Tech reporting out WTFs tech support
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@dkf said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@topspin said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
How would they even know that??
Was last year an election year?
I don't keep track of what year is election year. Seems about as often as those boring Olympics or whatever. So maybe not literally "last year"...
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@HardwareGeek said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
can we count on you voting Biden?!?!" calls.
Fuck you, pay me!According to some news reports I've seen, the going rate appears to be $200, at least in Minneapolis.
@Carnage said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Isn't it illegal to pay/accept payment for votes?
Yes. Some people do illegal things; they're called criminals.
Unless they illegally came to this country. Then they're called entitled.
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@Rhywden said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Basically, I want that set of responsibilities assigned to people on campaign payrolls, so that if someone is disenfranchising a particular campaign's voters and refuses to stop, they'll have their campaign's legal team on speed dial.
Or maybe simply make it illegal to do any kind of party specific stuff near the voting booths / stations. Goes for the voters as well, of course.
That way your MAGA guy does not even have the faintest of clues who's voting for his clan and who's not.
Problem solved.
I want someone who I trust standing there to witness violations of that law so that violations can be reported and enforced. I don't trust anyone who's not explicitly working for my candidate to do that properly.
Supporters of the other candidate probably won't trust my candidate's guy. Which just means both candidates need a guy to stand there.
I think I'd be just as worried that those "class reps" would be doing shenanigans against the other side. Even if that happens now it's a lot less available as we currently have it.
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@mikehurley said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@Rhywden said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Basically, I want that set of responsibilities assigned to people on campaign payrolls, so that if someone is disenfranchising a particular campaign's voters and refuses to stop, they'll have their campaign's legal team on speed dial.
Or maybe simply make it illegal to do any kind of party specific stuff near the voting booths / stations. Goes for the voters as well, of course.
That way your MAGA guy does not even have the faintest of clues who's voting for his clan and who's not.
Problem solved.
I want someone who I trust standing there to witness violations of that law so that violations can be reported and enforced. I don't trust anyone who's not explicitly working for my candidate to do that properly.
Supporters of the other candidate probably won't trust my candidate's guy. Which just means both candidates need a guy to stand there.
I think I'd be just as worried that those "class reps" would be doing shenanigans against the other side. Even if that happens now it's a lot less available as we currently have it.
I disagree.
Adding the pair of partisan election observers doesn't increase the potential for cheating. MAGA Hat Guy can't cheat because Harris Hat Guy is watching him and vice versa.
Take away the explicitly partisan election observers, and all you're left with is the "nonpartisan" election officials. And quis custodiet ipsos them?
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@mikehurley said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@Rhywden said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Basically, I want that set of responsibilities assigned to people on campaign payrolls, so that if someone is disenfranchising a particular campaign's voters and refuses to stop, they'll have their campaign's legal team on speed dial.
Or maybe simply make it illegal to do any kind of party specific stuff near the voting booths / stations. Goes for the voters as well, of course.
That way your MAGA guy does not even have the faintest of clues who's voting for his clan and who's not.
Problem solved.
I want someone who I trust standing there to witness violations of that law so that violations can be reported and enforced. I don't trust anyone who's not explicitly working for my candidate to do that properly.
Supporters of the other candidate probably won't trust my candidate's guy. Which just means both candidates need a guy to stand there.
I think I'd be just as worried that those "class reps" would be doing shenanigans against the other side. Even if that happens now it's a lot less available as we currently have it.
I disagree.
Adding the pair of partisan election observers doesn't increase the potential for cheating. MAGA Hat Guy can't cheat because Harris Hat Guy is watching him and vice versa.
Take away the explicitly partisan election observers, and all you're left with is the "nonpartisan" election officials. And quis custodiet ipsos them?
I think you're being optimistic how on the ball the people for either side would be at each and every polling location. Honestly at best I think you get a trivial improvement that wasn't worth the messing around with changing processes. And I already said what I thought the worst case could be.
Does anybody have any real idea how much scuffle there is at polling places that the current officials don't properly handle? If it's much higher than I expect that could change my mind.
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@mikehurley said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@mikehurley said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@Rhywden said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Basically, I want that set of responsibilities assigned to people on campaign payrolls, so that if someone is disenfranchising a particular campaign's voters and refuses to stop, they'll have their campaign's legal team on speed dial.
Or maybe simply make it illegal to do any kind of party specific stuff near the voting booths / stations. Goes for the voters as well, of course.
That way your MAGA guy does not even have the faintest of clues who's voting for his clan and who's not.
Problem solved.
I want someone who I trust standing there to witness violations of that law so that violations can be reported and enforced. I don't trust anyone who's not explicitly working for my candidate to do that properly.
Supporters of the other candidate probably won't trust my candidate's guy. Which just means both candidates need a guy to stand there.
I think I'd be just as worried that those "class reps" would be doing shenanigans against the other side. Even if that happens now it's a lot less available as we currently have it.
I disagree.
Adding the pair of partisan election observers doesn't increase the potential for cheating. MAGA Hat Guy can't cheat because Harris Hat Guy is watching him and vice versa.
Take away the explicitly partisan election observers, and all you're left with is the "nonpartisan" election officials. And quis custodiet ipsos them?
I think you're being optimistic how on the ball the people for either side would be at each and every polling location. Honestly at best I think you get a trivial improvement that wasn't worth the messing around with changing processes. And I already said what I thought the worst case could be.
Does anybody have any real idea how much scuffle there is at polling places that the current officials don't properly handle? If it's much higher than I expect that could change my mind.
In 2008, the Black Panthers showed up at a polling place in Philadelphia and threatened white voters, who they assumed (probably incorrectly, because Philadelphia) were there to vote against Obama.
Then Obama's Justice Department let them off the hook after the election.
Other people have posted in more garagey topics about the number of jurisdictions with more votes cast than voters who live there. You can go check those if you want.
Other than obvious cases like that, it's impossible to know if there's malfeasance because nobody is looking for it. Just like "It's never been proven that people vote illegally in elections." Well yeah, if you never check IDs nobody will ever get caught.
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@mikehurley said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@Rhywden said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Basically, I want that set of responsibilities assigned to people on campaign payrolls, so that if someone is disenfranchising a particular campaign's voters and refuses to stop, they'll have their campaign's legal team on speed dial.
Or maybe simply make it illegal to do any kind of party specific stuff near the voting booths / stations. Goes for the voters as well, of course.
That way your MAGA guy does not even have the faintest of clues who's voting for his clan and who's not.
Problem solved.
I want someone who I trust standing there to witness violations of that law so that violations can be reported and enforced. I don't trust anyone who's not explicitly working for my candidate to do that properly.
Supporters of the other candidate probably won't trust my candidate's guy. Which just means both candidates need a guy to stand there.
I think I'd be just as worried that those "class reps" would be doing shenanigans against the other side. Even if that happens now it's a lot less available as we currently have it.
I disagree.
Adding the pair of partisan election observers doesn't increase the potential for cheating. MAGA Hat Guy can't cheat because Harris Hat Guy is watching him and vice versa.
Take away the explicitly partisan election observers, and all you're left with is the "nonpartisan" election officials. And quis custodiet ipsos them?
This is probably the best way to further enwiden the rift you guys already have between your clans. You're now so paranoid that you will only trust your clan.
Bravo.
I'm done with this shit.
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@Rhywden said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@mikehurley said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@Rhywden said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Basically, I want that set of responsibilities assigned to people on campaign payrolls, so that if someone is disenfranchising a particular campaign's voters and refuses to stop, they'll have their campaign's legal team on speed dial.
Or maybe simply make it illegal to do any kind of party specific stuff near the voting booths / stations. Goes for the voters as well, of course.
That way your MAGA guy does not even have the faintest of clues who's voting for his clan and who's not.
Problem solved.
I want someone who I trust standing there to witness violations of that law so that violations can be reported and enforced. I don't trust anyone who's not explicitly working for my candidate to do that properly.
Supporters of the other candidate probably won't trust my candidate's guy. Which just means both candidates need a guy to stand there.
I think I'd be just as worried that those "class reps" would be doing shenanigans against the other side. Even if that happens now it's a lot less available as we currently have it.
I disagree.
Adding the pair of partisan election observers doesn't increase the potential for cheating. MAGA Hat Guy can't cheat because Harris Hat Guy is watching him and vice versa.
Take away the explicitly partisan election observers, and all you're left with is the "nonpartisan" election officials. And quis custodiet ipsos them?
This is probably the best way to further enwiden the rift you guys already have between your clans. You're now so paranoid that you will only trust your clan.
Bravo.
I'm done with this shit.
I don't know. There's areas I could go either way on.
My quibble is with "nonpartisan institutions" in general, which have, generally speaking, been acting in their own overt self-interest for my entire adult life. To the extent that the gap is too wide, I'm not widening it. I'm just pointing out that the gap is too wide for me to cross. These institutions have been broken for a long time.
On voting specifically though, there's good reasons to not trust politicians to oversee it. And nobody does, which is why, in the US, explicitly partisan observers are present when ballots are counted. So why not when they're cast?
Human nature being what it is, I'd imagine most of Europe has a system that works the same way.
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Human nature being what it is, I'd imagine most of Europe has a system that works the same way.
I don't know about the rest of Europe, but the system you're describing would not be legal here. Except for the ballots themselves, any reference to a particular party or candidate is forbidden at the polling places. So the equivalent of your Trump and Bernie representatives would only be allowed if they didn't openly disclose they were party representatives.
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@Zerosquare in Poland, election observers are explicitly partisan, and it works alright (as far as we know).
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@Gąska said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Poland
@Gąska said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
it works alright
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@Zerosquare said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Human nature being what it is, I'd imagine most of Europe has a system that works the same way.
I don't know about the rest of Europe, but the system you're describing would not be legal here. Except for the ballots themselves, any reference to a particular party or candidate is forbidden at the polling places. So the equivalent of your Trump and Bernie representatives would only be allowed if they didn't openly disclose they were party representatives.
It's not legal here either, which is why I'm proposing to change it.
Partisan monitors oversee the counting in the US, not the actual balloting. I assume the same is true in Europe.
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Ah, sorry, I misunderstood. It works the same here.
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@Rhywden said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Or maybe simply make it illegal to do any kind of party specific stuff near the voting booths / stations.
We have that.
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
And then MAGA Hat Guy and Harris Hat Guy can each make sure the other aren't cheating. Checks and balances, right?
Are the hat guys officially registered? What if I wear a MAGA hat and pretend I'm a Trump fan?
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Well yeah, if you never check IDs nobody will ever get caught.
When I voted, they scanned my driver's license against a database. In Texas, you need to present a birth certificate to receive a driver's license. That seems sufficient, to me.
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@error said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
What if I wear a MAGA hat and pretend I'm a Trump fan?
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@error said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
And then MAGA Hat Guy and Harris Hat Guy can each make sure the other aren't cheating. Checks and balances, right?
Are the hat guys officially registered? What if I wear a MAGA hat and pretend I'm a Trump fan?
Under the plan I'm talking about, the MAGA Hat Guys are employees of the Trump campaign.
@error said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Well yeah, if you never check IDs nobody will ever get caught.
When I voted, they scanned my driver's license against a database. In Texas, you need to present a birth certificate to receive a driver's license. That seems sufficient, to me.
That would be fine. But Texas is a MASSIVE exception in terms of requiring IDs to vote. I'm trying to stay non-garagey, but I have a particular answer in mind when I ask "Who's against election monitoring?"
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
I don't trust anyone who's not explicitly working for my candidate to do that properly.
I know quite a few coworkers who work as election monitors (probably because government employees can get excused leave for doing it) and I reject your claim that the nonpartisan system "doesn't work". Some of those folks are very partisan (even if I probably shouldn't know that, Hatch Act) but I trust them entirely to perform their duties in a nonpartisan manner.
I think there's a lot of paranoia, especially in this election cycle, about the voting process that's not particularly justified.
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@heterodox said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
I know quite a few coworkers who work as election monitors (probably because government employees can get excused leave for doing it) and I reject your claim that the nonpartisan system "doesn't work". Some of those folks are very partisan (even if I probably shouldn't know that, Hatch Act)
So wait, it's a crime for these people to be politicking on the job... but they're doing so anyway...
Hmm...
Look. I'm sure your friends who work for the government are good people. Anecdotally, I have friends who are covered by the Hatch Act, volunteer as election monitors, and are good people also.
But that's not LITERALLY ALL OF THEM the way it should be. An explicitly adversarial system (with partisans from both sides guarding against each other) would make it harder for whole classes of fraud to be committed undetected. Which is why we already count votes that way. I'm just saying we should cast votes that way as well.
@heterodox said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
I think there's a lot of paranoia, especially in this election cycle, about the voting process that's not particularly justified.
This is a bad take also. There's a SHITLOAD of gamesmanship with election rules going on "because of the pandemic" that wouldn't normally be allowed.
The governor of my state shut down in person voting via executive order and replaced it with a mass mail system. It's significantly harder to fill in a mail in ballot than to vote using the voting machines, which will do nothing but benefit ballot box stuffers.
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
I want someone who I trust standing there to witness violations of that law so that violations can be reported and enforced. I don't trust anyone who's not explicitly working for my candidate to do that properly.
It's hard not to Godwin this conversation, because there's a pretty bad historical precedent for people in party uniform monitoring democratic elections. It was a great tool for voter intimidation.
I'm not saying that's the inevitable result, but at the very least the optics would be pretty bad.
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@HardwareGeek said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@acrow said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
But they can't add e.g. dead voters
Chicago is laughing at your naivete.
What? They've got dead voters on a public list now?
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
An explicitly adversarial system (with partisans from both sides guarding against each other) would make it harder for whole classes of fraud to be committed undetected. Which is why we already count votes that way. I'm just saying we should cast votes that way as well.
I think there are observers from multiple parties on polling stations in
. They also do last-minute lobbying.Of course, the Finnish form of voting lends itself well for monitoring: Each voter presents their ID on the polling station counter, gets checked against the list of valid voters for the region, and get one ballot card. They take the card into a booth, and write the number of the candidate they're voting for. Then they fold the card (so the number is not seen). And carry the card to the counter, where it is stamped. And then drop the card into the ballot box.
So, the observers can easily monitor that each voter gets one card stamped and dropped into the box. But they can't see the contents of the vote.
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@dfdub said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
I want someone who I trust standing there to witness violations of that law so that violations can be reported and enforced. I don't trust anyone who's not explicitly working for my candidate to do that properly.
It's hard not to Godwin this conversation, because there's a pretty bad historical precedent for people in party uniform monitoring democratic elections.
There's also 40 years of examples of totally non-partisan election observers in the Eastern Bloc countries. Your point?
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@Gąska said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@dfdub said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
I want someone who I trust standing there to witness violations of that law so that violations can be reported and enforced. I don't trust anyone who's not explicitly working for my candidate to do that properly.
It's hard not to Godwin this conversation, because there's a pretty bad historical precedent for people in party uniform monitoring democratic elections.
There's also 40 years of examples of totally non-partisan election observers in the Eastern Bloc countries. Your point?
My point is that the optics of guys in MAGA hats observing the voting process and the count would be pretty fucking horrible.
We can discuss whether party representatives should be present, but they'd better be invisible to the voters.
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@dfdub optics are in the eye of the beholder.
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@Carnage said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@Carnage said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Ah. See, my phone doesn't like doing phone things so I rarely use it to make phone calls...
This topic popped up in my /unread for some reason so I'm following up.
My new phone (a china Realme XT something or another) seems to do phone things pretty well. How I know? All these damn guilt-tripping "wah wah you didn't vote last year, can we count on you voting Biden?!?!" calls.
Fuck you, pay me!
Isn't it illegal to pay/accept payment for votes?
But maybe you mean that they have to pay to call you?No, not pay to vote, pay for me to accept your call and listen to you drivel your advertisement to me for several minutes.
That would be a wonderful service for telco to provide.
Hold on...
Shrinkwrap licensing, plus ringback tones?
"We're currently connecting you your destination. If you continue this call, you will be liable for $500 per 15 seconds of time. If you agree, please remain on the line. Warning: To avoid this service charge, you must disconnect now. [BEEP]"
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@sloosecannon said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@Carnage said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@Carnage said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Ah. See, my phone doesn't like doing phone things so I rarely use it to make phone calls...
This topic popped up in my /unread for some reason so I'm following up.
My new phone (a china Realme XT something or another) seems to do phone things pretty well. How I know? All these damn guilt-tripping "wah wah you didn't vote last year, can we count on you voting Biden?!?!" calls.
Fuck you, pay me!
Isn't it illegal to pay/accept payment for votes?
But maybe you mean that they have to pay to call you?No, not pay to vote, pay for me to accept your call and listen to you drivel your advertisement to me for several minutes.
That would be a wonderful service for telco to provide.
Hold on...
Shrinkwrap licensing, plus ringback tones?
"We're currently connecting you your destination. If you continue this call, you will be liable for $500 per 15 seconds of time. If you agree, please remain on the line. Warning: To avoid this service charge, you must disconnect now. [BEEP]"
Yeah, or something you can activate for specific calls, or always have active for certain types of callers, like telemarketing.
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@Gąska said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
There's also 40 years of examples of totally non-partisan election observers in the Eastern Bloc countries.
But in a country with only one party, that's not really relevant is it?
The only reliable elections are those in countries like Belarus, where you know beforehand who will win. Of course many people accidentally vote for the wrong person, so it could be improved by putting only one name on the ballot.
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@dfdub said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
I want someone who I trust standing there to witness violations of that law so that violations can be reported and enforced. I don't trust anyone who's not explicitly working for my candidate to do that properly.
It's hard not to Godwin this conversation, because there's a pretty bad historical precedent for people in party uniform monitoring democratic elections. It was a great tool for voter intimidation.
I'm not saying that's the inevitable result, but at the very least the optics would be pretty bad.
Is there a bad precedent for people in party uniforms monitoring elections in a true multiparty system, with uniformed monitors for all the relevant parties present? AFACT, the bad precedent comes exclusively from one party systems.
I don't think MAGA Hat Guy will be able to do much voter intimidation if Harris Hat Guy is recording him on his cell phone.
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Is there a bad precedent for people in party uniforms monitoring elections in a true multiparty system, with uniformed monitors for all the relevant parties present?
Minus the last part, yes. (Which seems like a huge PITA to organize - how would you define "relevant", for starters?) The Weimar Republic was a true multiparty system.
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@dfdub said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Is there a bad precedent for people in party uniforms monitoring elections in a true multiparty system, with uniformed monitors for all the relevant parties present?
Minus the last part, yes.
It would be stupid without the last part, which is why I typed the last part into the box before I hit the submit button.
(Which seems like a huge PITA to organize - how would you define "relevant", for starters?)
You don't. You'd write the rule as "Anyone, from any organization, can send poll monitors to the polls in whatever uniform they want." Then the campaigns would send their partisans in some sort of identifying uniform and tell their voters "If anyone screws with you at the polls, talk to our guy in the MAGA Hat and he'll fix things for you."
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
You'd write the rule as "Anyone, from any organization, can send poll monitors to the polls in whatever uniform they want."
Which means that the actual monitoring would be dependent on funds and party presence in the area. That leaves plenty of room for voter intimidation.
And I still don't see why any of this would be necessary or beneficial on the first place. Just a huge PITA for - at best - marginally more confidence in the voting process.
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@dfdub said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
You'd write the rule as "Anyone, from any organization, can send poll monitors to the polls in whatever uniform they want."
Which means that the actual monitoring would be dependent on funds and party presence in the area. That leaves plenty of room for voter intimidation.
There's room for voter intimidation now too that depends on funds and party presence in a given area.
By putting a uniformed guy opposed to the election officials in the building, it cuts down on the potential for them to commit intimidation or fraud.
I don't get how having two opposing partisans watching each other introduces more of a threat of inappropriate partisanship than just having one partisan not being watched and checked by anyone.
And I still don't see why any of this would be necessary or beneficial on the first place. Just a huge PITA for - at best - marginally more confidence in the voting process.
Ultimately? Because too few institutions are actually nonpartisan, and so we should drop the mask and make it explicitly clear that this is an adversarial process where everyone is a partisan.
Also, campaigns already send election monitors who pretend to be nonpartisan. I'm not sure that issuing a $20 hat to the monitors is that much of a PITA.
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@Steve_The_Cynic said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Then again, UK elections are still significantly physical as well, or were before 2009, anyway.
Still are.
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Is there a bad precedent for people in party uniforms monitoring elections in a true multiparty system, with uniformed monitors for all the relevant parties present?
No. Countries with more than 1 uniformed party generally don't get to the election stage, but descend straight into civil war.
Countries with 1 uniformed party often take a few months or even years, to reach that stage.
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@dfdub said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Is there a bad precedent for people in party uniforms monitoring elections in a true multiparty system, with uniformed monitors for all the relevant parties present?
Minus the last part, yes. (Which seems like a huge PITA to organize - how would you define "relevant", for starters?) The Weimar Republic was a true multiparty system.
Uh, you don't organize it from the top down. The relevant parties will self identify. It's in their interest to do so.
NB: Not endorsing the overall idea...haven't thought about it enough, but this objection seems off base.
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@dkf said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@topspin said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
How would they even know that??
Was last year an election year?
Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Belgian_federal_election
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@nerd4sale said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Is there a bad precedent for people in party uniforms monitoring elections in a true multiparty system, with uniformed monitors for all the relevant parties present?
No. Countries with more than 1 uniformed party generally don't get to the election stage, but descend straight into civil war.
Countries with 1 uniformed party often take a few months or even years, to reach that stage.We've had partisan observers supervising ballot counting for forever though. And ostensibly nonpartisan observers, who are really working with the campaigns, at the balloting for forever also.
The only way to ensure that the election is done properly is to let any interested party observe the process.
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@nerd4sale said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@Gąska said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
There's also 40 years of examples of totally non-partisan election observers in the Eastern Bloc countries.
But in a country with only one party, that's not really relevant is it?
There were multiple parties. There was even opposition! It's just that nobody voted for them. The non-partisan election observers made sure of that.
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I was an issuing officer just last week for a national election. The rules re: observing/influencing:
- Any party may send scrutineers to observe the voting process; they and the party are explicitly identified as such
- Scrutineers may not interact with voters
- Any recording of the voting process (for media coverage etc.) has to be arranged in advance; scrutineers may photograph issuing officers' auditing records
- Counting is behind closed doors. Initial counts on the night are provisional but history has shown they are a good indicator of results except in very tight races. Voting registers are matched to ensure registered voters haven't e.g. voted more than once; since wannabe voters can enrol at any time up to and including when they're sitting in front of the issuing officer to get their ballot, the electoral roll needs to be synced before vote counting can be completed.
- Campaigning (hoardings, speeches, streetwalking, lurking outside polling stations) is prohibited on election day; since one can vote up to two weeks in advance, while the campaigning is still going on, there is a ten-metre buffer for such activity around polling stations (so again no lurking outside). You can identify yourself as supporting some party or other when you go to vote - but who cares?
- Basically, the rules are set up so that anyone who turns up wanting to vote will get to do so; invalid votes get filtered later. Saves hassles on the day for the public.
The commission that runs (local and general) elections is constitutionally outside Government. Once the PM sets the date of the election the process is out of the Executive's hands (except in emergencies, as happened this year when it had to be suspended and delayed a month because of a covid outbreak). I get the impression that in the U.S. elections (especially at the State level) are run by the Government that the election is for.
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@Watson said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
Counting is behind closed doors.
I don't get why this is deemed a good thing. Obviously you don't want random people to be able to physically interfere with the counting so setting e.g. a physical barrier that only people doing the counting are allowed to cross is an understandable restriction, and there may always be counting stations were the physical layout of the building simply makes that impossible. But aside from that, you should want the counting to be done as much in public as possible. From the moment they enter the box ballots are totally anonymous so it doesn't matter who sees them.
Of course if counting entails using a looking glass to determine how Chad's hanging, observing the count from a few metres away won't be of much help.
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
I don't get how having two opposing partisans watching each other introduces more of a threat of inappropriate partisanship than just having one partisan not being watched and checked by anyone.
I think the problem comes in those areas which are primarily populated by members of one party and the other party/parties are an extreme minority. Can't have someone from the opposing party checking things if they're turned away at the door by the sheriffs or other security-types who've been told "Make sure the other party's guy, if one shows up, does NOT get in here".
Sure, you could probably sue over it, but in the short term the damage is already done.
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@e4tmyl33t said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
I don't get how having two opposing partisans watching each other introduces more of a threat of inappropriate partisanship than just having one partisan not being watched and checked by anyone.
I think the problem comes in those areas which are primarily populated by members of one party and the other party/parties are an extreme minority. Can't have someone from the opposing party checking things if they're turned away at the door by the sheriffs or other security-types who've been told "Make sure the other party's guy, if one shows up, does NOT get in here".
Sure, you could probably sue over it, but in the short term the damage is already done.
What makes it so that you can't get security types and tell them "Make sure black voters can't get in here and vote?"
It's because it's the law, and it's enforced swiftly and even handedly and everyone knows it.
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@remi I think a lot of it is so that the counters can get a bit of peace and quiet to concentrate in after a ten hour shift on the desks.
Then, too, the counting takes three weeks before a final result is confirmed and is very decentralised: spending an hour or two watching a bunch of people from several metres away as they literally unshuffled papers wouldn't be very edifying (I literally didn't know which candidates I'd be counting votes for until their names were put in front of me and the ballots started going around).
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@e4tmyl33t said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
I don't get how having two opposing partisans watching each other introduces more of a threat of inappropriate partisanship than just having one partisan not being watched and checked by anyone.
I think the problem comes in those areas which are primarily populated by members of one party and the other party/parties are an extreme minority. Can't have someone from the opposing party checking things if they're turned away at the door by the sheriffs or other security-types who've been told "Make sure the other party's guy, if one shows up, does NOT get in here".
Sure, you could probably sue over it, but in the short term the damage is already done.
Well, sure; but if your system is that corrupt to begin with then just having an election isn't going to make much difference to who gets into power however it's carried out. The trick is to take running the election out of the hands of the people being elected.
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@Watson said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
@remi I think a lot of it is so that the counters can get a bit of peace and quiet to concentrate in after a ten hour shift on the desks.
Well you could mandate that the observers of the count are not allowed to disturb the peace of the counting (i.e. must remain silent or not too noisy), with the officer in charge allowed to expel any troublemaker. Which is probably already the rules for any observer of the voting itself, so I don't see why that wouldn't be applicable to counting.
Then, too, the counting takes three weeks before a final result is confirmed
I've got to admit that it's another thing I don't understand. In France, counting is over about 1 hour after the end of voting (maybe a bit more in large polling stations). It's done on the spot in each polling stations immediately after it closes (for voting). In the UK there is an unofficial race to be the first constituency to declare results and that happens early in the night, which I think mostly accounts for the time to gather ballot boxes from polling stations to the counting centre; and the last results are known before midday. In both cases these might not be the official 100% final count (there are always a couple of counts that for one reason or another have issues and require recounts or other checks before the final lawfully binding results are published), but that never changes the national result, even in closely contested elections.
I'm not familiar enough with other countries, but not having 99.99...% accurate (if yet non-official) results available about 24h after the end of voting seems very weird to me.
and is very decentralised:
Voting is even more decentralised (there are never more counting stations than polling stations, and in most countries there are much less!) and yet there are observers in polling stations. So that's really not an argument for not allowing them during counting.
spending an hour or two watching a bunch of people from several metres away as they literally unshuffled papers wouldn't be very edifying
It isn't more edifying than watching people walking into a booth and coming out and putting their ballot in a box. But the point is that you can at least ensure that no gross manipulation happens during counting. You know, stacks of ballots "forgotten" in a corner, half of the ballot for one candidate "mistakenly" counted as another. It's definitely not a sure-fire way to avoid any interference, in the same way as an observer in the polling station won't prevent all interference as well (they won't be able to see people being bussed -- and briefed within the bus! -- by supporters of one candidate), but it's better than doing everything behind closed doors and just being required to blindly trust that no-one will try to tamper with it.
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@remi said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
I've got to admit that it's another thing I don't understand. In France, counting is over about 1 hour after the end of voting (maybe a bit more in large polling stations). It's done on the spot in each polling stations immediately after it closes (for voting). In the UK there is an unofficial race to be the first constituency to declare results and that happens early in the night, which I think mostly accounts for the time to gather ballot boxes from polling stations to the counting centre; and the last results are known before midday. In both cases these might not be the official 100% final count (there are always a couple of counts that for one reason or another have issues and require recounts or other checks before the final lawfully binding results are published), but that never changes the national result, even in closely contested elections.
It occasionally takes a bit longer when things are especially close, but when using FPTP then any race that isn't close is usually announced pretty rapidly. (The people most likely to ask for a recount are minor parties/candidates looking to determine if they keep their deposit rather than to find out if they won.) Rural constituencies typically take longer simply because the votes are brought to a central location for counting (such as the district council's main meeting hall) and that can't be done until the polling stations close. The first places to declare tend to be smaller urban constituencies.
I've heard of a few races taking weeks to resolve, mostly because the dispute escalated to the courts. That's pretty rare and low key unless the national race is very tight (as in 2010).
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@remi said in Tech reporting out WTFs tech support:
I've got to admit that it's another thing I don't understand. In France, counting is over about 1 hour after the end of voting (maybe a bit more in large polling stations). It's done on the spot in each polling stations immediately after it closes (for voting). In the UK there is an unofficial race to be the first constituency to declare results and that happens early in the night, which I think mostly accounts for the time to gather ballot boxes from polling stations to the counting centre; and the last results are known before midday. In both cases these might not be the official 100% final count (there are always a couple of counts that for one reason or another have issues and require recounts or other checks before the final lawfully binding results are published), but that never changes the national result, even in closely contested elections.
That's what I'm talking about. Clear wins are clear before voting is even completed on the night, with running totals for each electorate being posted as each station reports in (I was in one of the larger polling stations and one of the last to report our numbers — which matched proportionally what the rest of the electorate had reported). But there are often less-clear cases in individual electorates where two or three parties are within a couple of hundred votes of each other; that inevitably leads to a recount. Seats have been known to change following the recount, which can make the difference between a party being represented in Parliament or not. Then there are the postal votes sent in from expats around the world and they have to physically arrive at the commission's offices before they can be counted.
