The internet loves Obama. There are many stories of people that support Obama cheating the system (right now there's a popular story of someone admitting on Facebook to voting for Obama 4 times...) and that isn't on the front page of HN, when that is absolutely confirmed to be a misuse of the system.

Everything that is a disadvantage for Obama is naturally going to get more attention, because most of the internet age that use sites like reddit and HN are the sort that want progress.

I'll bet there are machines that have this problem (assuming this is not an isolated incident and his a software/hardware issue) that vote for Obama when Romney is clicked, but that won't be big news in this circle of news because who cares about Romney here?

Edit: here you go, same problem that affects Romney votes on another machine http://www.cbs42.com/content/localnews/story/Voting-machines...

To be fair it is a claim of a problem affecting Romney by some person which is then refuted by another person (some sort of voting official?). The problem affecting Obama was captured first hand and confirmed as voting machine problem by second source per the Gawker article.

[ Note : I have no dog in this hunt - just pointing out something that I noticed. ]

I think the difference here is that there is absolute proof that it wasn't end user error whereas with the story you linked to there were no videos or any other demonstrations.

Being that none of these machines are open-source, that's really the important factor, the political persuasion of the companies manufacturing the machines.

The essence of democracy is an essential distrust of power, so yes, I'm concerned.

none of these machines are open-source, that's really the important factor

This is the least important factor.

If they made the machine, it is probably incompetence. iVontronic looks like it is owned by Printelect, which is owned by Owen Andrews, who seems to be affiliated with the Democrats.

In fact, the iVotronic Machines were indeed created by and originally manufactured by Diebold, though it was sold to another company in 2009.

I've been on here for 3 years, I'm a hugely valuable but underrated member of this community.

It's easy to call "troll" and try to sneakily shout out the other person. You should try some self-reflection if you're a republican. If you've got enough inquisitiveness to be on HN, apply that to deciphering what the republican party actually stands for.

> Yeah, statistically, democrats are smarter than republicans. I must be smarter than average!

If it makes you feel good, so be it. Please be sure to keep that cork on the fork.

Quick. Since you are so smart: How many years will it take to pay off 16 trillion dollars in debt while paying interest and continuing to over-spend at a rate of over 1 trillion per year?

In your answer consider the continued erosion of our manufacturing base, increased costs of a welfare society, erosion of human capital due to crappy union-driven education, the effects of tax increases and Obamacare.

Now, I expect an answer. Real numbers. No bullshit. Fire-up Excel and give us some numbers. See, there's the problem with self-appointed "smart ones": Talk is easy and cheap. Show me the facts, numerically, and we can start to have an intelligent discussion about how to move this country forward.

I'll bet you a cookie you don't move a finger to show HN readers a single proposal on how to deal with our national debt. Not one.

I am an independent thinker who appreciates portions of both platforms. I can't be swayed by pretty speeches, posters, ads, t-shirts, debate "gotcha's", etc. I cringe to think that there are Americans who vote "for the team" rather than through careful analysis and consideration of the issues in the context of the times we live in. The bigoted dismissal of millions of citizens by attaching a political label to them is sad and despicable.

Here's your chance to show us you are not just a troll. What's your answer to my question. Any reader should be able to plug your numbers into a spreadsheet and verify them.

Go!

Peter Norvig, who is a god among the mere mortals here, makes a better case than I could http://norvig.com/election-faq-2012.html

If you even took a few minutes to play with the numbers you'd be horrified to realize where we are and, more importantly, where we are going.

Creating an economic model with a spreadsheet is a really scary and sobering exercise. I've done a couple. The aim was to see what needed to change in order to achieve what most would recognize as solid economic recovery over a period of time. I played with periods in the range of 25 to 50 years. And, while the numbers can never be 100% accurate, the reality painted by the model is nothing less than scary. Even if my numbers where 100%, nah, 200%, off the reality they paint is horrible.

No, you can't fix it by taxing the rich. Not even close. You can't even fix it by taxing everyone. You just can't. You have to cut spending with a vengeance and, yes, adjust taxes --for everyone-- slightly. Let's not get facts get in the way of a good bullshit discussion.

Do a model, discuss it with a few people and then go read the likes of Peter Norvig and see what you think of them.

Here's my answer to Norvig's "Why do you support Obama?" segment on the page you linked:

"End of war in Iraq". Who the hell cares. The war is a rounding error compared to what we've been doing to this country under Obama. What? Five, maybe six trillion dollars in additional debt? Please.

"Focus on al Qaeda and Taliban" Who the fuck cares? What happened in Libya demonstrates full-well that terrorism wasn't challenged in any way by getting this guy. Old history.

"Universal Health Care" Disaster. Talk to a few business people to get real data. They are scared to death. If Obamacare is so good, why did he have to grant exceptions en-masse to unions?

"Increase US Manufacturing" I used to own a manufacturing business. I saw, first hand, what was going on and have the scars to prove it. The economic dump was so deep that some kind of a pull-back was inevitable. I love it when people take credit for things they had nothing to do with. I use to do a lot of day-trading. There were days when stocks would over sell to such a degree that you absolutely KNEW --if you were conscious enough to remove yourself from the fray-- that they were going to come back up. Some of the easiest money I ever made, both on the long and short side.

"Save Detroit" Detroit has been an ugly mess for decades. The coddling of the unions made us less competitive and allowed abominations to creep into contracts. GM had, at one point, thousands workers actually reporting to work and getting paid a full salary to do absolutely nothing. Detroit needed a good hard reset. They didn't get it. We'll see where the story ends. I don't see any option for a happy ending because the culture and rules are the same, thanks to Obama. He needed those people to vote for him in future elections and swiftly bought their votes via the rescue plan. I wonder, how would Norvig feel if the Federal Government threw billions of dollars at a failing competitor. Ford did not need any money. The government artificially altered the market. And this is good?

"Bring back jobs" Government can only create government jobs. Obama did not create a single private sector job. The private sector created these jobs. Again, I refer you to my explanation when a market is over-sold.

"Cut taxes on middle class" Really, we are diluted and stupid enough to be happy with an extra $400 a year in our pockets? Wait, then they take it back out through other taxes. I get it if you want to believe in His Excellence Obama no-matter-what, but this is silly.

"Support green energy" I am still waiting to get a number from someone, anyone, on how many of the over five million jobs his holiness created were "green energy" jobs. Crickets. And Norvig is quoting a comedian for his facts? Whew!

"Avoid another banking crisis" So, our politicians create the mess that causes the economic downturn by allowing, no, demanding, that Freddie Mac, etc. create an environment where a McDonalds cook can buy a $750,000 home. And then we praise them for avoiding a banking crisis? Are we insane?

"Monitor and contain loose nuclear material" OK, I'll give him that one. Only because I have no way to refute any of it. I am tempted to say "who cares, any president would have continued to move in that direction", but I just don't know enough.

There's more, but I'm done. Thankfully the election will be over today. I hope I don't have to live with your decision. What's worst, I hope my kids don't have to live with your decision. I'll accept it if it happens to go that way, but it will be sad to see. We can compare notes in four years.

Peace.

Do the numbers.

Think.

I don't know if you're purposefully being a caricature of republican voters or if you genuinely believe what you're saying, but when you mess with Norvig, you mess with the best. You cannot win against Norvig, he is a tech super-ninja. Those super-ninja skills can equally be applied to deciding who to vote for, and his opinion on this case is signed and sealed. There is no question that today's Republican Party is anti-public, anti-world, anti-science.

The best educational demographic for Democrats is "No High School". The best for Republicans is "College Graduate".

The linked facts do not support you. Only 4% of the population is in that category and of that category 63% voted D, 35% voted R. In no world does this equate to D are represented in the majority by those without High School educations.

Further-more, (from your own source) of the 28% of the population who are college graduates 50% voted D 48% voted R. This explicitly indicates more College Graduates voted D than R.

I never said that. If you want to criticize my post like an asshole, at least read it first.

Are you by any chance a Democrat without a high school degree? If so, I forgive your lack of reading comprehension skills. In that case, let me give you an example:

If I said, "The best racial demographic for Democrats is blacks" (which is just as true as my statement about education), that would not imply that I think most Democrats are black.

So check the 2012 results: http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/race/president?hpt=...

Yet again, the Republican candidate scores his highest vote share among college graduates, and the Democratic candidate scores his highest vote share among people without high school degrees.

Re-iterating your mouth noises does not show for the depth of the thought that originated them.

While I critiqued your lack-of-thought construct, you immediately countered with both an ad hominem and appeal to authority.

Good luck out there, you're going to need it.

Someone who votes Democrat is equally likely to have a college education as a Republican.

I provided a source showing that this is at least close to true, and possibly it tilts a bit towards the Republicans rather than being equally likely. I also provided an interesting tidbit that, while the college educated demographic is best for Republicans, the no high school degree demographic is best for Democrats.

Are you offended that I answered the guy's question by linking to some data, or that I added a sentence about an interesting tidbit of information from that data? Because immediately after I posted, you replied with unnecessary insults and ridiculous straw men. I hope you can understand why your post elicited a facetious response from me, which you self-righteously deem "ad hominem".

In Germany voting machines have been banned completely with good reasons, because they're unsafe and easy to to hack. And still we can pull off a purely paper-based votes with 82 million people completely without any lines in front of the voting booths and results within two hours after the election.

> "verification of the result must be possible by the citizen reliably and without any specialist knowledge of the subject."

Unless you're trying to bribe the counters/interfere with the counting ;).

It's hilarious when Americans use that as an excuse for things being sub-par in their country. I see it all the time for health care, roads, schools etc.

Yes, your country has lots of people in it, but it also takes in an enormous amount of tax, and has enormous government agencies to organize this kind of thing. Everything should scale up appropriately, but you guys have no figured that out yet.

I am simply providing an explanation that statistics indicates that there will be an absolute greater # of issues.

I would also suggest that governing at scale is hard and doesn't seem to scale linearly; much worse, as far as I can guess, based upon my news reading. Things like population density, diversity of industry, diversity of cultures start to play out in a very loud and complicated way. The only person I've met (who I talked about this with) who appreciated the scale of the US immediately was from Russia, which has similar scale issues.

I didn't say it was easy, but I said it's something that should be in hand

on top of geography, there is the issue that different states (in the U.S.) can have very different logistical/structural systems, different laws, different economic conditions, different budgets, etc

See: the disparity between road quality in Maryland (good density) and Pennsylvania (poor density). (or, to correct for climate, compare Pennsylvania with New York).

I'm certainly no expert on the topic, but I haven't heard any news about any major problems with Australia's roads. I'm curious to know how they compare with roads in the US.

USA density: 33.7/km2 87.4/sq mi population: ~ 314 mil

AUS density: 2.8/km2 7.3/sq mi population: ~ 22 mil

The roads in America are horrible by Australian standards. When I bring friends to the US they are shocked and say things like "it just doesn't look finished". This is more-or-less true for the majority of social services in America.

Of course, the climate in Australia lends itself to much better roads, but in comparison to Canada's roads, America's still suck, so there is no excuse.

I'm not saying that states with bad roads don't have themselves to blame, just that density is a factor.

You're saying that it's got more to do with how much the population is willing to be taxed, which I believe is the real reason.

I guess what I'm saying is that while dodging the real cause of this issue, Americans are going to point to large geography rather than large population as the 'root cause'. In this case that isn't entirely without merit, since for a lot of Americans (those in Maryland for example) the '(tax rate * population) / area' equation works out alright.

Now, I think that's a pretty fair comparison. The roads can be pretty terrible in Washington and Oregon from my experience. That may be because federal money for roads goes to other less dense states, but these proportions hold up fairly well nationwide too. I think it's just a matter of less public funding, it's that simple.

One summer when I was living in Philadelphia they removed the surface of the road in front of my apartment. Two months later they put it back. And if it's not that, it's crews filling in holes from road-work with about half as much asphalt as the hole needed, or the random patches of cobblestone street still left in the city, seemingly with little rhyme or reason.

The "300M citizens" excuse is even less valid in the context of presidential elections, because each state plans it independently from the others. So it is more like 52 tiny countries voting together!

Obviously scaling is hard, but I would expect that's one of the things a well functioning, well funded government should take care of, much like how Facebook and Google manage to scale well.

So to summarize, it's hilarious when Americans use the large population excuse for having sub-par services.

OP: When has this been used as an excuse for anything that you are apparently deeming as 'sub-standard' here in America? Cite a source please? Gotta be honest, I've never heard that excuse once.

I also had no idea the rest of the world had solved the problem of civics and effective government. Why are you guys keeping it a secret? Care to share?

Who's keeping it a secret? Elections Canada policies aren't exactly classified information.

Um, unless you're talking to India which manages to pull off votes with 1.2 Billion People. You are like 25% their population.

Of course, again, there is media acting as a watchdog, and a hope that the manipulation is statistically insignificant.

FWIW, most of the world votes on paper, and if history's anything to go by paper ballot is way more reliable than electronic, at least when it comes to auditability. I'm sure it's possible to design a secure and tamper-proof electronic voting system[0] with a great, useable interface... but nobody seems interested in doing that.

[0] system, not machine, because you most likely want the machine recording votes and the machine tallying them to be fully separate.

For further read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_voting_machines

India also has option called "None of the Above" as a voting option, which is extremely democratic.

Booth capturing "found primarily in India" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booth_capturing

intimidation on racial lines: http://uk.oneworld.net/article/view/162808/1/5847

You are plain kidding if you feel elections in India are anywhere close to being as good as US.

Note that this doesn't mean it's counted right: it just means you have no way to worry about it. Maybe election officials are debating whether that line for Joe is a mistake or not. Now the problems are seen immediately instead of unseen, which was one of the driving forces for people who didn't want to ever go through the hanging chad issue again.

I'm certainly not saying computer voting is better than paper voting -- they each have their trade-offs. (I'd prefer paper ballots that voters can "self-scan" by a machine that is very conservative in what it accepts, but that's a whole separate discussion.)

this is a lot of people. I am sure that if we investigate the details of elections in India, Indonesia, and Brazil, we will find an array of fudged votes and issues.

In other words, I am pretty sure that the error rate for the mix of remote/paper/electronic voting will hold pretty constant regardless of population size.