. 

Edited March 11, 2019 by Howl

[formergothardite]

11 minutes ago, Howl said:

they developed a taste for power at any cost and (IMO) hacking an election at the local/state/national level is no longer out of the realm of possibility. 

At this point I'm just going to assume that they will. They know that if there is a fair election they will lose, something they will not tolerate. It is a very scary time in the history of our country because if they rig the next election then we can give up on ever having a fair election again. 

[Audrey2]

31 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

At this point I'm just going to assume that they will. They know that if there is a fair election they will lose, something they will not tolerate. It is a very scary time in the history of our country because if they rig the next election then we can give up on ever having a fair election again. 

Not only this, but with the results of the 2020 Census, new congressional districts both at the state level and at the federal level will be drawn (by each state's elected officials). If the GOP can rig the election just right, at both the state and federal level, they can create many more gerrymandered districts and insure them self power or the next decade and beyond.

[formergothardite]

5 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

they can create many more gerrymandered districts and insure them self power or the next decade and beyond.

Especially since they are working hard to rig the court system in their favor. If they win the next election our country as we know is over. They do not want a country where the people vote for leaders, they want a country where they get to choose the leaders. 

Edited March 11, 2019 by formergothardite

[fraurosena]

@formergothardite and @Audrey2, those are very realistic scenarios. And it's so great that you are aware of them. If you are, then so are others. At this point in time, if enough people go out and vote, then the Dems will win (remember the midterms), regardless of hacked machines and voter suppression.

If there's one thing that is obvious, then it's that the majority of Americans do not want a continuation of this presiduncy. The turnout next year will be massive. I don't think the turnout will have ever been so high as next year's will be. No amount of hacking will be able to stand up to that tidal wave.

That said, the more people that are aware of the possibility of hacking with these machines, the more protests will arise about it. It's not too late for concerned parties to demand paper ballots. But these protests have to happen now, and continue on and on, until things are changed. 

[Howl]

 

[AmazonGrace]

This will disenfranchise a bunch of poor Democrats 

 

[Howl]

Bannon and the Mercers 

 

[fraurosena]

3 hours ago, Howl said:

Bannon and the Mercers 

 

Time for a counter attack. Time to have a Dem version of CA to flood social media with facts and counter information. For every bot promoting authoritarian rule in America, a bot calling them out on it.  Beat them at their own game.

[Howl]

From back in July 17, 2018: 

Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States Remote-access software and modems on election equipment 'is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.'

Quote

 

The nation's top voting machine maker has admitted in a letter to a federal lawmaker that the company installed remote-access software on election-management systems it sold over a period of six years, raising questions about the security of those systems and the integrity of elections that were conducted with them.

In a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April and obtained recently by Motherboard, Election Systems and Software acknowledged that it had "provided pcAnywhere remote connection software … to a small number of customers between 2000 and 2006," which was installed on the election-management system ES&S sold them.

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Republicans boldly explore new frontiers of voter suppression"

Spoiler

As we turn our attention toward the 2020 elections, Republican lawmakers across the country are asking: How can we keep people from voting? In Tennessee, which already has lower-than-average rates of turnout, the legislature is on the case:

Tennessee could penalize some paid voter registration groups with fines for too many faulty signups and criminal charges for violating new requirements under a proposal passed by the House on Monday.

The vote bucked some voting rights groups, who have voiced fear that the bill would create a chilling effect on Tennessee’s already-poor voter participation marks.

Republican Secretary of State Tre Hargett has made the legislation a top priority, deeming it important for election security after Shelby County, which includes Memphis, saw a flood of often-faulty registrations that came in on last year’s deadline.

But Tennessee Black Voter Project, which led the voter signup charge in Memphis and elsewhere across the state, has said the bill immediately followed the group’s efforts to register 86,000 black voters.

Under this law, organizations that mount voter registration drives will have to be trained by the state, and then they can be fined and face jail time if they have lots of registrations with mistakes.

Just to provide a bit of context, every group that does registrations gets some faulty ones. When you sit at a table outside a supermarket registering people to vote, there are always jokesters who will fill out the form in the name of Mickey Mouse or Clark Kent, but the group doing the registering is legally required to submit the forms, even if they’re sure they’re false.

The problem here is obviously not that erroneous registrations create some kind of unmanageable burden on state officials, because they've always existed and always will.

It’s that too many black people registered to vote in Tennessee, and something had to be done about it.

So in addition to using all the other tools in their voter-suppression drawer, Republicans in Tennessee decided to clamp down on registration, knowing full well that liberal groups are much more likely to mount registration drives than conservative groups.

This isn’t the first time something like this has been tried. Before the 2012 election, Republicans in Florida passed a registration law so restrictive that it led nonpartisan groups such as the League of Women Voters and Rock the Vote to suspend their voter registration drives in the state.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who often makes plain what other Republicans prefer to conceal amid a fog of misdirection, used to say that “low voter turnout is a sign of a content democracy.” More recently he has described Democratic efforts to make voting easier, with measures like making Election Day a national holiday, as a “power grab.” In other words, he makes no bones about the fact that if we made it easier to vote, too many people would vote for Democrats.

Every Republican understands that; McConnell is just one of the few willing to say it out loud. But the truth is that suppressing votes is absolutely critical to Republican success. They know full well that their ability to compete and win in the American political process is dependent on the countermajoritarian features of our system — the filibuster, the fact that the Senate gives the same representation to the fewer than 600,000 residents of Wyoming as the nearly 40 million in California, the electoral college — nearly every one of which works to the advantage of the GOP.

And as the party grows more dependent on older, wealthier, white voters — who are more likely to be registered and more likely to turn out — Republicans know that the harder registering and voting is, the more likely they are to win. No prospect is more threatening to Republican success than high turnout.

Consider the last three midterm elections. Last year, turnout was 50 percent, and Democrats won huge victories, including taking back the House. In 2014, a “wave” election for Republicans, it was only 37 percent. In 2010, another Republican wave, it was 42 percent. Anything that gets more people to the polls will be good for Democrats and bad for Republicans.

Which is why the GOP will do everything in its power to keep registration and turnout low — and why making it easier to vote is so important for Democrats. So in the coming days we’re almost certain to see a further separation between red and blue states.

It will look like this: Where Democrats are in charge, they’ll institute automatic voter registration, same-day registration, no-excuse absentee voting, extended early voting, and anything else that will maximize turnout and make voting easy. Where Republicans are in charge they’ll employ voter ID, restricted early voting, polling place closures, and anything else that will drive voting down, particularly among African Americans.

And if all that isn’t enough, Republicans will go after the people registering voters, too.

 

[Audrey2]

3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Republicans boldly explore new frontiers of voter suppression"

  Reveal hidden contents

As we turn our attention toward the 2020 elections, Republican lawmakers across the country are asking: How can we keep people from voting? In Tennessee, which already has lower-than-average rates of turnout, the legislature is on the case:

Tennessee could penalize some paid voter registration groups with fines for too many faulty signups and criminal charges for violating new requirements under a proposal passed by the House on Monday.

The vote bucked some voting rights groups, who have voiced fear that the bill would create a chilling effect on Tennessee’s already-poor voter participation marks.

Republican Secretary of State Tre Hargett has made the legislation a top priority, deeming it important for election security after Shelby County, which includes Memphis, saw a flood of often-faulty registrations that came in on last year’s deadline.

But Tennessee Black Voter Project, which led the voter signup charge in Memphis and elsewhere across the state, has said the bill immediately followed the group’s efforts to register 86,000 black voters.

Under this law, organizations that mount voter registration drives will have to be trained by the state, and then they can be fined and face jail time if they have lots of registrations with mistakes.

Just to provide a bit of context, every group that does registrations gets some faulty ones. When you sit at a table outside a supermarket registering people to vote, there are always jokesters who will fill out the form in the name of Mickey Mouse or Clark Kent, but the group doing the registering is legally required to submit the forms, even if they’re sure they’re false.

The problem here is obviously not that erroneous registrations create some kind of unmanageable burden on state officials, because they've always existed and always will.

It’s that too many black people registered to vote in Tennessee, and something had to be done about it.

So in addition to using all the other tools in their voter-suppression drawer, Republicans in Tennessee decided to clamp down on registration, knowing full well that liberal groups are much more likely to mount registration drives than conservative groups.

This isn’t the first time something like this has been tried. Before the 2012 election, Republicans in Florida passed a registration law so restrictive that it led nonpartisan groups such as the League of Women Voters and Rock the Vote to suspend their voter registration drives in the state.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who often makes plain what other Republicans prefer to conceal amid a fog of misdirection, used to say that “low voter turnout is a sign of a content democracy.” More recently he has described Democratic efforts to make voting easier, with measures like making Election Day a national holiday, as a “power grab.” In other words, he makes no bones about the fact that if we made it easier to vote, too many people would vote for Democrats.

Every Republican understands that; McConnell is just one of the few willing to say it out loud. But the truth is that suppressing votes is absolutely critical to Republican success. They know full well that their ability to compete and win in the American political process is dependent on the countermajoritarian features of our system — the filibuster, the fact that the Senate gives the same representation to the fewer than 600,000 residents of Wyoming as the nearly 40 million in California, the electoral college — nearly every one of which works to the advantage of the GOP.

And as the party grows more dependent on older, wealthier, white voters — who are more likely to be registered and more likely to turn out — Republicans know that the harder registering and voting is, the more likely they are to win. No prospect is more threatening to Republican success than high turnout.

Consider the last three midterm elections. Last year, turnout was 50 percent, and Democrats won huge victories, including taking back the House. In 2014, a “wave” election for Republicans, it was only 37 percent. In 2010, another Republican wave, it was 42 percent. Anything that gets more people to the polls will be good for Democrats and bad for Republicans.

Which is why the GOP will do everything in its power to keep registration and turnout low — and why making it easier to vote is so important for Democrats. So in the coming days we’re almost certain to see a further separation between red and blue states.

It will look like this: Where Democrats are in charge, they’ll institute automatic voter registration, same-day registration, no-excuse absentee voting, extended early voting, and anything else that will maximize turnout and make voting easy. Where Republicans are in charge they’ll employ voter ID, restricted early voting, polling place closures, and anything else that will drive voting down, particularly among African Americans.

And if all that isn’t enough, Republicans will go after the people registering voters, too.

 

I am very careful about how I react to posts, and rarely use the angry button. While I know we don't need to explain or defend our reactions, I am LIVID about this blatant voter suppression. Neither the WTF nor the Disgust reactions convey the level of rage I feel about this.

Too many people fought and were beaten, injured, and killed to give each citizen the privilege to vote. I'm OUTRAGED at the cretins who think the right to vote should be a privilege allocated to a few.

GreyhoundFan, my anger is not directed to you in any way.

[Howl]

 

[Howl]

GOP blocked grants to state entities to upgrade and secure their voting process. So let's go back to  July 2018: 

Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States   Remote-access software and modems on election equipment 'is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.'

It's in-your-face corruption -- from August 2018

Kobach’s Kansas Victory Tainted by…Kobach’s Election System

Read this carefully. It's how things can go wrong with bar code voting systems.  VOTES ARE NOT VERIFIABLE.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Missouri Republicans want to undo voters’ redistricting wishes. The Supreme Court should take note."

 

Spoiler

LAST NOVEMBER, Missouri was one of a handful of states in which voters decided to limit politicians’ power over redistricting, the decennial process in which political boundaries are drawn, because allowing politicians to choose their own voters has become an increasingly corrupt exercise. Now, Missouri Republicans, who have a lock on the state’s legislature and stand to lose some control under the new system, are trying to roll back the reform, insisting that voters were tricked into approving it.

Their cynical maneuver represents another new low in the steady Republican undermining of democracy through false claims of voter fraud, restrictions on voting and other tactics. The Supreme Court, deliberating on whether politicians can be trusted not to deprive voters of their rights through extreme gerrymandering, should take note.

Missouri voters approved a plan that would rely on a professional state demographer to draw lines that would not be warped in favor of one party or another. It was not perfect, but it was better than what Republicans wanted: a system in which the parties have more control — and in which partisan fairness is not a focus. More to the point: Once Missourians embraced a different approach, the debate should have been over. Nevertheless, with supermajorities in both chambers of the statehouse, the GOP can ram the plan through.

The Supreme Court is considering whether courts should finally referee disputes over partisan gerrymandering, as the practice has become increasingly antidemocratic. The justices seemed hesitant to involve the courts because voters appeared to be imposing curbs on gerrymandering without judicial involvement. But the experience in Missouri and other states shows that politicians will seek to undermine reforms, no matter what the voters say.

Over the years, both parties have angled for advantage in the political line-drawing process and in other areas of election administration. But Republicans have taken the practice to extremes. They heavily gerrymandered political maps in North Carolina and Wisconsin, discouraged voting among Democratic-leaning groups through a war on phantom voter fraud, limited weekend voting and closed voting places in areas where many Democrats live. Where their deck-stacking was not enough to keep them in power, they have undermined the Democrats who beat them, removing power from incoming Democratic governors and state attorneys general.

Meanwhile, as Missouri lawmakers debate their rollback, Texas Republicans are moving to treat mistakes on voter-registration forms as felony offenses that could bring jail time and to discourage people from casting provisional ballots, NPR reported. Tennessee Republicans want to heavily fine groups that turn in improperly filled-in voter-registration forms. Arizona Republicans would cut voters from the mail-in ballot rolls if they do not vote in two successive elections. All of these will help dampen the vote in a country that already suffers from low participation.

Politicians should not seek to make voting inconvenient, and they should respect election results. These points should be obvious. But apparently they are not.