Suspending the Election

[tstorm823]

I'd like to dig up articles about how Trump has pressured the USPS for most of his entire presidency with the aim of downsizing and selling it off into the private sector, but unfortunately Google is clogged with articles from the last day over this most recent furor about it.

You're not helping your case. The USPS is intended to fund itself, the President doesn't determine its funding. Digging up articles about Trump criticizing its practices for years doesn't aid to the idea that he's killing the Postal Service as an election tactic.

Basically any trump supporter would tell you that you're insane for associating him with the Democrats, and most republicans would heavily disagree too.

As the most Republican Republican, I will gladly put to shame those who would resist the suggestion that Trump is basically a Democrat in practice. But experience tells me they don't think I'm insane, rather they don't disagree or don't care. There are traditional Republicans that don't disagree because they don't like Trump's character and appreciate that way of expressing how he sucks, even as they support the policies he's signed. And there are genuine Trump supporters who don't care because they have no party loyalty, they don't care for either mainstream political party. I've not yet met a person remotely on the right who was offended by that characterization.

Cuz in Policy and Temperment, he's clearly more in line with the GOP, just louder and slightly more unpredicatble and prone to unilateral "!@#$ you, I'm doing what I want" moments.

Trump has very little with regard to policy positions. Outside of very specific things like the wall, he's subject to swapping positions not only on a whim, but on the advice of other people's whims. That he's pushed such conservative policy is just the dumb coincidence that Democrats refuse to use him to pass policy. Freaking Kim Kardashian got sentencing reform through, Trump's ego would sign any bill from anyone who sucks up to him. As far as character, he's got the same character traits as Democratic presidents for the last 100 years, excepting Jimmy Carter and Obama's family life. He's got the personal life of all those sleazeballs and Obama's "I've got a pen and a telephone" attitude.

But somehow I suspect you're woefully unequipped to have a conversation about per-voter TOT analysis by voting machine, let alone racial disparities in distributing end-of-life or near-end-of-life voting machines on a per-precinct basis.

The only conversation I'm unequipped to have is the one where you don't say anything. And if you're telling the truth, you're tossing out fluffy partisan crap articles about subjects you theoretically know more about that the crap authors of those pieces. If you have the knowledge, use it. And for god's sake, if you have the primary sources, use those!

 

[SupahEwok]

You're not helping your case. The USPS is intended to fund itself,

Only since the 1970s, doesn't sound like Founding Fathers intention, does it?

the President doesn't determine its funding.

Yeah, he's only the Postmaster General's boss, surely he has no say in the organization's running whatsoever.

Digging up articles about Trump criticizing its practices for years doesn't aid to the idea that he's killing the Postal Service as an election tactic.

Doesn't it, though? If he's wanted to kill it for years and suddenly he thinks he'll get another bonus out of it through election fraud, is that an incentive or disincentive?

Nice job on only engaging the second half of the post, by the way, nothing about how the Whitehouse killed Congressional funding for the post office in March. And although I haven't posted a source for them continuing to do so, I'm not bothering, the current round of negotiations broke down because the Democrats and the Whitehouse couldn't reach an agreement, and one of the issues they didn't agree on was a bailout for the post office. Cuz God forbid a vital service under direct government control receive the same consideration as the banks and too-big-to-fail corporations.

 

[MrCalavera]

Is Bernie a socialist or a Democrat?

A social democrat, to a t.

 

[Revnak]

A social democrat, to a t.

Don’t give him hints, he has to do this homework on his own.

 

[tstorm823]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Bernie is whatever is just left of the people he's competing with. He's not actually an ideologue, he's just a politician with a unique strategy. I'd call it "directional purity". Just like other sleazy politicians have unfixed positions and move with the way the wind blows, so does Bernie. He's just picked the left side instead of aiming for center.

 

[Eacaraxe]

The only conversation I'm unequipped to have is the one where you don't say anything. And if you're telling the truth, you're tossing out fluffy partisan crap articles about subjects you theoretically know more about that the crap authors of those pieces. If you have the knowledge, use it. And for god's sake, if you have the primary sources, use those!

Just, never mind the fact my articles cited do link to the scholarly articles which include the "primary sources" (bonus points for fucking up the definition of a primary source, by the way, the "primary source" in this case being the data sets included in the text of the scholarly articles cited), and of the links I provided, half were scholarly articles directly.

If you're gonna whine about my sources, do at least check the file format of the hyperlink. If I'm linking a PDF, chances are good I'm directly linking a scholarly source. Least of all when the domains are notoriously lefty liberal libtard fluffy partisan crap article sites like MIT and UCLA-Anderson, as doubtlessly you'll whine next.

Now I believe I've made myself crystal fucking clear about race- and class-based voter suppression by any and every means necessary, from precinct density manipulation to voting machine allotment. And I've brought scholarly sources to back up my point. To which I'll add these in reference to voting machine disparity:

https://www.stephenpettigrew.com/articles/pettigrew-2017-psq.pdf

https://www.vote.nyc.ny.us/downloads/pdf/documents/boe/rfi/2009/05_Header/NYC%20BOE%20Voters%20Per%20Machine%20Report%20v-34.2%20Final.pdf

If you have anything substantive to add rather than whinging about the fact I'm bringing hyperlinks to scholarly sources and articles to back up my arguments with hard data, put up or shut up. Otherwise, quit complaining that other people have opinions different than yours substantiated by fact.

 

[SupahEwok]

If you have anything substantive to add rather than whinging about the fact I'm bringing hyperlinks to scholarly sources and articles to back up my arguments with hard data, put up or shut up. Otherwise, quit whining that other people have opinions different than yours substantiated by fact.

Who is pictured, Trump or Tstorm?

 

[Thaluikhain]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Bernie is whatever is just left of the people he's competing with. He's not actually an ideologue, he's just a politician with a unique strategy. I'd call it "directional purity". Just like other sleazy politicians have unfixed positions and move with the way the wind blows, so does Bernie. He's just picked the left side instead of aiming for center.

I'm not Bernie's biggest fan, and there's criticisms to be leveled at him, but I'm pretty sure that's not one of them.

 

[tstorm823]

Just, never mind the fact my articles cited do link to the scholarly articles which include the "primary sources" (bonus points for fucking up the definition of a primary source, by the way, the "primary source" in this case being the data sets included in the text of the scholarly articles cited), and of the links I provided, half were scholarly articles directly.

I think you still don't understand my complaint. You first posted an article titled "setting the record straight" to make your case, and then posted some good sources beneath, and then you didn't actually talk about them. Could I contest that one of your sources states black voters were least likely to say their precinct is difficult to find, least likely to say the waiting area was small, most likely to say the machines were all functional, most likely to say there were four or more poll workers, most likely to say the poll workers lived in their community, that they were far more likely than white people to say that bathrooms were clearly marked (a statistic they apparently found significantly correlated to turnout). That black communities had the highest ranking in half the questions they found statistically significant? And yet they still managed to spend the entire written portion avoiding aspects that were worst for white people, and managed to conclude that "minority neighborhoods" were significantly effected by low quality precincts, because after breaking down racial groups the whole time, they slight of hand away those group distinctions at the end and turn minorities into a single conglomerate. Look at their raw data: minority neighborhoods had "lower quality" precincts than white neighborhoods because specifically Asian neighborhoods rated poorly. And "Asian" is the single ethnicity that correlates with higher voter turnout. So does that data suggest that black voter turnout is depressed by low quality voting precincts? Hell no.

How about the other pdf from your first response? They found wait disparities based on cell phone gps data. Ok. Then they guessed at the mechanism. Did the disparity correlate with partisan control? Not strongly, and the trend was worse in Democratic areas. Did it correlate to voting laws like voter id? Not at all. Did it correlate to various measures of wealth and inequality? Nah. Did it correlate to work hours? Maybe a tiny bit. Did it correlate to the number of voters in the area? Yes. Yes it did. Black people do live disproportionately in urban areas in America, yes. But go back to your other source. Black precincts had the most poll workers, the most local poll workers, the most functional machines, the most centralized polling places. Then reconsider that their measurement was "time spent at the precinct". Is it possible that through no malice or misappropriation of resources that people living in densely populated spaces going to a more heavily trafficked polling place filled with their neighbors might spend more time in them than rural people driving 20 minutes to an empty room run by 2 people they might not even know? Survey says "duh".

So, you posted sources that suggest black communities don't have lower quality voting precincts, and racial disparities in voting experience don't correlate with states or counties that have voting regulations or the Republican leadership that advocate for such things. You've basically made my case. And had you tried to explain the data yourself, you might have found this for yourself.

But nah, better to let Mother Jones come in at the end to explain your position. Even when it starts out ragging on Florida, which by your own sources has less than average wait time disparities, and moves on to complain about South Carolina where, by your own source, white voters wait significantly longer to vote than black voters on average. My problem with your responses isn't you lacking primary sources. I admit, my phrasing was less than clear, but my intention wasn't to suggest you weren't posting those sources, my intention was to say "you have primary sources, use them". Because your editorial sources flatly contradict your scholarly ones, and you aren't clearing up what you mean to say.

 

[Eacaraxe]

I think you still don't understand my complaint. You first posted an article titled "setting the record straight" to make your case, and then posted some good sources beneath, and then you didn't actually talk about them.

What exactly do you think I mean when I talk about precinct consolidation, station closure, allotment of voting machines per district on a per-voter basis, and disparities of type of voting machine and how that impacts voter time-on-task?

Could I contest that one of your sources states black voters were least likely to say...And yet they still managed to spend the entire written portion avoiding aspects that were worst for white people, and managed to conclude that "minority neighborhoods" were significantly effected by low quality precincts, because after breaking down racial groups the whole time, they slight of hand away those group distinctions at the end and turn minorities into a single conglomerate.

Congratulations, you looked at the survey responses per-question in the Barreto paper, but apparently didn't look at their analysis of key indicators to index overall quality, correlation to turnout, nor conclusions that found the exact opposite as the cherry-picked "perspective" you provide here while simultaneously, conveniently, ignoring that race correlates to wealth. Because apparently, the size of the waiting room and whether the shitters are labeled is equivalent or of greater importance in your mind to whether there are chairs in the waiting room, whether voters are provided literature of their rights as voters, and the availability of provisional balloting (AKA fake voting).

How about the other pdf from your first response? They found wait disparities based on cell phone gps data. Ok. Then they guessed at the mechanism.

No, they argued it was outside the scope of their study, and cited conclusions by other authors who have studied its mechanisms.

Did the disparity correlate with partisan control? Not strongly, and the trend was worse in Democratic areas.

Yup, funny that, isn't it? It's almost as if Democrats are horrendously hypocritical on the topic of voter enfranchisement, and are more than happy to preserve the status quo through mechanisms that scarcely get mainstream attention because they're arcane, hard to understand, and not terribly ratings-grabbing, while blaming Republicans for stupid-ass laws.

Did it correlate to various measures of wealth and inequality? Nah.

No, they found it doesn't impact the disparity on a per-county basis. In other words, black voters in wealthier areas experience the same disparity to white voters, as black voters in poor areas.

Yes. Yes it did. Black people do live disproportionately in urban areas in America, yes. But go back to your other source. Black precincts had the most poll workers, the most local poll workers, the most functional machines, the most centralized polling places.

That's not what Pettigrew and other sources I cited found. Because that's where distinctions between types of voting machines and voters-per-precinct and machines-per-voter come in. And, Pettigrew found wait times increased exponentially, and unimpacted by changes in vote share as a factor of race, because he compared the 2008 and 2012 surges in black turnout with 2006 and 2014, particularly 2014 wherein there was a comparative surge in white turnout but no impact in wait time. What Pettigrew didn't have, was the data provided by the Chen et. al. analysis.

Because here's what you're not seeing, because you're not paying attention. The NYS BoE report provides numbers on voter time-on-task for DRE versus optiscan; the voting machine is in use four to six times longer per voter using DRE than it does optiscan (depending upon issuance of VVPAT). The chief barrier to optiscan is spatial, not necessarily technical, because optiscan machines don't necessarily need BMD's and the main limiting factor for optiscan is number of available voting booths. Combine optiscan with mandatory BMD use, and you run into the same voter TOT problems as DRE. The NYS BoE found a requirement of approximately three and a half times more DRE's to service the same number of voters per precinct as optiscan.

The problem is, NYS BoE fucked up their estimate.

[PDF] New Voting Systems for NY— Long Lines and High Cost | Semantic Scholar

Semantic Scholar extracted view of "New Voting Systems for NY— Long Lines and High Cost" by W. Edelstein

pdfs.semanticscholar.org

So, you want to know why black voters are self-reporting more machines per district, but there are still simultaneously congestion problems that lead to exponentially-increasing lines to vote? They're voting on DRE's and being underserved in machines per precinct:

On Election Day, most voters use electronic or optical-scan ballots

The two most common voting technologies in the U.S. today are "fill-in-the-bubble" and other optical-scan ballots, and touch-screen computers and other direct recording electronic systems.

www.pewresearch.org

Voting methods and equipment by state

Ballotpedia: The Encyclopedia of American Politics

ballotpedia.org

The contrast couldn't be clearer in the case of Texas this year, which voted before lockdown and uses a mix of DRE and optiscan. Funny how the counties that reported the longest waits, had DRE's and high minority populations, while being highly consolidated before the primary:

Long voting lines in Texas renew accusations of voter suppression

Since 2012, Texas has shut down 750 polling stations across the state.

thehill.com

Texas closes hundreds of polling sites, making it harder for minorities to vote

Guardian analysis finds that places where black and Latino population is growing by the largest numbers experienced the majority of closures and could benefit Republicans

www.theguardian.com

Reports of long lines, confusion, broken and misreporting machines, in GA, MI, and SC this year? DRE states. Interesting how Alabama, for its long and inglorious history of throwing everything including the kitchen sink at black voters to stop them, didn't have these problems while being the only optiscan state in the South.

Because this is how voter suppression works nowadays. Consolidate and eliminate precincts, then provide consolidated precincts with insufficient numbers of voting machines that can serve fewer voters per machine.

Is it possible that through no malice or misappropriation of resources that people living in densely populated spaces going to a more heavily trafficked polling place filled with their neighbors might spend more time in them than rural people driving 20 minutes to an empty room run by 2 people they might not even know?

No, it's not possible. These are known quantities, as I've demonstrated, and the disparity in wait times don't vary by population density. The wait times themselves do, but not the disparity. A black voter waiting five minutes to a white voter's four, is still 25% longer than a black voter's 25-minute wait to a white voter's 20.

So, you posted sources that suggest black communities don't have lower quality voting precincts,

No, you just ignored the papers' analysis and conclusions, and cherry-picked a bunch of bullshit.

 

[tstorm823]

No, it's not possible. These are known quantities, as I've demonstrated, and the disparity in wait times don't vary by population density. The wait times themselves do, but not the disparity. A black voter waiting five minutes to a white voter's four, is still 25% longer than a black voter's 25-minute wait to a white voter's 20.

This is misunderstanding statistics. Black voters and white voters in the same districts are going to face identical wait times. The comparison we have is wait times in majority white districts vs wait times in majority black districts. Majority black districts do exist disproportionately in urban areas. So if you are comparing "black precints" to "white precincts", you are inherently carrying along whatever correlations exist. You cannot compare all black areas in the US to nonblack areas in the US without all of the urban vs rural baggage.

If you look at that cell phone data paper where it breaks down time disparity by state, the states with the least disparity (or most inverted disparity) are basically all rural states. Pennsylvania is the only state to flip the disparity with a hint of mega city, but we do have plenty of non-white population is rural central PA, and we have a super white city in Pittsburgh, and suddenly white areas are waiting longer on average.

The disparity isn't between black and white voters in the same spaces. Nobody is saying black voters wait longer at the same precincts as white voters, its all a comparison between precincts, so where people live absolutely matters. You can't say black people living in cities isn't a contributing factor, especially given the trend of where the disparity is the harshest.

Yup, funny that, isn't it? It's almost as if Democrats are horrendously hypocritical on the topic of voter enfranchisement, and are more than happy to preserve the status quo through mechanisms that scarcely get mainstream attention because they're arcane, hard to understand, and not terribly ratings-grabbing, while blaming Republicans for stupid-ass laws.

I'm sure you know, I'm not a huge fan of the Democratic Party. But I'm also not a huge fan of assigning blame that ought not exist. Because of voting patterns in the black community, areas with the most black residents skew Democrat. Additionally, they found bigger disparities in blue states than red states. That Mother Jones article references poorly allocated resources even in the wealthy black MD area. Blue areas effectively discouraging their own voting hurts the electoral prospects of the Democratic Party. So lets consider two possibilites.

Possibility A) Democrats lose on purpose. Simple, funny, but I really don't think so.
Possibility B) Election logistics in urban spaces are super hard. Black people live in more densely populated spaces. Even that rich black community in MD is an immediate DC suburb. From your sources, finding and keeping a precinct year to year is a big help in keeping voters. Space in a precinct is limited, but having a bunch of voting locations near each other is destined to increase confusion. Trying to fix things by moving to all new locations would chase people away. I don't think it's a problem of malice or racism at all. It's just logistics are hard and they aren't the same in all places.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Possibility A) Democrats lose on purpose. Simple, funny, but I really don't think so.

Possibility C)Democrats are animated by the concerns of their donors and consultants, both of which benefit from Democrats having to appeal to a more white and affluent voter base, and so it doesn't really matter what they personally think or what would win them elections, because whatever their personal feelings about it may be, opposing the Republicans on voter disenfranchisement is never a legislative priority to the people who pull their strings. There is more to dining at the trough of congress than actually winning elections, after all: one has to secure that cushy after-Congress consulting, lobbying, speaking gig or board membership. And the people with money want affluent whites whose politics are as deep as hating Russia because MSNBC said so to be the main constituency of the Democratic Party.

You can accept that analysis or not, but the main thing is: there is a class of possibilities where Democrats simply have other priorities that outweigh manipulating the structure of elections to their advantage (with or without justification); that much is undeniable.

 

[Eacaraxe]

This is misunderstanding statistics. Black voters and white voters in the same districts are going to face identical wait times.

No, you're not understanding or reading what I said properly. I said the disparity is present no matter what the wait times on average are, not that black and white voters in the same precinct have disparities in wait time (even though the Chen paper found inconclusive evidence for it as part of their per-county correlate analysis, which you admitted to yourself when saying "a tiny bit"). You're trying to pretend this matters, it doesn't.

The comparison we have is wait times in majority white districts vs wait times in majority black districts. Majority black districts do exist disproportionately in urban areas. So if you are comparing "black precints" to "white precincts", you are inherently carrying along whatever correlations exist. You cannot compare all black areas in the US to nonblack areas in the US without all of the urban vs rural baggage.

In other words, lower pop density precincts with fewer voters per-precinct and per-machine. Because you're not reading and not thinking about what I have to say, you're not noticing the urban-rural divide is already part of the fucking analysis.

And keep trying to pretend there isn't a racial disparity down to the very type of machine used in minority-heavy jurisdictions.

So lets consider two possibilites.

No, it really isn't "super hard". It's a matter of putting voting machines capable of serving more voters per machine in urban precincts, assigning adequate numbers of machines per precinct, and reassigning precincts to have equitable numbers of voters per precinct. You know, the complete opposite of what election boards across the country actually do.

 

[tstorm823]

No, it really isn't "super hard". It's a matter of putting voting machines capable of serving more voters per machine in urban precincts, assigning adequate numbers of machines per precinct, and reassigning precincts to have equitable numbers of voters per precinct. You know, the complete opposite of what election boards across the country actually do.

So completely reorganize the entire system, likely moving a ton of voters to precincts they've never been to, pump a bunch of money into this new system, and cross your fingers that nothing like Obama running ever happens again they suddenly shakes up voter turnout in particular areas so that your resources don't become mis-allocated all over again, and then the problem is solved forever! Yay!

I wish they were all that easy.

 

[Eacaraxe]

So completely reorganize the entire system, likely moving a ton of voters to precincts they've never been to, pump a bunch of money into this new system, and cross your fingers that nothing like Obama running ever happens again they suddenly shakes up voter turnout in particular areas so that your resources don't become mis-allocated all over again, and then the problem is solved forever!

You seem to have missed the point that how we got here from where we were, was because "the entire system" was over the course of a decade and a half completely reorganized in such a specific way the poor and minority vote is suppressed through soft institutional barriers to impede accessibility. "A ton of voters" already had been moved to precincts they've never been to through precinct consolidation and polling station elimination, and when they got there "a bunch of money" had been pumped into it to buy machines less capable of handling increased voter volume on a per-district basis.

Again, look at Texas. Why are DRE's employed in urban and majority-minority areas when the rest of the state is predominantly hybrid or optiscan? DRE's are the machines that can't handle high voter volume, and surprise of surprises, it's in the precincts that use DRE's election and primary days are clusterfucks. And, why are their optiscan machines -- the ones capable of handling thousands of voters per machine -- in the lowest density areas?





You want to stick to this lie Obama turnout somehow had an impact on this, despite the fact election years before and after Obama, as well as midterms during the Obama years, were also examined for the same racial disparities and the same evidence was found. You can lie, cherry-pick, and change the subject all you like, you're not changing reality.

 

[tstorm823]

You seem to have missed the point that how we got here from where we were, was because "the entire system" was over the course of a decade and a half completely reorganized in such a specific way the poor and minority vote is suppressed through soft institutional barriers to impede accessibility. "A ton of voters" already had been moved to precincts they've never been to through precinct consolidation and polling station elimination, and when they got there "a bunch of money" had been pumped into it to buy machines less capable of handling increased voter volume on a per-district basis.

Again, look at Texas. Why are DRE's employed in urban and majority-minority areas when the rest of the state is predominantly hybrid or optiscan? DRE's are the machines that can't handle high voter volume, and surprise of surprises, it's in the precincts that use DRE's election and primary days are clusterfucks. And, why are their optiscan machines -- the ones capable of handling thousands of voters per machine -- in the lowest density areas?

You want to stick to this lie Obama turnout somehow had an impact on this, despite the fact election years before and after Obama, as well as midterms during the Obama years, were also examined for the same racial disparities and the same evidence was found. You can lie, cherry-pick, and change the subject all you like, you're not changing reality.

The voting machines in Texas are bought and implemented on a county level. You're acting like there's a coordinated effort to only use them in the wrong places, when there's little to no coordination at all. You know what one of the biggest advantages of purely digital ballot submission is? The ease at which people who speak different languages can be accommodated. Does it take a grand conspiracy to see why counties along the Rio Grande might prefer that method to paper ballots?

And as far as rural spaces not using DREs, did they ever adopt them in the first place? It's not like this is old, super well ingrained technology that everyone used. They're supposed to be the new technology, they just happened to come with downsides that are proving to be substantial. Do you think nearly empty counties in rural Texas bought touchscreen voting booths ever?

 

[Eacaraxe]

The voting machines in Texas are bought and implemented on a county level. You're acting like there's a coordinated effort to only use them in the wrong places, when there's little to no coordination at all. You know what one of the biggest advantages of purely digital ballot submission is? The ease at which people who speak different languages can be accommodated. Does it take a grand conspiracy to see why counties along the Rio Grande might prefer that method to paper ballots?

And as far as rural spaces not using DREs, did they ever adopt them in the first place? It's not like this is old, super well ingrained technology that everyone used. They're supposed to be the new technology, they just happened to come with downsides that are proving to be substantial. Do you think nearly empty counties in rural Texas bought touchscreen voting booths ever?

Every last word of what you typed is absolute dogshit.

State and county governments have to act pursuant to state and federal guidelines for voting machine purchase and implementation, especially post-HAVA. Where exactly do you think the landslide of cash that led to the widespread adoption of DRE's came from in the first place, exactly?

Imagine arguing coordination between municipalities, counties, and states doesn't happen in a world in which ALEC exists.

You know what the biggest advantage of optiscan is? Filled bubbles on a Spanish ballot record the same as those on an English ballot, and still take the same nineteen seconds per voter to record. And BMD's can be programmed to display Spanish-language ballots all the same. Funny you say this, when only five of the 32 counties in the Texas border area as defined by DSHS are DRE-only, and 14 of them have DRE's at all. The state of Texas doesn't seem to have gotten the memo on your cunning revelation.

Optiscan is almost fifty years old, and been in widespread use since the early '90s. DRE technology is almost forty years old, and a quarter of the country was voting electronically by 2004. This isn't new fucking tech, this has been around for decades and the benefits and drawbacks of both known for almost twenty goddamn years. Do you not remember 2004 when there were allegations of compromised DRE's in Ohio, and when the state of California issued an injunction against the use of Diebold machines because they were found in court of law to be insecure?

 

[tstorm823]

Optiscan is almost fifty years old, and been in widespread use since the early '90s. DRE technology is almost forty years old, and a quarter of the country was voting electronically by 2004. This isn't new fucking tech, this has been around for decades and the benefits and drawbacks of both known for almost twenty goddamn years. Do you not remember 2004 when there were allegations of compromised DRE's in Ohio, and when the state of California issued an injunction against the use of Diebold machines because they were found in court of law to be insecure?

In what world do you live that years beginning with a 2 are old? By what logic do you think it takes malicious coordination for rural counties in Texas to be more likely to use technology you know is older?

Give up already. The facts you present deny the accusations of malice you make.

 

[Eacaraxe]

In what world do you live that years beginning with a 2 are old?

The one in which the first optiscan voting machines were in use in the '60s, and the first DRE voting machines were in use in the '70s. I'm sorry if you don't know enough about the topic of discussion to know those types of voting machines far predate "years beginning with a 2", but your ignorance isn't reality.

By what logic do you think it takes malicious coordination for rural counties in Texas to be more likely to use technology you know is older?

When the older tech is proven, secure, more reliable, and capable of handling three and a half times more voters per machine at a lower cost per-precinct and per-election than the alternative? When that alternative just so happens to be provided to majority-minority and poor districts on the federal dime care of GOP legislation, despite decades of repeated and undeniably-proven allegations of insecurity, unreliability, and lower efficiency at a higher cost?

 

[tstorm823]

The one in which the first optiscan voting machines were in use in the '60s, and the first DRE voting machines were in use in the '70s. I'm sorry if you don't know enough about the topic of discussion to know those types of voting machines far predate "years beginning with a 2", but your ignorance isn't reality.

Invention isn't adoption. When the earliest form of the technology was created has no bearing on where they're in use currently.

You're just working incredibly hard to find the most cynical spin. You should stop doing that.