Documenting the Difficulties with Electronic Voting

[peristaltor]

In the last post I made on this forum, I pointed out a recent hardware hack to electronic voting machines here in the United States. As usual, people pointed out that this was an anomaly, that this could not happen in the Real World™, that it is just as important as Acorn (that one stumped me), et cetera ad infinitum ad naseumI say "as usual"

Comments

[stewstewstewdio]

I say "as usual" above because a common tactic to dismissing one's rhetorical opponents is to simply demand documentation and then attempt to find a chink in the specific document that one can later use to dismiss the entire contents of the supporting evidence.

Yup. That's all it took. Next. A lot of coulda, shoulda, woulda. But not the actual occurence and evidence for your claims. all conjecture and conspiracy theory and no real evidence.

[stewstewstewdio]

This.

Uh oh. We agreed on something. I feel Armageddon coming.

[underlankers]

If the three of us agree on something then most assuredly Armageddon should be nigh. I'll bring the popcorn.

[the_rukh]

The thing is though, people were asking for investigation, not condemnation (well some people were, but there's some people for anything), and I think if you have ample evidence that something was not right, investigation makes sense, doesn't it?

[stewstewstewdio]

I think if you have ample evidence that something was not right, investigation makes sense, doesn't it?

That would be the logic behind the birthers, truthers, etc.

[the_rukh]

By your logic you just disregarded any criminal investigation ever. i think we can agree that it is important to acknowledge the difference between there being a legitimate questionable situation and there being a lot of fabrication.

So moving on, if there is ample evidence that something was not right, investigation makes sense, doesn't it?

[the_rukh]

The specific point I am making is twofold, and neither rely on if there was or was not evidence of voting fraud in any particular election.

The first is that if there are irregularities, investigation is valid however people need to separate "something needs investigated" and "Those guys are committing fraud!!!11" I think that was the point the OP was making, and I agree with it.

The second though is that we shouldn't not investigate just because it is sometimes used as an excuse to accuse people a la first point. if we can keep investigation and accusation separate, we're all a lot better off.

[peristaltor]

Well put.

[peristaltor]

Who's default would that be?

[the_rukh]

Oh I don't know, I think the republicans understood the results, they just didn't believe them.

[the_rukh]

I don't know, you sure it's not "the results don't make sense to me, we must investigate" or just not "ample evidence"?