Things that made you laugh today (Political Version)

[Taernath]

That's a good argument against it. Companies do lose information to leaks all the time, and that's problematic. Making people's votes public would be devastating. But you'd think something like that also would've happened with the IRS database with all the e-filing or a big bank with everyone's financial records, liquidity, investments, etc, by now too, so maybe it's just a matter of the right security. That's information that nefarious parties absolutely would have an interest in, so why hasn't it happened?.

Because things like Equifax are mostly financial crime. It's easier for a criminal to just sit on the info and make fraudulent credit card applications rather than put together some kind of blackmail folder.

I don't buy the widespread attack and fraud theory, from either foreign or domestic sources. That stuff could be put together in the current system if such an entity were so inclined. Preventing that isn't much harder than the two step authentication most sites are starting to require now. Cast your vote, great. Don't have your specific cell phone on you to confirm that the vote was cast by you? No dice. Go find a physical polling station.

I disagree that it could be done now. In my state (AZ) you can vote in person or mail-in. So either our Russian friends need to pull an Invasion of the Body Snatchers and replace the surly Boomers at hundreds of polling stations, or they commit widespread mail fraud, both of which I imagine are virtually impossible to do without being noticed.

Edit to add: And don't even get me started on the disaffected teens you just mentioned. Why aren't they hacking the banks to put money in their accounts so they can buy more ..whatever...skinny jeans and goth eyeliner? The answer is because the security is too tight and the penalties are too strict. I would imagine trying to rig an election comes with...well even greater consequences than financial crimes. Treason or what have you.

You don't need to hack into a website to shut something down. I mentioned them mostly because of the DDoS attacks they do. Doing it to the federal government would probably be more difficult than Sony, but our online voting website is all hypothetical at this point so we don't know its capabilities.

[Wrathbringer]

I'm torn between believing it likely hurts to be this stupid versus ignorance being bliss.

This is correct.

[Stumplicker]

Ah well. It's probably not something feasible for right now anyway. Not til the computer savvy start getting into those high up governmental positions at any rate will it even be a discussion.

[Androidpk]

Trump is floating the idea of using the military version of eminent domain to seize private land along the border for the wall. I bet the Federalist Society is going to looove this idea.

[Gelston]

Trump is floating the idea of using the military version of eminent domain to seize private land along the border for the wall. I bet the Federalist Society is going to looove this idea.

The Government already owns the land along the border since the 1907 Roosevelt Reservation.

[drauz]

Australia's been using ranked choice voting for 100 years now. I think that's where the idea came from. It works really well. The only opposition to it is party-based. The parties have no incentive to implement a system that would allow independents and small parties into the mix in any meaningful way. If you're not familiar, the way it works is this.

Candidate 1: Hillary Clinton (Tastycrat)
Candidate 2: Donald Trump (Fingerlican)
Candidate 3: Gary Johnson (Libertarian)
Candidate 4: Jill Stein (Green Party)

You order your candidates in the order you prefer. Here's an example ballot. Note: You don't have to put all the candidates on it. Just the ones you would want.

The vote:

1. Gary Johnson
2. Donald Trump
3. Jill Stein

When the votes are tallied, they take all the Gary Johnson votes, tally them up. If Gary has no chance of winning, all the Gary Johnson voters get bumped down the list to their next choice, so in the above case, your vote goes to Donald Trump. If Donald Trump has no chance of winning, it moves down the list and now you've voted for Jill Stein. If Jill Stein has no chance of winning, you've abstained because you didn't put Hillary on the list.

That way you can safely vote for an independent, a small party, a whatever without thinking your vote will go to waste because if it doesn't pan out, your vote goes to your next choice. My state uses it now as of this last election. I'm hoping more states adopt it and it catches on nationally.

And no candidate would care about small population states. There would be 4 stops, CA, NY, FL, and TX.

[Stumplicker]

And no candidate would care about small population states. There would be 4 stops, CA, NY, FL, and TX.

....what? Why's that?

[drauz]

....what? Why's that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...State_rankings

They would of course visit some surrounding states, but those 4 states would give you almost 33% of the vote.

[Parkbandit]

Trump is floating the idea of using the military version of eminent domain to seize private land along the border for the wall. I bet the Federalist Society is going to looove this idea.

Wait.. does 2016 Androidpk like the idea?

What about 2019 Androidpk?

If Obama was President now and wanted to do this, would 2019 Androidpk be for or against it?

[Gelston]