This makes me think we are on the same path as many countries who routinely have significant civil conflict every election cycle.
Not a great look for a country. Not a great group to join. Yet here we are.
merc@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
The scary thing about elections is that, by design, nobody can ever “prove” they won.
Votes are designed to be anonymous. They have to be. If they’re not, they’re very vulnerable to manipulation. If someone can prove how they voted, then they can either be bribed to vote a certain way, or threatened to vote a certain way. If you can check that your vote was counted successfully for the candidate you chose, then someone else can check that you voted for the candidate they chose.
That means that, by design, the only security that elections can have is in the process. In a small election, like 1000ish votes or fewer, someone could supervise the whole thing. They could cast their vote, then stand there and watch. They could watch as other people voted, making sure that nobody voted twice, or dropped more than one sheet into the box. They could watch as the box was emptied. Then, they could watch as each vote was tallied. Barring some sleight-of-hand, in a small election like that, you could theoretically supervise the entire process, and convince yourself that the vote was fair.
But, that is impossible to scale. Even for 1000 votes, not every voter could supervise the entire process, and for more than 1000 votes, or votes involving more than one voting location, it’s just not possible for one person to watch the entire thing. So, at some point you need to trust other people. If you’re talking say 10,000 votes, maybe you have 10 people you trust beyond a shadow of a doubt, and each one of you could supervise one process. But, the bigger the election, the more impossible it is to have actual people you know and trust supervising everything.
In a huge country-wide election, there’s simply no alternative to trust. You have to trust poll workers you’ve never met, and/or election monitors you’ve never met. And, since you’re not likely to hear directly from poll workers or election monitors, you have to instead trust the news source you’re using that reports on the election. In a big, complex election, a statistician may be able to spot fraud based on all the information available. But, if you’re not that statistician, you have to trust them, and even if you are that statistician, you have to trust that your model is correct and that the data you’re feeding it is correct.
Society is built on trust, and voting is no different. Unfortunately, in the US, trust is breaking down, and without trust, it’s just a matter of which narrative seems the most “truthy” to you.
cowpattycrusader@thelemmy.club 3 days ago
GladiusB@lemmy.world 3 days ago
They can tell who votes. Your entire premise is based on a belief that votes are anonymous. They aren’t. They are pretected from the public. If you have ever worked in election, which I have, you would know that. You have to cross reference if someone voted twice, are alive, or even registered in the county they voted in. There are computers that verify electronic bullets and there are batch audits. No one is ever allowed to be alone even with one ballet. Everything is done in a team. If your partner calls in sick, you’re the third wheel to another team.
Just because the public doesn’t know doesn’t mean the government doesn’t know.
ilinamorato@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Votes are anonymous. You can tell who voted, but not what they voted for. It’s crucial for the fairness of elections that a vote cannot be definitively connected to the individual who cast it; if you could, you could coerce or retaliate.
And all of the things you mention are the trust OP is talking about. You were a trusted person in that situation. The process increases and validates trust.
jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Oh man are you confused. For everyone else this person doesnt know how voting works.
Voting in the states is 100% anonymous across the board. The data trail stops after a person is signed in at the polls. There is zero information on a ballot to identify you.
GladiusB@lemmy.world 1 day ago
You do know I worked in an election? For everyone else this person is grandstanding!
jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 hours ago
🤦 no you havent or your state has some weird laws. which state are you need lets go look at their ballot. this is easily disproved.
CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world 3 days ago
That’s basically what was being said and it’s not functionally different because the vast majority of the public does not work in elections or their verification. In essence if 99% of the population does not have access to data or cannot interpret said data, trust is needed.
GladiusB@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I read certain phrases from what they wrote and it infers that people do not know who voted for who or what. That just isn’t the mechanism. It’s done by computers. It has to be tabulated for a multitude of reasons. It’s not anonymous to the mechanism. It is anonymous to the public. Which is not what the original statement. It was that the trust is built from no one at all ever knowing or being to tell.
merc@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
First, I’m writing about a person who’s watching and doesn’t know if they can trust the system. My point is that there’s no alternative to trust in the system, the system is built on trust.
Second, if you’re inside the system, if you’re an election worker or a government authority, you can tell who voted. But, you can’t tell who that voter cast their votes for – at least in a functional democracy.
The authorities can, and should, have all kinds of checks and balances to make sure that all the votes are being handled safely and counted correctly. But, if the public doesn’t trust the authorities, there’s nothing that the authorities can realistically do to convince the public that everything is above board. You can’t “prove” that the system isn’t rigged.
FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
In France we get an anonymous code and we can plug it into a website and it tells us if our ballot was counted or not, and if it wasn’t counted why. (markings on ballott, multiple candidates selected for one spot, etc.)
merc@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Right, but no way to verify who you voted for.
And, you have to trust that the website is telling you the truth. You have no way of verifying that it always gives the same answer to everybody. I guess someone could test that there’s some connection to their real ballot by intentionally screwing up their ballot. But, that doesn’t mean that there’s any way to prove that when it’s counted that the actual tally for the person / people you voted for are going up not down.
Eheran@lemmy.world 3 days ago
You know how people outside the USA vote? They go their, show their ID, get a tick on the list of voters, and do the voting.
FreakinSteve@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Same as inside the USA.
Eheran@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Interesting, given the stories of people voting several times by just going to different places.
jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Oi, no you have to have your name on the rolls and there is a dedicated building were you as an individual are required to cast your vote. Go the the wrong building and you wont be on the roll.
You can vote multiple times if you own homes in multiple states but:
FreakinSteve@lemmy.world 2 days ago
“stories”. Yes. Fascist media is full of stories.
merc@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Yes, and again, it’s all based on trust.
Eheran@lemmy.world 2 days ago
How is trust involved in that process?
merc@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Can you prove that your vote was counted and that the number of votes for your candidate went up by one as a result? If you can’t prove it, then it’s based on trust.