SciAm: Voting Has Never Been More Secure

[Jayhawker Soule]

From yesterday's Scientific American:

Voting Has Never Been More Secure Than It Is Right Now​

Now is the best time in the history of the U.S. to cast a vote. Yes, American elections have flaws. They’re marred by voter disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, the inherent weirdness of the electoral college and recent cases of ballot box arson. But the act of voting itself has been unfairly tarnished, most notably by former president Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was fraudulent. That claim is especially preposterous because modern voting procedures are only becoming more robust—and those casting ballots by mail or machine in this year’s presidential election can, in fact, be more confident than ever that their votes will be tallied accurately.​

​

One reason for that confidence is the adoption of voting technology that combines machine efficiency with the verifiability of a paper trail. This is the result of a shift that began two decades ago, after system jams and punch-card fragments—Florida’s infamous “hanging chads”—led to a fiasco that left the 2000 election results unclear for five weeks. Congress’s response, the 2002 Help America Vote Act, phased out the use of punch-card ballots and lever machines in federal elections. Most Americans now vote with optical scanners, which process marked selections on paper sheets. In the 2020 presidential election, Georgia’s polling sites used hand-fed optical scanners; an audit of the nearly five million votes cast in the state, the largest hand count of ballots in recent U.S. history, confirmed that President Joe Biden won. County error rates were 0.73 percent or less, and most had no change in their tallies at all.​

But this is unlikely to quiet the lies and innuendos sure to crescendo over the following week and beyond.

(And, sadly, given a Trump-Vance-Johnson-RFK Jr. regime, 'Scientific American' could become little more than an oxymoron.)

 

[Pogo]

(And, sadly, given a Trump-Vance-Johnson-RFK Jr. regime, 'Scientific American' could become little more than an oxymoron.)

Can we just start saying that they are not "True Americans"?

 

[Twilight Hue]

From yesterday's Scientific American:

Voting Has Never Been More Secure Than It Is Right Now​

Now is the best time in the history of the U.S. to cast a vote. Yes, American elections have flaws. They’re marred by voter disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, the inherent weirdness of the electoral college and recent cases of ballot box arson. But the act of voting itself has been unfairly tarnished, most notably by former president Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was fraudulent. That claim is especially preposterous because modern voting procedures are only becoming more robust—and those casting ballots by mail or machine in this year’s presidential election can, in fact, be more confident than ever that their votes will be tallied accurately.​

​

One reason for that confidence is the adoption of voting technology that combines machine efficiency with the verifiability of a paper trail. This is the result of a shift that began two decades ago, after system jams and punch-card fragments—Florida’s infamous “hanging chads”—led to a fiasco that left the 2000 election results unclear for five weeks. Congress’s response, the 2002 Help America Vote Act, phased out the use of punch-card ballots and lever machines in federal elections. Most Americans now vote with optical scanners, which process marked selections on paper sheets. In the 2020 presidential election, Georgia’s polling sites used hand-fed optical scanners; an audit of the nearly five million votes cast in the state, the largest hand count of ballots in recent U.S. history, confirmed that President Joe Biden won. County error rates were 0.73 percent or less, and most had no change in their tallies at all.​

But this is unlikely to quiet the lies and innuendos sure to crescendo over the following week and beyond.

(And, sadly, given a Trump-Vance-Johnson-RFK Jr. regime, 'Scientific American' could become little more than an oxymoron.)

Yep. And people boasted the Titanic was unsinkable too.

 

[Revoltingest]

Yep. And people boasted the Titanic was unsinkable too.

Do you believe Trump’s claim of a stolen election?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Yep. And people boasted the Titanic was unsinkable too.

Even you could do better than such an inane response.

 

[Wirey]

Yep. And people boasted the Titanic was unsinkable too.

No, they didn't. No one said the Titanic was unsinkable until after it sank. You can look it up!

 

[Twilight Hue]

No, they didn't. No one said the Titanic was unsinkable until after it sank. You can look it up!

Try looking at the White Star Line brochure, and Ship Builders magazine at that time.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Even you could do better than such an inane response.

It happened.

 

[tytlyf]

Try looking at the White Star Line brochure, and Ship Builders magazine at that time.

The ship builders never claimed it was unsinkable.
That myth came from the White Star Line and others

 

[F1fan]

Yep. And people boasted the Titanic was unsinkable too.

The difference being that MAGAs would deliberately steer the ship into an iceberg. This is illustrated by the criminal candidate claiming there's voting fraud happening.

So we have Trump trying to steer the ship into the iceberg, and many ethical people working to keep it far away from this threat. So far the ethical people are winning, and we will see if Trump calls in his criminal followers to attack the USA again, and/or call on unethical MAGAs in congress and other government positions to sabotage the results.

 

[sun rise]

Yep. And people boasted the Titanic was unsinkable too.

<sarcasm>
That's why President Biden should use the power SCOTUS gave him and declare Kamala Harris the winner without all the stolen election lies we will see when Trump loses. Or he can decree that anyone who questions the election results is ipso facto a traitor and lock them up. That will stop all the stolen election nonsense.

After all, it's obvious that trump is trying to steal the election by every and all means already so we can't trust any outcome where trump wins.
</.sarcasm>

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Also worth noting:

6 facts about false noncitizen voting claims and the election​

Including ...

After the 2016 election, the Brennan Center for Justice, which advocates for voting rights, surveyed local election officials in 42 jurisdictions with high immigrant populations and found just 30 cases of suspected noncitizens voting out of 23.5 million votes cast, or 0.0001%.​

​

The Brennan Center survey did not include North Carolina, where a state audit after the 2016 election found 41 cases of green card holders who voted out of nearly 4.8 million votes in the state. The same report said many of the noncitizen voters had been misinformed that they could vote.​

and ...

While the conservative Heritage Foundation has actively promoted claims about the risk of noncitizens voting this campaign season, its own data suggests how rare these cases are. The Washington Post reviewed a Heritage database of voter fraud cases and found 85 cases relating to allegations of noncitizens voting between 2002 and 2023.​

But MAGA continues to

• spread the lies,
• ignore the facts,
• and prep the violence.