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I think we might know where all the missing Dem ballots went - Denise Wheeler (bsky.app)

submitted 1 day ago by Five@slrpnk.net to c/usa@midwest.social

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[–] ObsidianZed@lemmy.world 45 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Man... Her post went from

"You can see that it appears to be a Python script that programmatically creates a series of synthetic ballot images (two pages per ballot) with random variations, then logs information about each generated image in a text file.

In essence, it’s simulating “filled-out” ballots."

"You basically see that this tool they built could be used to invalidate ballots in bulk.

Machines could do it during initial scanning instead of later on, or on custom metrics.

Just set the machines to count less blue ink ballots and instruct democratic areas to use blue pens.*

Either I missed something vital or she's talking out of her ass.

The point is though, even if we had 100% certifiable proof that the 2024 election was rigged with direct ties to Trump and/or Musk being responsible by giving a direct command, I honestly don't know if that would make any difference today.

[–] petersr@lemmy.world 5 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I also don't know exactly what she is getting at. What are these generated ballot images being used for precisely?

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 6 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

It's not a great theory, and quite frankly I think getting stuck on a college project is silly when you can just make a new program with better resources but I think it goes:

1: Issue blue pens to swingable democratic regions (or whatever).

2: Have the machines set to generate a fake ballot image when it detects blue ink on the voter signature. Doesn't need to be every ballot, just enough to swing the region.

3: Print the generated ballot instead of what they voted for. I'm not sure how all machines work but my area physically prints a paper copy, do any machines just keep entirely digital records?

4: Voter is apparently unaware their choices were changed.

This presumably wouldn't work in my area any more as it prints a scannable code and your entries, but it would have worked in 2016 when it just printed the code.

I don't buy this specific chain of events, but it is an excellent demonstration of why voting machines are just a stupid fucking idea. Even if they were the most secure, unhackably hardcoded systems in existence there would always be doubts.

On the other hand, it's not like paper ballots are tamper proof themselves.

[–] petersr@lemmy.world 2 points 29 minutes ago

But let me get this straight - this requires access to the voting machine in a way that allows installing software that somehow intervene with the existing voting software.

And perhaps I am naive here, but I would assume that such a voting machine runs either

custom firmware / embedded operating system
custom version of Windows
custom or special purpose Linux
Windows in kiosk mode so normal users can't access other application than the voting software nor OS settings.

As a minimum I would assume kiosk mode, but to be honest I would expect much more than that from a voting system, including tightened security and no or very limited interoperability between the voting software and other software on the machine. And I am not seeing any nasty malicious system-level code in the repo.

And yes, as you highlight, it is hard to buy this chain of events and yes, voting machines are a bad idea. As a technical person it sounds like conspiracy theorizing.