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[Deleted member 231381]

You know what really needs to be automated? Elections. It is absurd that we can't go to www.vote.gov to cast our votes.

Relevant.

 

[Beer Monkey]

You know what really needs to be automated? Elections. It is absurd that we can't go to www.vote.gov to cast our votes.

That's privileged talk until every citizen has free internet and a free device to use it.

 

[Y2Kev]

Who has a real chance of winning the NJ gov spot in 2017?

I'm rooting for Steve Fullop, mayor of JC. Basically everything a corporatist democrat could dream of. Served in the military, worked at Goldman Sachs. I mean he's like Sue Googe of the Democratic party. Parents owned a deli, are Romanian immigrants. Honestly I could see him at the presidential level eventually.

 

[thcsquad]

There's some amount of manhours that is saved each day from the kiosks such that the staff can shrink.

They may shrink, but that's not always what happens. A restaurant can use those extra man-hours to add value and make themselves stand out, like:

Actually clean the bathrooms
Make orders faster
Give more attention to the food preparation, improving food quality
Make balloon animals for kids

Sure, restaurants obsessed with profit margins may not want to do this, but if one competitor makes their restaurant more attractive while keeping prices flat by taking advantage of automated kiosks, competitors will feel the pressure.

 

[AntraxSuicide]

Democrats have extremely high floors in Southern states because they have high black populations. The problem is that the whites usually split 90-10 republican or some absurd ratio.

Georgia could go blue eventually for the reasons you outlined. Arizona and Texas are somewhat similar due to growth in the Hispanic vote, but Hispanics are far less politically engaged than African-Americans (who have the highest turnout of any racial group in America) so they'll lag behind NC/GA. But they'll get there. Trump's nationalism seems to be the best thing to happen to Hispanic voter registration efforts because it's been skyrocketing at least in Arizona from people wanting to vote against Trump.

These demographic shifts are also making Virginia and (in theory) Florida safer states for Democrats too. If we get to a point where Republicans are fighting over Georgia and Texas and have to concede Florida they're probably locked out of the White House for a bit. Resentment in the rust belt might give them Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin with fighting chances in Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Michigan but that doesn't seem to have happened yet and those states are shrinking anyway.

Without Florida, the GOP is toast when it comes to the White House. For them, it goes:
1) Does the GOP appeal to any non-white voters? [If not, they lose]
2) If yes, then how much appeal is there? [If not enough, they lose]

Honestly, this is only really applicable for Hispanic voters too. Black people are probably decades away from ever trusting a right-wing candidate, so Hispanic voters are the big group that isn't totally locked Dem (barring whatever shift Trump causes!). If the GOP can't crack into Florida, it means they aren't winning Hispanic voters, and that means they're probably going to lose.

The man who promises everything is sure to fulfil nothing, and everyone who promises too much is in danger of using evil means in order to carry out his promises, and is already on the road to perdition.

- Carl Jung


I don't know how anybody can listen to Trump say stuff like that and not have massive red flags and fire alarms go off.

He is honestly creepy as fuck. It's just a ton of empty nonsense, but it's anti-PC, so it's fine! I really really hate that segment of the population. Human decency shouldn't be a fucking debate.

 

[Makai]

Relevant.

In-person voting is not more secure than a website.

 

[itschris]

Democrats have extremely high floors in Southern states because they have high black populations. The problem is that the whites usually split 90-10 republican or some absurd ratio.

Georgia could go blue eventually for the reasons you outlined. Arizona and Texas are somewhat similar due to growth in the Hispanic vote, but Hispanics are far less politically engaged than African-Americans (who have the highest turnout of any racial group in America) so they'll lag behind NC/GA. But they'll get there. Trump's nationalism seems to be the best thing to happen to Hispanic voter registration efforts because it's been skyrocketing at least in Arizona from people wanting to vote against Trump.

These demographic shifts are also making Virginia and (in theory) Florida safer states for Democrats too. If we get to a point where Republicans are fighting over Georgia and Texas and have to concede Florida they're probably locked out of the White House for a bit. Resentment in the rust belt might give them Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin with fighting chances in Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Michigan but that doesn't seem to have happened yet and those states are shrinking anyway.

That's interesting. Perhaps in the future, the battleground states could look something like this:

Of course, the actual numbers would be different depending on the census results.

Come in chat.

Could I get a link?

 

[User 463088]

Should have just called out sick.

I couldn't. I'm the only one working the hours I work, and they'd have to find someone to cover me. Policy dictates we have one WFM person on at all times. Otherwise, I would have totally.

I really regret not taking the 8th off. Looks like it's going to be a fun/late night.

Might have to consider a rare instance where I call-in sick.

Call in with a cause of FRAUD. ESTABLISHMENT.

Also, we still use the same chat?

 

[Deleted member 231381]

In-person voting is not more secure than a website.

I won't personally pretend to be an expert, but I have a friend who is doing a masters on this (on Estonian e-voting, to be precise) and he swears that Internet voting is literally the worst thing ever. In person voting with physical ballot papers (not voting machines) remains by miles the most secure voting method.

 

[Y2Kev]

How about text poo emoji to 45456 to vote for Donald Trump

 

[whyamihere]

I do wonder if we're headed towards a realignment one day that looks like this:

http://www.270towin.com/maps/517vD

 

[B-Dubs]

I do wonder if we're headed towards a realignment one day that looks like this:

http://www.270towin.com/maps/517vD

Change PA to blue and I'd agree. Philly and Pitts are too big to allow the state to go red.

 

[Y2Kev]

I do wonder if we're headed towards a realignment one day that looks like this:

http://www.270towin.com/maps/517vD

Philadelphia's growth is outpacing Pennsyltucky so I don't know why PA would go red unless we say that industry up-and-leaving Merka turns people red in larger proportion.

I would imagine that the "rust belt" being so devastated over the last 20 years would have pushed those states as far right as they're going to go before demographics start bringing them back slowly. The exception is Michigan which is sort of slowly dying.

At least on the national level.

edit: Why would Alaska go blue?

 

[Aaron Strife]

Change PA to blue and I'd agree. Philly and Pitts are too big to allow the state to go red.

I'd say that for Michigan too

MI and PA might be able to go red under extremely favorable circumstances for the GOP but even in a neutral election 10-20 years from now I think they'd be pretty firmly D even if it's not by much.

 

[B-Dubs]

Philadelphia's growth is outpacing Pennsyltucky so I don't know why PA would go red unless we say that industry up-and-leaving Merka turns people red in larger proportion.

I would imagine that the "rust belt" being so devastated over the last 20 years would have pushed those states as far right as they're going to go before demographics start bringing them back slowly. The exception is Michigan which is sort of slowly dying.

At least on the national level.

edit: Why would Alaska go blue?

Alaska is actually red only due to demographics, they have far more men than women. As the gender balance evens out it should tip blue so long as the gender gap doesn't change.

 

[whyamihere]

Alaska is actually red only due to demographics, they have far more men than women. As the gender balance evens out it should tip blue so long as the gender gap doesn't change.

Something you would know from my obsession with Alaska in the chat.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Alaska is actually red only due to demographics, they have far more men than women. As the gender balance evens out it should tip blue so long as the gender gap doesn't change.

But there's no reason for the gender gap to even out; that's mostly oil and timber workers migrating. As long as there's still oil and timber, you'd expect there to be a persistent gender misbalance.

 

[Makai]

I won't personally pretend to be an expert, but I have a friend who is doing a masters on this and he swears that Internet voting is literally the worst thing ever. In person voting with physical ballot papers (not voting machines) remains by miles the most secure voting method.

The biggest danger is that voting machines are closed-source. For all I know, Diebold rigged their machines to change every vote to Bill Kristol. And it's no comfort that polling locations are run by a bunch of amateurs.

 

[benjipwns]

But there's no reason for the gender gap to even out; that's mostly oil and timber workers migrating. As long as there's still oil and timber, you'd expect there to be a persistent gender misbalance.

This is where the guaranteed basic income comes into play.

Spoiler

Also quotas enacted by Trump's Souter-like appointments to the Supreme Court.

And it's no comfort that polling locations are run by a bunch of amateurs.

What would you have poll workers do the rest of the year?

 

[whyamihere]

But there's no reason for the gender gap to even out; that's mostly oil and timber workers migrating. As long as there's still oil and timber, you'd expect there to be a persistent gender misbalance.

Not really -- it's a staggering 108 men for every 100 women in Alaska. That's significantly higher than even other oil-heavy states like North Dakota.

Also, it's not timber and oil jobs that are making Alaska red, it's that Anchorage is much more red than most major cities:

http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=493148

And remember -- only 64.1% of Alaska is white, and most of the growth in Alaska is from Inuit and Asian populations, which will eventually dilute the voter base of suburban Anchorage. And Anchorage -- like Indianapolis -- has also gotten bluer as the state has gained more population.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

The biggest danger is that voting machines are closed-source. For all I know, Diebold rigged their machines to change every vote to Bill Kristol. And it's no comfort that polling locations are run by a bunch of amateurs.

Voting machines aren't any better, I agree (or rather, my friend agrees and I'll take him on his word. ) I'm all for pure physical ballots.

 

[B-Dubs]

The biggest danger is that voting machines are closed-source. For all I know, Diebold rigged their machines to change every vote to Bill Kristol. And it's no comfort that polling locations are run by a bunch of amateurs.

On the other side of the argument a single hack could change the entire outcome of an election, and it would be far easier to rig an election, if we used internet voting.

 

[Makai]

Voting machines aren't any better, I agree (or rather, my friend agrees and I'll take him on his word. ) I'm all for pure physical ballots.

And then you trust that the amateurs or party bosses running the polling location don't forge ballots. Website is just wayyy more secure. And if there's any tampering, we'll know about it.

 

[benjipwns]

On the other side of the argument a single hack could change the entire outcome of an election, and it would be far easier to rig an election, if we used internet voting.

It's harder to hack into a system undetected than it is to simply add new votes to the count.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

And then you trust that the amateurs or party bosses running the polling location don't forge ballots. Website is just wayyy more secure. And if there's any tampering, we'll know about it.

I don't know the exact process for America, but in the UK each ballot used has a corresponding reference so that if the number of ballots counted isn't equal to the number cast, they know fraud has occurred. You could outright replace ballots, but it'd be very difficult because you'd to be able to access a sealed box that isn't open until the count. The count takes place with attendees from multiple parties, so at best you're not going to do much more than one or two ballots. That's not true for all the UK - Northern Ireland has some pretty sordid history - and it's less true for council elections, but that's because of the cost involved at keeping that amount of security at that level. In general, national elections are close to fraud proof. I think in 2015 the UK excluding Northern Ireland had 63 wards report suspicions out of 9,456 [that's 0.6% of wards], and almost all of those were for postal ballots not on-the-day ballots, and even then most of those were cleared by the police who are relatively party-independent in the UK because we were only recently stupid enough to make them elected.

You also really will not know if a website has been tampered with. If the person doing the tampering is sufficiently good, it leaves literally no trail.

 

[metalslimer]

Is there no way at least at the presidential level to have IT experts from both sides monitoring the situation to prevent fraud? I mean you still wouldn't need as many people as all of the polling stations and you wouldn't need all the space. It would even eliminate the need of people taking off work. I guess the fear is more votes being switched rather than added votes.

 

[Y2Kev]

I think they should give you one of those wheels you used to get with old PC games to prevent piracy.

On another note, it's weird to me we can do things like online banking but not online voting.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Is there no way at least at the presidential level to have IT experts from both sides monitoring the situation to prevent fraud? I mean you still wouldn't need as many people as all of the polling stations and you wouldn't need all the space. It would even eliminate the need of people taking off work.

Again, I'm told it isn't. I wish it wasn't because I really like the idea of online voting as something to increase access and so on, but the only significant national election to use internet voting already ended up being compromised in the past and even local US attempts at non-significant levels have ended up being bombarded with assaults. You can't even just have a secure end-system, either - if you have user-malware, you might end up voting for Trump even though you clicked Clinton and you'd never know and there'd be no way to tell it was fraudulent.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

I think they should give you one of those wheels you used to get with old PC games to prevent piracy.

On another note, it's weird to me we can do things like online banking but not online voting.

We can't really do online banking. Tens of billions of dollars disappear from US online banks each year; but money is (somewhat) replaceable and banks just absorb that as the cost of doing business because they get more customers through offering a convenient service. You can't be that laissez faire with voting.

 

[B-Dubs]

I think they should give you one of those wheels you used to get with old PC games to prevent piracy.

On another note, it's weird to me we can do things like online banking but not online voting.

About 8 year or so ago NYC tried out an app that would allow you to hail a cab using your phone. Everyone who tried it loved it, but old people and people without smartphones couldn't get a cab so they scrapped it. Now apply that to voting and it starts to make sense.

 

[HUELEN10]

I think they should give you one of those wheels you used to get with old PC games to prevent piracy.

On another note, it's weird to me we can do things like online banking but not online voting.

No online voting makes sense.

Let's say a group of thugs go inside your house on election night with a gun and hold you and aim it right at your head. They tell you you have to vote for Candidate X and they must see you go through with the whole process, or else they will kill you.

Let's say people need money on Craigslist and sell their vote.

It makes too much sense to not allow online voting.

 

[kess]

I really can't see PA going red anytime soon unless the Philadelphia suburbs go Republican en masse. I suppose that Pennsylvania has a (somewhat undeserved) reputation stemming from what James Carville said 25 years ago, but...

- Pittsburgh is firmly Democratic, and is finally growing again.
- Philadelphia is showing signs of life.
- State College and Harrisburg break the "T" in the middle of the state, during presidential years.
- The Lehigh Valley region is home to many minorities and has a large concentration of college campuses.
- The Poconos continues to see a strong population influx from the New York metropolitan region which offsets the trend towards Republicans with white, working class voters there.
- Everybody seems to forget about Erie...

That leaves most of the rural areas in the middle of the state to Republicans, especially in the more populated Western and Southern parts of the state. Trump's economic populism will pull in voters from traditionally Democratic strongholds around Hazleton and Wilkes Barre, but I don't know if it will be enough to flip Lackawanna County. Many of these areas (but not all) are economically depressed and a large proportion of the population is composed of retirees. The largest growth potential for Republicans is in the western Philadelphia exurbs, which are projected to have fairly strong growth rates and are already a populous region.

The State House is a different issue completely, and I won't get into that here. However, the Democrats recently have done well in off-election years at the state level.

 

[whyamihere]

https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/737409940571181056

@HillaryClinton
Not only does Trump deny climate change, he's now denying that the drought in California is even happening. What?

"What?"

 

[Y2Kev]

Most states seem to have erratic state-level behaviors that don't line up with national voting patterns at the federal level. How else do you explain that disgusting, worthless, offensive, vile Chris Christie?

 

[hawk2025]

Let's say a group of thugs go inside your house on election night with a gun and hold you and aim it right at your head. They tell you you have to vote for Candidate X and they must see you go through with the whole process, or else they will kill you.

That sounds like a very efficient way to rig an election.

 

[B-Dubs]

Most states seem to have erratic state-level behaviors that don't line up with national voting patterns at the federal level. How else do you explain that disgusting, worthless, offensive, vile Chris Christie?

Jersey voters are nuts, they go blue in the general but then they always elect a governor from the party that lost the general.

 

[darkside31337]

No online voting makes sense.

Let's say a group of thugs go inside your house on election night with a gun and hold you and aim it right at your head. They tell you you have to vote for Candidate X and they must see you go through with the whole process, or else they will kill you.

Let's say people need money on Craigslist and sell their vote.

It makes too much sense to not allow online voting.

You can already sell your vote if you already wanted to. Absentee Ballots are a thing. Someone actually already tried to buy my moms vote this year for Trump. Very Florida.

 

[User 463088]

BBC Nightly News is going to cover the rumor of a new 3rd party candidate entering the race.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

BBC Nightly News is going to cover the rumor of a new 3rd party candidate entering the race.

Ultimate Sanders Stage 3: Mega Gambit

 

[B-Dubs]

BBC Nightly News is going to cover the rumor of a new 3rd party candidate entering the race.

No one I've spoken to has any clues as to who it is. I really want to know, got a betting pool going and everything.

 

[benjipwns]

We can't really do online banking. Tens of billions of dollars disappear from US online banks each year; but money is (somewhat) replaceable and banks just absorb that as the cost of doing business because they get more customers through offering a convenient service. You can't be that laissez faire with voting.

Sure you can! You're trusting that the party in power is reporting votes fairly in the first place.

Most states seem to have erratic state-level behaviors that don't line up with national voting patterns at the federal level. How else do you explain that disgusting, worthless, offensive, vile Chris Christie?

Jon Corzine

 

[kess]

BBC Nightly News is going to cover the rumor of a new 3rd party candidate entering the race.

Bring on the unstoppable Webb/Gilmore ticket

 

[Deleted member 231381]

No one I've spoken to has any clues as to who it is. I really want to know, got a betting pool going and everything.

We'd find out in the next few days or so, the Texas registration deadline for independents is in under two weeks and they'd need to gather ~75,000 signatures.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Sure you can! You're trusting that the party in power is reporting votes fairly in the first place.

The party in power doesn't report the votes. For my sins, I've been a deputy returning officer for a local ward elections. I report your votes.

Spoiler

Mwahahahaha!

 

[B-Dubs]

We'd find out in the next few days or so, the Texas registration deadline for independents is in under two weeks and they'd need to gather ~75,000 signatures.

Which is why I figure it's Romney. He's the only one with the money to get it done in that timeframe.

 

[Y2Kev]

Jon Corzine

I guess I was too young to really understand what the issue is here. He seems like a loser personally and could not manage state finances, but which state did well through 2008?

 

[kess]

We'd find out in the next few days or so, the Texas registration deadline for independents is in under two weeks and they'd need to gather ~75,000 signatures.

Craigslist!

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Which is why I figure it's Romney. He's the only one with the money to get it done in that timeframe.

Yeah, you need the megabucks at this stage and big connections. Might be Bloomberg, he has to fancy his chances given the other two candidates.

 

[benjipwns]

We'd find out in the next few days or so, the Texas registration deadline for independents is in under two weeks and they'd need to gather ~75,000 signatures.

That deadline was almost a month ago.

The party in power doesn't report the votes. For my sins, I've been a deputy returning officer for a local ward elections. I report your votes.

Spoiler

Mwahahahaha!

And you report to who? I rest my case.

 

[User 463088]

That was supposed to be NBC not BBC. Good, I'm every possible stereotype of a Clinton supporter trying to use technology. Sad.

They named Romney and Martinez as possibilities.