Voting machines

[MyndFyre]

So you can draw some conclusions from that:
a) It doesn't statistically matter if you vote.
b) If some people's votes are lost/wrong/not counted, it doesn't matter. 

Is that the logical conclusion of what you're saying?  Or did I miss something?

To a), no, it doesn't matter if you vote statistically, as long as a large N does vote.  When N becomes sufficiently small, votes do statistically have significance.  But this is no longer true in general once N is greater than roughly 2,000.  I'm sorry if this destroys some kind of illusion you had about how "every vote counts."  Practically speaking it does; but when it boils down, high-N voting is almost always indicative of the will of the larger overall population.

To b), statistical error assumes that the lost/wrong/not counted votes occur randomly, and the random distribution would cause these votes to be cast incorrectly across the board for the benefit or detriment of all candidates equally.  Given a sufficiently high N, error in this comes out in the wash, as I said, unless there is specific evidence of cheating.  But note that the website reporting problems simply said there were problems, not in whose favor they were -- for all we know the "early" votes may have been for Kerry only.

Floriday was not even close to being an issue state -- if it had been within a couple hundred or maybe even a thousand votes, then the problems with a few voting machines and a few dozen votes might be relevant.  But it's not.

[iago]

To a), no, it doesn't matter if you vote statistically, as long as a large N does vote.  When N becomes sufficiently small, votes do statistically have significance.  But this is no longer true in general once N is greater than roughly 2,000.  I'm sorry if this destroys some kind of illusion you had about how "every vote counts."  Practically speaking it does; but when it boils down, high-N voting is almost always indicative of the will of the larger overall population.

No, I'm firmly against the idea that "every vote counts".  I just wanted to make sure that you realized the implications of what you said.  Apparently you do, so that's fine. 

To b), statistical error assumes that the lost/wrong/not counted votes occur randomly, and the random distribution would cause these votes to be cast incorrectly across the board for the benefit or detriment of all candidates equally.  Given a sufficiently high N, error in this comes out in the wash, as I said, unless there is specific evidence of cheating.  But note that the website reporting problems simply said there were problems, not in whose favor they were -- for all we know the "early" votes may have been for Kerry only.

You're right.  But there is still a serious problem. 

We have to ask: is it possible to rig an election?  And, if so, how can we tell?  I don't know/care if the previous one was.  Realistically, it's too late for it to matter.  I'm not going to speculate any longer (in this thread) about whether anything happened in the previous election, just discussing the technology that was used. 

We have to imagine the worst case.  Let us suppose that there IS an evil person who wants to become president.  A Stalin or a Hitler or a Bill Gates (just joking).  Whoever. 

Would it be possible for him to rig an election?  I think that right now, with the current technology that your country is moving towards, the answer is yes.  Some reasons are that voting machines have no encryption, they all have the same administrator password that many people know, they are attached to the public Internet with no security in front of them, they send their results over the public internet, and there were many other problems that I forget now.  I think it's clear that the machines are, in their present state, a danger. 

Would it be possible to detect what had happened after the fact?  I think right now, with the current technology, the answer is no.  On the machines that are being used, there are no printed copies of votes that can be verified.  The voters never know that they voted for the correct person and there is no way to perform a re-count. 

Although this is a theoretical problem, it is NOT an impossible situation, and it's a situation that's worth being concerned about. 

[CrAz3D]

If everyone believes "not every vote counts" & then they don't vote then you have like 0 people voting.

[iago]

There will never be 0 people voting. 

The idea of 'your vote counts' is kind of an odd situation.  In most cases, your vote doesn't count.  But everybody's vote does.  *shrug*

[CrAz3D]

There will never be 0 people voting. 

The idea of 'your vote counts' is kind of an odd situation.  In most cases, your vote doesn't count.  But everybody's vote does.  *shrug*

Individually no one's vote matters in relation to the massive number it takes to get someone elected.  However, if it were not for each individual vote there would be no masses deciding issues.
To think that your vote simply does not count is idiotic.

[topaz]

Keep in mind that the popular vote counts for nothing but statistical use. They probably don't use voting machines in the electoral college .

[CrAz3D]

popular vote is what STRONGLY influences electoral college

[iago]

There will never be 0 people voting. 

The idea of 'your vote counts' is kind of an odd situation.  In most cases, your vote doesn't count.  But everybody's vote does.  *shrug*

Individually no one's vote matters in relation to the massive number it takes to get someone elected.  However, if it were not for each individual vote there would be no masses deciding issues.
To think that your vote simply does not count is idiotic.

No, your individual vote doesn't count.  MyndFyre proved that statistically.  Anybody who doesn't believe it is "idiotic", as you said, because there's a mathematical proof for it in this thread.  Sorry to burst your bubble.

[Rule]

MyndFyre proved that statistically.

*cough* I'm not so sure about that.  I don't really have time to explain though.  Maybe in a few months.

[Grok]

Oh myopic ones, the impact of electronic voting machines is most strongly felt in the thousands of other election races that are not the two Democratic/Republican National Presidential Primaries.  Those are two important elections, but forget about those for now.  Those just invoke strong emotional responses and detract from the proper discussion of electronic voting machines.

The vote.  There is exactly one for a given election issue for each voter.  The sovereign citizen voter should be able to confirm both that his vote was counted, and counted accurately.  The objections to electronic voting machine are that they do not provide accountability and verifiability.

We know how to build machines that do accurately record a vote, verify, and count the votes.  Many of the machines built so far have been done by ATM vendors who had the capital and political connections (say hip pocket) to get the contracts for states, counties, and cities.  Companies like Diebold that are perfectly willing to strongarm anyone that gets in their way.  Just because they have the captial and connections does not mean they have the expertise to build a proper voting machine.  In that case you look to what they have built to judge, and so far, they have proven themselves incompetent.

Now switch viewpoints.  Forget about the builder companies involved for a minute and approach it from the citizen/city vector.  The city should be responsible to the voter for accountability and verifiability.  In the past, this were always true with ballots always being available for a challenge, that might possibly trigger a recount.  The electronic voting machines having no paper trail remove the possibility that any vote can be verified, or recounted.  In effect, the machine could spit out any results and we must be forced to accept those results.  There's no path to challenge the counting.

[CrAz3D]

No, your individual vote doesn't count.  MyndFyre proved that statistically.  Anybody who doesn't believe it is "idiotic", as you said, because there's a mathematical proof for it in this thread.  Sorry to burst your bubble.

I don't think he said your vote doesn't count, I believe he just explained that if a few people don't vote it won't drastically change the outcome.

If by your statement "your individual vote doesn't count" & the fact that everyone votes individually wouldn't that mean that no votes count at all?

[MyndFyre]

No, your individual vote doesn't count.  MyndFyre proved that statistically.  Anybody who doesn't believe it is "idiotic", as you said, because there's a mathematical proof for it in this thread.  Sorry to burst your bubble.

I don't think he said your vote doesn't count, I believe he just explained that if a few people don't vote it won't drastically change the outcome.

If by your statement "your individual vote doesn't count" & the fact that everyone votes individually wouldn't that mean that no votes count at all?

Everyone doesn't vote individually though, everyone votes aggregately.

Once you get above N > (roughly) 5,000 your vote no longer counts.

The fact that you voted (along with thousands if not millions of others) contributes to the lessening power of your vote relative to the rest of the population.  If only a few people voted, they would have a lot more power.

However, iago, I didn't mathematically "prove" it, I simply demonstrated that it was highly unlikely to be otherwise.