Vote-By-Mail Battle Intensifies: Protesters Gather at Home of Postmaster General After Dems Complain

[ThinkingSapien]

The ballots ONLY listed Dem candidates.

Running into a registration wall with the story.

I know this may differ from one state to another, but where I am if someone is registered as a Democrat their ballot will only have democratic candidates on it. Same for a republican or independent. There isn’t a way to register and be able to select from democratic candidates for somethings and republicans for others.

Any idea of it is also that way for the area in question for the story?

 

[gam197]

gam197:

It would require a great deal, a retinal reader on every computer

Or a decent web camera.

Facial Recognition is already there on computers but getting everyone to agree to use it, good luck. Everyone does not own a cellphone and everyone does not own a computer. People do not even like giving out social security numbers - this would force people into giving up more rights/freedoms and can’t see voters allowing this. Again I guess you never know what the future brings.

I am still waiting for the self driving all electric cars.

 

[Jeanne_S]

Mail in voting is fraught with error’s,ie: dead people receiving ballots,thus allowing for others’ to vote in their name. People registered in more than one state even,allowing to vote multiple times.Myriad issues that would be eliminated with in person voting.Additionally,mail in votes are not the same as absentee voting,the latter of which requires a lot more verification.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Facial Recognition is already there but getting everyone to agree to use it, good luck. […]

Why give a response on feelings of facial recognition to a post that addressed a statement of a hardware requirement for authentication? That’s not holding a topic very well.

 

[gam197]

gam197:

Facial Recognition is already there but getting everyone to agree to use it, good luck. […]

Why give a response on feelings of facial recognition to a post that addressed a statement of a hardware requirement for authentication? That’s not holding a topic very well.

I was responding to the idea of retina scan.

Even with accounts, who is going to hold the database and even if a company like Amazon held the account, would anyone trust them to do that. You could get a third party to come in, do some calling and check on accuracy but again this would all get very complicated.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I was responding to the idea of retina scan.

Even with accounts, who is going to hold the data base

A third party isn’t necessary. A hash of retina analysis and some hash key that the voting authority have could be saved. The end result is just a number, like 37162120. Since a retina analysis could not be recreated from the hash, if the list were ever compromised it would not provide sufficient information for someone to recreate the source retina.

Some consumer products already do this with the key being derived by some unique attribute of the hardware. This is done for finger print scans too, so that if someone were able to extract all of the data from a phone that has a fingerprint hash saved the person’t biometrics are not compromised.

All that said, someone would not have to do a great deal of reverse engineering to get elements of someone’s biometrics. People post them all over social media. I myself do not show the palms of my hands in photographs so that someone doesn’t get my finger prints from them. I also avoid putting pictures of myself on social media in general. Many photography devices provide sufficient resolution for getting someone’s finger prints from a photograph and sometimes their iris patterns.

 

[F_Marturana]

Absentee votes are sent by mail.

That’s what mail in voting means.

Seriously, if an area has a high level of Covid positive people who need to isolate in order to prevent the spread of Covid, why should they be forced to the voting booth in person?

Seriously?

It won’t be only Democrats forced to stay home to not vote.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

It won’t be only Democrats forced to stay home to not vote.

I think people often forget that the virus doesn’t follow political alignment.

 

[Anesti33]

Well, given the mask/no-mask tribes, I wonder…

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Well, given the mask/no-mask tribes, I wonder…

I can understand that. But that has to do more with behaviour. But since we are not isolated from each other (I would argue that to date, my state has not had a lockdown) a rise in infection rates in people with one political leaning implies a rise in infection rates within others.

 

[gam197]

gam197:

I was responding to the idea of retina scan.

Even with accounts, who is going to hold the data base

A third party isn’t necessary. A hash of retina analysis and some hash key that the voting authority have could be saved. The end result is just a number, like 37162120. Since a retina analysis could not be recreated from the hash, if the list were ever compromised it would not provide sufficient information for someone to recreate the source retina.

Some consumer products already do this with the key being derived by some unique attribute of the hardware. This is done for finger print scans too, so that if someone were able to extract all of the data from a phone that has a fingerprint hash saved the person’t biometrics are not compromised.

All that said, someone would not have to do a great deal of reverse engineering to get elements of someone’s biometrics. People post them all over social media. I myself do not show the palms of my hands in photographs so that someone doesn’t get my finger prints from them. I also avoid putting pictures of myself on social media in general. Many photography devices provide sufficient resolution for getting someone’s finger prints from a photograph and sometimes their iris patterns

Everyone does not have web cam.It is not secure. How about coercion. Isn’t the idea that you alone go into a voting booth.

Cryptography solves some issues but not all.

Again who is going to hold the database?

 

[Anesti33]

It costs money and resources in these USA to obtain ID. The homeless typically cannot. Democrats plead that the poor are thus disenfranchised.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Everyone does not have web cam.

They don’t. I don’t think there is any solution that offers 100% coverage, which is a reason to provide multiple solutions. With multiple solutions higher coverage is achievable, though none of them will provide 100% coverage by themselves.

But my main was to address the declaration of a need for retina scanners.

Again who is going to hold the database?

Addressed above.

Depends on where you are. There are some disagreements on what is accepted as an ID. Ex: I believe in Texas a gun licenses is accepted as an ID, but a photo student ID from a state owned university is not.

A few years ago there were also some rule changes in some states on what constitutes a match on an ID and a voter registration. In some states, a mis-match on some punctuation within a name (such as a hyphen) would have been something that was previously ignored but became something that was considered not a match. Depending on when this difference was encountered, a person could find themselves unable to vote because there would not be enough time to update their voter registration or ID. This is something that tends to affect minority voters a lot more. It might affect me too. There’s an apostrophe in my given name that doesn’t exist uniformly across records on me. Some computer systems do not accept apostrophes, so the inconsistency is out of my control. I’ve not tested if it effects me yet. But if I had to get an ID for a new address under the current rules that would be my opportunity to find out. If it is a problem then I might find myself having to go through a legal process to get the name records updated.

About the same time that new name rules were instituted, in some states many of the locations at which someone could go to get an updated ID were closed down. For people that did not have their own form of transportation, the available locations were a lot less accessible. For people with lower income getting an ID could also require loosing wages from taking time off from work.

Experiences on this will differ from state-to-state and from county-to-county. So what I mention above isn’t uniform.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

A homeless person would have issues here. When I last updated my ID I had to provide utility and bank statements along with other forms of IDs. I have a passport, passport card, and a borders and security card. I had no problem meeting these requirements.

But a homeless person, presumably without a bank account, wouldn’t meet these requirements. A person living in an apartment might not be able to meet the requirements easily if the apartment has the utilities wrapped into the cost of the rent (they then have no utility bills). They may have a bank account, but a statement from a single bank wouldn’t be enough to meet requirements.

 

[Anesti33]

In my state at least, homeless people are perfectly welcome to use a friend’s house, PO box, or simply an intersection near where they stay, as an address for voter registration. The state is very careful not to hinder those without an address.

 

[gam197]

gam197:

Everyone does not have web cam.

They don’t. I don’t think there is any solution that offers 100% coverage, which is a reason to provide multiple solutions. With multiple solutions higher coverage is achievable, though none of them will provide 100% coverage by themselves.

But my main was to address the declaration of a need for retina scanners.

Multiple solutions cost money. This does not take care of the issue of coersion. People vote by themselves in a voting booth.

gam197:

Again who is going to hold the database?

Addressed above.

Missed. , If the government holds the database, no one trusts the government and if a private company like Amazon holds a database, no one trusts them. There is alwas the backdoor built it.

I don’t see this as happening anytime time soon . Simply get out there, show ID and vote. If there are health issues, get an absentee ballot.

Again waiting for those self driving electric cars to all hit the road.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Multiple solutions cost money.

Sure. Almost every good or service has a cost. Even government services.

his does not take care of the issue of coersion.

Of course, that hasn’t been addressed. One thing at a time. There was a concern raised on the hardware requirements for a retina scanner. I spoke on that because the requirements for performing a retina scan are lower than I believed had been originally thought here. What I have not done is provided a complete solution for the implementation of remote electronic voting. Speaking as a Software Engineer, if I were to even entertain doing such a thing I would spend a lot more time and effort than I would on this site, and presentation of such a solution would not fit within the 3,000 character limit of these forums.

If I were to engage in serious pursuit of such a solution, I might first turn to consider existing solutions. This includes certification testing proctors which enable people to take the certification tests remotely. The problems they must address include ensuring the identity of the person taking the test and ensuring that the person is not cheating or getting outside assistance from others that may be on the property. If, for a person, such assurances cannot be made then the person is unable to move forward with testing.

If the government holds the database,

For a person and an entity there may be trust granted to the entity for some things, but not others. Ex: I might trust an entity to have my name and address, but not my banking information. What information is it that you think many would find problematic for the government to have?

 

[gam197]

If I were to engage in serious pursuit of such a solution, I might first turn to consider existing solutions. This includes certification testing proctors which enable people to take the certification tests remotely. The problems they must address include ensuring the identity of the person taking the test and ensuring that the person is not cheating or getting outside assistance from others that may be on the property. If, for a person, such assurances cannot be made then the person is unable to move forward with testing.

It all get very complicated

gam197:

If the government holds the database,

For a person and an entity there may be trust granted to the entity for some things, but not others. Ex: I might trust an entity to have my name and address, but not my banking information. What information is it that you think many would find problematic for the government to have?

You as a software engineer can see the potential.

I’d have a problem with the federal government having access to a database with all voting and being able to tweak that information through a backdoor built in.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I’d have a problem with the federal government having access to a database with all voting and being able to tweak that information through a backdoor built in.

The federal election is held with the electoral college. The federal government doesn’t need to know anything about you.

 

[Jeanne_S]

No they are different.Absentee requires proof that one is either going to be out of the country,military service etc. much more involved.