Is the Election Fixed?

[Guest]

Here's something from the internet.  This was posted on Nov 2nd.

If on election night or the next morning, we see these numbers, then we will know it was fixed from the beginning and no one's vote really matters anyway.

If not, then this was just another myth.

[mordorbund]

Wait, which is it? Fixed or broken?

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, mordorbund said:

Wait, which is it? Fixed or broken?

hah...  

 

hah?

[Traveler]

In the late 60's (in my youth) I was working (volunteer) within the election process with the Republican Party in the state of Utah.  I was introduced to political corruption in the changing (stuffing) of ballet results.  The entire effort was not the change who was elected but to alter the margin of victory.  I was aghast that political party members (even LDS) were willing to break the law when it did not even seem needed or necessary to me.  Who should care over the margin of victory was the excuse given to me as to why this was not really a “bad” thing. 

A couple of things – There are some very honest hardworking individuals in both of our major political parties.  I do not want to take away anything from the efforts of some.  But and this is a very BIG BUT – there are those that are so motivated by their particular political alignment that they will excuse anything, so it would seem, for their political benefit – even very minor political benefits.  This political benefit mentality is deeply entrenched in our political party system and I believe the trend of it is getting much worse.

I left the Republican Party over this corruption but I have found the Democratic Party even worse.  This corruption of party loyalty over country – I am convinced is so influential in our political process that I believe it is almost impossible for an individual to gain party favor necessary for running (funding) for political office (especially federal office) without proven party loyalty over country behavior.  In all my years Trump is the only possible exception to party loyalty I have ever even seemed to have encountered – yes including Romney.   But I am not convinced that Mr. Trump does not have an agenda that is more important to him than country.

I wish I could have confidence in something when it comes to politics.  I fully suspect that when we all gather together in the next life to review the course of our mortality – that we will find that there is not even a state in this (free???) country that was able to conduct honest balloting void of rigging and fixing – even at the local levels.   I believe a snowball has a better chance in hell than that there will not be major fixing going on – across the country – in this election.  My only hope is that the voice of the people will someday become so strong and done with political parties that the people will finely be heard above the efforts of corruption – I just think we are currently a long way away from such a possibility.

 

The Traveler

[unixknight]

I have a feeling this is why we don't yet have a unified, reliable, secure electronic voting system.  Such a system would be impossible to tamper with or manipulate at any local level.  Since politicos probably rely on tampering and rigging...

[Blackmarch]

3 hours ago, unixknight said:

I have a feeling this is why we don't yet have a unified, reliable, secure electronic voting system.  Such a system would be impossible to tamper with or manipulate at any local level.  Since politicos probably rely on tampering and rigging...

i'm assuming this is sarcasm?

[unixknight]

35 minutes ago, Blackmarch said:

i'm assuming this is sarcasm?

Not at all.  Maybe I could have phrased it better, but I'm convinced much of our voting is in the dark ages because a more secure improvement would make it harder to tamper with.

[bytebear]

Being a computer programmer, I would want hand counted paper ballots by a bipartisan group, with signatures of the voter. I also want to only allow absentee ballots if you are required somewhere (i.e. stationed overseas), and no early voting.  Then you force the purple finger, so people can't go from precinct to precinct. 

[Blackmarch]

On 11/3/2016 at 4:26 PM, unixknight said:

Not at all.  Maybe I could have phrased it better, but I'm convinced much of our voting is in the dark ages because a more secure improvement would make it harder to tamper with.

my apologies.

i think having a unified single system has nearly the same pros and cons as a monarchy does- while it would be easier to protect, run, and etc... but if one can corrupt it, the whole system goes down.Personally i'd rather have a different company handling it for each state, and rather set guidelines in regards to security and etc.  to paraphrase tuvok from voyager- "there is no technology that can be made immune to purposeful manipulation". which while i think would be easier to manipulate one or a few instances, would be more difficult as a whole to manipulate multiple different companies using different hardware and different software.

I think what i would do is have a system in place so that a seperate verification count is added to the tally - which would be votes that have been sent in by a person through 2 different mediums and both match (possibly have one for mismatch votes) as additional info to the side of the official tally.
 

Edited November 6, 2016 by Blackmarch

[Traveler]

9 hours ago, bytebear said:

Being a computer programmer, I would want hand counted paper ballots by a bipartisan group, with signatures of the voter. I also want to only allow absentee ballots if you are required somewhere (i.e. stationed overseas), and no early voting.  Then you force the purple finger, so people can't go from precinct to precinct. 

 

There is always the question of who watches the watchers.  The problem is that there are always vulnerable places of power in a free society that are targets of corruption.   Once corruption takes even the smallest hold and allowed to fester (become hidden or controlled by money) freedom is at risk.  I believe the greatest threat comes from individuals thinking they are for a greater good that assist corruption they know is occurring in their own political ranks – thinking that overlooking “minor” infractions is necessary for some greater good.  We see this as a often reoccurring theme in entertainment - the hero (the good guys?) push the envelope of the law (sometimes even breaking the law) to take out the bad guys - so all their cynicism and sins are justified and honored.

There will always be flaws in the character of our elected representatives, those that surround them and the public in general – but as section 121 of the D&C tells us – when there is cover up of vein ambitions (especially involving the trail of money) Satan is taking control of that organization or society and only those that do his bidding will prosper – for a little while.

 

The Traveler

Edited November 4, 2016 by Traveler

[unixknight]

23 hours ago, Blackmarch said:

I think what i would do is have a system in place so that a seperate verification count is added to the tally - which would be votes that have been sent in by a person through 2 different mediums and both match (possibly have one for mismatch votes) as additional info to the side of the official tally.

I think you're going in the right direction there.  I've been thinking about this as a software developer and as a product of my culture and it occurs to me that if you really want a perfect, foolproof voting system you have to open it WIDE up.  Make it so transparent any person could go into the system to count the votes for themselves.  The ballots would still be anonymous, of course, but with an utterly transparent system it would be subject to review by EVERYBODY who cares to do so.  Nerds and geeks like me, news outlets, bloggers, everybody.  You could possibly find a way to trick the system in local jurisdictions but there are thousands and thousands.  Nobody could influence them all and with such an open system they'd likely be caught anyway.

Think about times when we hear of 100%+ voter turnout or places where one candidate literally gets 100% of the votes... mathematical impossibilities and yet nobody talks about it unless the media chooses to... which prettymuch means only Republicans would ever get caught cheating that way.  With a wide open system people would scream from the rooftops because nothing could be hidden.  You could also know when Electors voted the way you expected them to.  Imagine all the open source software that would flood the web, allowing you to track, in real time, the progress of the election.  Imagine knowing who really won before the media,

You wouldn't even need super tight security.  You only lock your door to keep out those who would come in at night or when you're gone.  Nobody breaks into your house when you're having a party.  That's what we could do here.  If all this data were freely available in a read-only state, one could look but not touch.  The programming of such a system would be so trivial I'd use it as a coding exercise for new students if I were a programming instructor.

Now I'm just a schmuck sitting here on a Saturday morning flattering myself that I have a good idea here... but can you imagine how easily the United States Government could implement a perfect and awesome voting mechanism if it chose to?  This is the country that landed men on the Moon.  This would be almost trivial.

Something like that would have been done by now if the politicians didn't somehow gain from the system being the way it is.

[Blackmarch]

ooh now there's an idea. lol now i'm going to be spending all night thinking on how to do something like that.

 

Edited November 6, 2016 by Blackmarch

[Guest]

Knowing Hillarys past I wouldn't be surprised if her and the Democrats fix the election.

[Guest]

Especially if it's close.

[estradling75]

While undoubtedly there will be fraud and rigging of the election... people who are concern about that (and even if they are not) should know and understand what is normal so they can better detect fraud.

The First and more important normal.. we are not a direct democracy... we are a representative democracy.  The Majority does not always win.

Our votes go to representatives in the Electoral Collage not to the president of the USA (even though that is the name on the ballet)

Each State gets a number of representative in the Electoral Collage based on the number of Senators (2) and the number of House Representative (variable).

Thus candidates are going to look at things at the state level.  If a state is safely in the hands of one party or another, then chances are neither party is going to spend much time on that State, and fraud in that state is less likely..  (Unless the state unexpectedly flips in which case fraud needs to be suspected)

The Second important normal... it takes 270 Electoral Collage votes to win the election.  Current estimates put Clinton at 252 Trump at 163 and 123 up for grabs (source http://www.270towin.com/ )

This means Clinton only needs to win over a few more states and she wins.  Trump needs to take pretty much all the undecided states...  That is not really close by any definition of the term.  If you are looking for fraud and corruption the battleground states are were one would be wise to look.  Florida and Ohio are the states that by themselves can carry Clinton over the top so those should be paid special attention to.

 

For those in Utah... Utah has been Historically Republican so no one paid much attention to it... until Trump showed up incredibly weak in Utah.  That is when Clinton did her Mormons for Hilary campaign trying to exploit Trump's weakness... it failed.  Utah is not a battle ground state between Clinton and Trump.  It is not going to make a difference between the two... That is a battle that takes place in other states.  Utah is going to be largely irrelevant until and unless Trump manages to win the undecided enough to keep Clinton from getting 270 votes.  Then, and only then, Utah might make a difference between Trump getting 270 votes... or locking them both out of getting 270 (if Utah goes third party instead of Republican) and throwing the election to the House of Representatives   

[Still_Small_Voice]

I have been reading information that there are 4 million dead people still on the voting rolls.  Is there no desire to clean up the voting rolls so "dead people" can show up to vote?

There should be voter identification laws.  Some people were calling the voter identification laws racist.  That was just ridiculous to me.  The only reason these voter identification laws were over turned in some places in my opinion was to enable more voter fraud.

 

[Ironhold]

On 11/7/2016 at 10:20 PM, Still_Small_Voice said:

I have been reading information that there are 4 million dead people still on the voting rolls.  Is there no desire to clean up the voting rolls so "dead people" can show up to vote?

There should be voter identification laws.  Some people were calling the voter identification laws racist.  That was just ridiculous to me.  The only reason these voter identification laws were over turned in some places in my opinion was to enable more voter fraud.

 

There have been efforts to, indeed, clean the rolls up, but those are usually met with hysterics about how this is actually an effort to disenfranchise people; if even one person is accidentally disenfranchised, they're immediately made a bloody shirt and regarded as "proof" of how evil the effort was all along.