I attempted to download a car once, but front wheel got stuck in my router. Was huge mess

I think if one follows the same practices as what is implemented in the UK and France and other democracies, then the issues we speak of with American ballot counting will simply go away.

I would not trust any improvements over the ballot counting methods perfected over 200 years ago. Scantrons, as mentioned, obfuscate witnesses trying to spot issues, and anything else is simply worse.

The modern crop of voting machines are not that much better than the Diebold machines, its hard to tell due to everyone being locked out of investigating them. Most people do not understand that these systems can have the owners throwing the elections without the employees being any wiser. We do not know this is happening, but with the exit polls and other hints going on, I would rate is as probable.

I think my issues with voting machines are influenced by me making similar systems myself. But still, I have no idea why people think they are a good idea. I do not think its a matter of education, or lack of awareness, because I tried for a few years to educate people, and have talked to others who tried too. I think it boils down to some taboo against calling out cheating in the American culture, to be honest. But that is just my idea

Texas is ok. Yes, it has a corrupt bad government steeped in endless corruption. But the big cities are just regular North American cities in both outlook and being cosmopolitan in nature (there are dozens of ethnic groups that have a huge impact on Houston, for example). And most of the rural population is allergic to politics. There is a warming trend that is going to cause mass migrations out of Texas in the next two generations, though.

First, I’m rather far far left. Both mainstream parties have traditionally been against things I hold dear. So things promoted by democrats can be poison to me.

But that is not the point.

When you have a party supporting the fascists, and a party that is less so; and that other party is against enabling, asking, paying token lip service: to democratic principles that every real democracy in the world holds dear, practices that would make the fascists loose.

That makes them a passive enabler.

There is nothing wrong with being a professional looser, and a corrupt mess, if that is what your voters want. But when it’s something that important and there is still no mass awareness of the situation, or even a glimmer of interest to do better.

That does make them equally bad. Much like a child abuse scenario where one parent beats up the children and another parent lets them.

And I think future historians will agree with me

Democrats are out of their minds because they, as a party and a majority of participants: embrace electronic voting; do not demand recounts in very close elections; ignore exit polls that show more people voted for them than recorded in the elections they loose; have no interest in paper ballots etc etc.

If a party is against demanding better democratic practices in states they routinely lose. Sometimes loosing only narrowly.

And everyone needs them to win.

Then what would you call it besides a sort of insanity?

What is the most ethical thing to do here?

the hanging chads in FL

Those were really badly designed ballots. Look at France or the UK or Canada or Virginia etc for how they should be. No self respecting democracy should ever use a half mechanical design that fails like that.

What really made me angry later was that this was used to justify worse ways counting ballots. But my main issue was the shut down recounts. Busy was never properly elected, in my mind, and he made several problems for the USA that still have ramifications to this day.

His dad introduced modern computer voting. He used his contacts to form the first private voting companies we know today. And in my view his son was elected to Texas only because of that.

an expat now. Did you leave?

No, still in Texas. Unfortunately, during the gw era I was not interested in politics much. If I sound like an expat its because I am totally not on board with any of the major political movements

Edit: confused bushes

Most democracies use hand counted paper ballots. It works, and it’s fast enough, no need to improve it.

I don’t understand the American need to tinker with a good system.

That said, there is no way the majority of USA states will switch over to better counting systems. Some areas of the world will never be able to be truly democratic. The Americans have some weird system that works for their upper class, and the lower classes fully believe in it. This will not change in my lifetime

Eh, it’s been a long journey for me. Years ago I was active in the Democratic Party in Texas, later I was a keyboard warrior who wrote millions of words, none of which did any good.

Now I just want fair elections; again writing words, now in a very small community, that also does no good.

But I’m done with the partisan stuff, and think both sides are equally out of their minds.

Democracies need accurate ballot counting, most states fail this. The primaries in both parties and the general elections have been tampered with for decades in many states. This has totally changed the character and leadership of both parties over the decades.

This is not a falsifiable argument because the only way to prove the above is wrong is to not use the election machines run by private organizations. While at the same time exit polls and stats hint of extreme ballot stuffing by these very companies. It’s not rocket science.

But, most commentators and social media participants in USA politics don’t care or want to know.

The ballot manipulation will allow democrats to win the midterms by a landslide, and most likely have the presidency again in 2028, and people who want paper ballots will be rendered mute again by most. Then next cycle the republicans will win again!

It’s a very long game, with each iteration moving more wealth away from the majority. And the only way to fix it is with paper ballots counted in front of witnesses and unlimited recounts allowed. Even then, it will take a long time to fix

These discussions always assume the elections are fair, which in many states is not true.

Perhaps instead of bickering about unimportant stuff ( at least to me they are not important), everyone griping should at least check to make sure their local elections at least meet United Nations specifications? Maybe they do, but depending where you are at, probably not.

I will never ever understand political discussions done by the majority of Americans.

Any decent political organization cannot give equal rights to those who want to hurt others. One can be as kind and gentle about that as possible, but ultimately that rests on violence, or at least the threat of violence, to keep the peace.

Any violence, or threat of such, is by definition dehumanizing at some level.

It took me way too long to find and unsubscribe from all the communities you moderate.

Poor world news mods can’t catch a break today. PTB

It definitely solves many issues!

Will lookup tornado cash

While I can easily imagine the USA splitting up, the fascists are in every community though.

I like the quote from Sontag

10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction. / Susan Sontag

The problem with avoiding the fascists is that they are always everywhere at a low percentage; and a good society requires the equally low percentage of decent persons to convince the vast majority of people to not go rogue.

This requires good governance in local areas; and that is a finicky thing indeed. If the USA splits up, who knows how that goes? I would not put money on any region being bad or good in two generations

I wait for the new FDA “preferred partners” program

Yes, it’s not hard for a full stack developer to make. Probably a thousand people already in the fediverse can, including me.

But it cannot be hosted on USA controlled servers, and the developers need to find a way to be anonymous to USA offices

Edit: also some other issues. Cannot put it as an onion service because most people in the USA do not use tor. This means regular domain.

• register domain where cannot be seized
• server must be load balanced or using something like kubernetes
• heavy traffic costs money , how to pay bills without crossing USA banking system? And cannot expose payers or contributors
• where to host?

many people can build it, but most of us have no clue to the obstacles

That is so true

Looking at the reviews, ignoring the mega hats, it seems part of the app does not work from time to time

Oh, I have stopped, as of today I am no longer engaging this debate. Hopefully this takes and I don’t spend energy while I figure out what to do

Those are unofficial death camps. Maybe.

I put care and effort into the word ‘official’.