From what I can tell, Kemp didn't steal the election (btw, that's a left-leaning news source according to this site). If anything, it encouraged more Democrats to get out and vote, not less.
I don't know, that's certainly pretty sus. Here's an article I found about it for a House seat, which Kemp oversaw but was not running in.
The server in question, which served as a statewide staging location for key election-related data, made national headlines in June after a security expert disclosed a gaping security hole that wasn't fixed six months after he reported it to election authorities.
...
The plaintiffs were counting on an independent security review of the Kennesaw server, which held electronic poll book data and ballot definitions for counties, to demonstrate the system's unreliability.
I haven't read a ton about it, but it sounds like there are legitimate concerns (at least about the original system), but the issues are theoretical. I read it as a smear lawsuit intended to cast doubt on the election process, similar to what Trump did when he challenged the election.
I'm interested in seeing the outcome of the lawsuit, but I'm guessing there will be no evidence of vote tampering, just like with a Trump's suits. I hope evidence is still accessible but we won't know until the lawsuit concludes.
I was thinking of the wrong election. When the state gets sued over votes and those votes just so happen to be erased, that is suspicious af. But that wasn't 2018. Kemp wasn't running in the election where GA wiped the hard disks, but he was in charge at the time.
The 2018 election where he was able to remove voters from the registry and close poll sites is just standard conflict-of-interest, I suppose.
Or in a non-conspiratorial vein, it's literally his job to remove obsolete voters from the registry and ensure there are enough (and not too many) polls to keep costs in line.
I don't know anything about that guy to know if he's acting in good faith or not. I don't live in Georgia, and I've only been there for a couple days ever in my life. Maybe he's a corrupt pile of crap, or maybe he was just doing his job. The news on this is crazy slanted, but it seems like he was at least acting within the law.
Electronic voting is by definition not trustworthy enough.
A working election system needs to accomplish a few very contradictory things, while the voter needs to be annonymous, the system still needs to verify that one citizen only get's one vote, the system also need to count each vote.
In the Swedish system, on election day you go to your polling station, you get three envelopes, you go behind a screen and pick the ballots for the party you want to vote for, if you want to be extra anonymous you grab one from each party, you do that for all three elections (state, region and municipality), they are colour coded and the envelopes have a small cutout to make the color visible.
You then go behind another screen and put your ballots in the envelopes and seal them, you then take your envelopes, walk over to the election officials, hand them your ID, votes and election card.
One election official reads your name and ID number, the other finds you in the list, the first election official confrims that the second is ready, and they then say "voted white, voted blue, voted yellow" as each envelope with the coresponsig ballot is placed in the proper urn.
After the polling station closes, they deal with the pre votes and mail votes, they check all election cards against the list, and if someone has voted in person, the pre vote or mail vote is tossed, if not they are processed just as normal.
Then all votes are counted to get a total, if there are more votes than there should be, if just a few then I have heard it being resolved by tossing random votes.
Then the envelopes are opened, and ballots sorted and counted, anyone may come in and watch the process at any point.
This can't be done on a computer in a way that anyone should trust
It’s not accurate to say that electronic voting is inherently untrustworthy. That’s a subjective opinion rather than a fact.
There are countries that have successfully used electronic voting for a long time without significant issues. Since you’re European to begin with, take Estonia for example - their system is world class. Look it up.
Voter anonymity isn’t an issue exclusive to digital voting either. Standard voting systems also have to ensure that votes are cast anonymously while verifying the voter’s identity. With electronic voting, cryptography can be used to protect voter identity and maintain anonymity and it’s very effective.
You can also use advanced security measures like multi-factor authentication, biometric verification, and other technologies. There’s a metric shitload of ways to enhance security in electronic voting.
Electronic voting can be designed to be more secure and transparent than in-person. Blockchain can create tamper-proof records and paper audit trails for verification. Anything that can’t be verified can be excluded and investigated.
It’s ridiculous to dismiss electronic voting outright because the things you are worried about can already happen in traditional voting.
And on the other hand.. if I vote can’t be linked back to anyone, then you have a whole other problem. So maybe voting in general is able to be manipulated no matter what.
Black box voting are designed to to be transparent and they are open source so the public can scrutinize.
Why don’t you trust Estonias voting system? You didn’t give a reason. Look up VVPAT.
Sure, the voting software might be open source, great, that doesn't mean that the code is actually running on the voting system at the time of election.
With electronic voting it is increadibly easy to skew a result, you just change the code and make every vote for A be worth 1, and every vote for B be worth 0,7 or so, then take the number of votes missing from B and remove them from the total number of votes.
With paper ballots that is a big logistical challange.
Then we come to the point of voter secrecy, that is entirely impossible to accomplish while maintaining voter verification in an electronic voting system, both of these objectives are critical to a proper voting system, and but you can only do either one of them in sn electronic voting system.
What do you suggest then, since in-person voting has actually been linked to fraud and manipulation. Voting machines are perfectly acceptable.
Let’s just do a quick AI generated list of examples:
Ballot Box Stuffing
1948 Texas Senate Race: In the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, Lyndon B. Johnson narrowly defeated Coke Stevenson. Allegations of ballot box stuffing were rampant, particularly involving Box 13 in Jim Wells County, where 202 votes, all in alphabetical order and all for Johnson, were suspiciously added late.
Chicago, Illinois (1960 Presidential Election): Allegations persist that Chicago's Cook County, under Mayor Richard J. Daley, engaged in ballot box stuffing to help John F. Kennedy win Illinois and thus the presidency. Investigations revealed irregularities and improbable vote counts in several precincts.
East Chicago, Indiana (2003 Mayoral Election): Incumbent Mayor Robert Pastrick was accused of ballot box stuffing. Investigations revealed that absentee ballots were manipulated, leading to multiple convictions of election officials for their roles in the fraud.
Ballot Destruction
Kentucky (1944 U.S. Senate Election): In the Democratic primary, incumbent Senator Happy Chandler faced charges of ballot destruction. Boxes of ballots from counties favorable to his opponent were allegedly thrown out or destroyed, leading to investigations and widespread controversy.
Georgia (1946 Governor's Election): During the "Three Governors Controversy," ballots in Telfair County were reportedly burned or otherwise destroyed to influence the election outcome. Supporters of Eugene Talmadge were implicated in the destruction of ballots that favored his opponents.
2004 Ohio Presidential Election: In Cuyahoga County, reports surfaced that provisional ballots were improperly discarded or lost. Election observers noted that some ballots from predominantly Democratic precincts were missing or destroyed, raising questions about the integrity of the vote count.
These examples underscore the persistent vulnerabilities in the electoral process and the importance of robust oversight and security measures to safeguard the integrity of elections.