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Speaker 1: Welcome to text Tuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: and I love all things tech in general. So today

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Speaker 1: we're actually going to listen to a classic episode. I

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Speaker 1: know it's not Friday and when we typically listen to

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Speaker 1: classic episodes, but I feel like this one is getting

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Speaker 1: super topical again, which is about electronic voting machines or

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Speaker 1: e v ms. I voted this morning in Georgia and

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Speaker 1: had to go through and use an e v M. Now,

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Speaker 1: unlike what the situation was back in when this episode

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Speaker 1: you're about to hear originally published, Georgia has changed slightly.

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Speaker 1: Back in, the voting machines did not produce any sort

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Speaker 1: of paper record, so there was no sort of receipt

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Speaker 1: to show that the vote you were casting on the

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Speaker 1: electronic machine was being reflected as the vote that was

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Speaker 1: actually being recorded. Georgia has since changed that. Now when

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Speaker 1: you go through and you make your selections, it sends

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Speaker 1: a paper ballot to be printed on a machine, which

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Speaker 1: you then can look at verify that in fact the

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Speaker 1: information that you put on the electronics display is reflected

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Speaker 1: on that paper ballot. But then you bring that paper

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Speaker 1: ballot over to another machine and you scan the paper

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Speaker 1: ballot in So now you have a scanning machine that

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Speaker 1: takes the paper from the electronic machine and scans that,

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Speaker 1: which arguably just creates a different point of failure. But

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Speaker 1: no system is perfect. The question we have to ask

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Speaker 1: ourselves is does this system provide more confidence in the

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Speaker 1: overall process of voting than the preview system. I would

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Speaker 1: say yes, because at least there was that physical copy,

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Speaker 1: not that you've got to keep it. You actually could

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Speaker 1: not leave with your paper ballot, so that's something you

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Speaker 1: didn't get a copy of it or anything like that. Um,

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Speaker 1: but I think it is a step in the right direction. However,

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Speaker 1: I have a much deeper conversation with Mr Ben Bolan

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Speaker 1: of stuff they don't want you to know and ridiculous

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Speaker 1: history and many other things, and so we sat down

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Speaker 1: to talk about the scary world of e v ms.

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Speaker 1: This one is part one, and in our next episode

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Speaker 1: on Monday, we will listen to part two. And I

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Speaker 1: hope all of you are well. I hope you're all

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Speaker 1: doing what you can to make the world a better place.

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Speaker 1: And uh, yeah, I'll see you on the other side. Hey, Jonathan,

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Speaker 1: thanks for having me on the show, and hello tech

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Speaker 1: stuff audience. I was really excited when you brought up

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Speaker 1: this topic and asked if I if I want to

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Speaker 1: hang out with you on it. However, before we go

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Speaker 1: any further, I've got to ask, are you okay man?

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Speaker 1: It's been a long week. Then it's been a long week,

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Speaker 1: and it's been a weird day. This this day did

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Speaker 1: not unfold the way we first imagined it would, or

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Speaker 1: at least not for me. Uh. And Also I figured

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Speaker 1: that I needed to be really like up and upbeat

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Speaker 1: and excited and happy before we go into this topic,

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Speaker 1: because I guarantee you it cannot sustain itself as we

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Speaker 1: talk about this. Also, you're gonna hear some papers being

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Speaker 1: shuffled around, folks, And that's because my computer decided that

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Speaker 1: it was no longer going to connect to the wireless

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Speaker 1: network once I took it away from my docking station.

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Speaker 1: I think I figured out what the sequence of events

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Speaker 1: was that caused it to do yeah, which largely involves

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Speaker 1: being docked, removing the wire WiFi, turning the WiFi adapter

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Speaker 1: off because I was getting blips and then removing it

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Speaker 1: from the docking station without enacting you know, without enabling

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Speaker 1: the WiFi again, and now it won't do anything. So

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Speaker 1: I just turned the computer off and I'm using paper notes,

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Speaker 1: which I understand are a thing. And sometimes how apropos,

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Speaker 1: my friend, because sometimes people will argue that, uh, using

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Speaker 1: paper based documentation is more efficient or at least less

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Speaker 1: prone to error than electronic documentation, such as you know,

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Speaker 1: notes we might share on a laptop. Well, it's certainly,

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Speaker 1: uh fixes things in a more permanent form, right, because

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Speaker 1: with electronic files. I don't know if you know this, Ben,

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Speaker 1: but you can sometimes go in and change stuff. What

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Speaker 1: but if you've printed something on a piece of paper,

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Speaker 1: it's a lot harder to change the thing. You print

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Speaker 1: it on the piece of paper without it being noticeable.

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Speaker 1: Now you can change it in electronic format and print

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Speaker 1: a new thing. Yeah, I don't wish to bamboos all you.

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Speaker 1: I am no flim flam man. So yeah, today we're

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Speaker 1: specifically talking and you know from the title of the podcast,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about voting machines today, electronic voting machines specifically,

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Speaker 1: and what it is about electronic voting machines that have

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Speaker 1: certain people kind of talking about security, transparency, that kind

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Speaker 1: of stuff. And here in the US we are hurtling

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Speaker 1: towards an election, uh, kicking and screaming all the way,

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Speaker 1: as is typical every few years in the US, I mean,

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Speaker 1: especially when it's a presidential election, which we have every

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Speaker 1: four years. And so I thought it was really important

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Speaker 1: for us to kind of talk about this, and of

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Speaker 1: course ben as a host of stuff they don't want

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Speaker 1: you to know. There are a lot of conspiracy theories

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Speaker 1: that surround voting in general, not just electronic voting machines,

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Speaker 1: but the whole process. Yeah, yeah, it's true. There are

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Speaker 1: a they're quite a few things that would be called

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Speaker 1: conspiracy theories. There are also quite a few very valu

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Speaker 1: lid criticisms or observation about the nature of the voting system,

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Speaker 1: everything from the nuts and bolts of the technology, to

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Speaker 1: the way technology disrupts existing legislative systems, to just the

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Speaker 1: organizational stuff. You know, the the question that a lot

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Speaker 1: of a lot of you guys probably have out their

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Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen is stuff like why was Ross Perro

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Speaker 1: the last third party candidate to make it to the

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Speaker 1: you know, the big kids table of debates, right, actually

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Speaker 1: and actually getting put onto ballots on most states. Or

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Speaker 1: another great question that I hear all the time is

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Speaker 1: why the heck do we still have an electoral college

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Speaker 1: if we've if we've evolved beyond the point where a

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Speaker 1: bunch of very wealthy white landowners have decided that really

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Speaker 1: we shouldn't give complete control to the HOI ploy when

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Speaker 1: it comes to picking our leaders. We should have a

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Speaker 1: protective layer in between the dirty masses is and the

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Speaker 1: enlightened leaders. The quote titian can't even appreciate a cool man, Julie,

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Speaker 1: that's true. Yes, uh, hear about recognize the esteemed representative

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Speaker 1: from the state of Virginia. Um, yeah, that's a. That's okay.

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Speaker 1: So that's a that's a great point. And before we

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Speaker 1: get too far into it, one of the most salient

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Speaker 1: or applicable quote unquote conspiracy theories about elections revolves around

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Speaker 1: the idea that elections have been fixed retroactively or miscounted,

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Speaker 1: whether intentionally or accidental, by a machine or the people

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Speaker 1: in charge of the software running the machine. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, these are our big questions, and we're gonna

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Speaker 1: talk about all of those and in order to really

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Speaker 1: get a full understanding of where we are today, I

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Speaker 1: think it always helps to have a quick rundown of

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Speaker 1: how we got to where we are, right. I love

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Speaker 1: to do this on tech stuff, where even if I'm

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Speaker 1: going to talk about specific technology, I tend to go

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Speaker 1: back and say, well, here's here's how we got there historically.

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Speaker 1: Um So, voting has been around for a really long time,

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Speaker 1: whether whether you're talking about like from an official capacity,

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Speaker 1: like you go back to like the Greeks and they're

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Speaker 1: they're voting, or you just talk about you know, small

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Speaker 1: groups deciding where they're gonna you know, what animal were

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Speaker 1: we going to kill for tonight's meal? We had? We

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Speaker 1: had mastadon last night. Come on, let's let's branch out. Um.

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Speaker 1: But well before Survivor ever took to the airwaves, we've

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Speaker 1: had voting, and for a long time we would tabulate

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Speaker 1: these votes manually. You just have someone who would either

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Speaker 1: just count up all the votes, if you did some

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Speaker 1: sort of voting like through stones like the White Stone

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Speaker 1: or the Black Stone to vote on something, or very

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Speaker 1: often voting was done in public where you didn't it

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Speaker 1: was no secret ballot. You declared your vote in front

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Speaker 1: of people, which yeah, and that um, I mean it

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Speaker 1: clearly has some advantages in the sense that you have

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Speaker 1: verifiable votes, right, it has some disadvantages in that if

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Speaker 1: you hold an unpopular opinion in your particular region, you

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Speaker 1: might find yourself ostracized from the larger community because you've

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Speaker 1: voiced that you may become a target. Yes. Yes, I

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Speaker 1: actually had a conversation with someone this morning about how

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Speaker 1: uh they they had suggested we moved to h a

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Speaker 1: time where we would be able to assigned votes to

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Speaker 1: specific people so that for verification purposes, and I said,

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Speaker 1: that's a terrible idea. And the reason it's terrible is

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Speaker 1: because it favors the majority and it punishes the minority. Right,

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Speaker 1: if you are in the minority opinion and you vote

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Speaker 1: your conscience, like you, you are not going to be

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Speaker 1: cowed into voting the majority just because all these other

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Speaker 1: people want you to. Then you stand, you know, victim.

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Speaker 1: You're you're vulnerable to the majority who may punish you

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Speaker 1: for your your choice to uh to vote your conscience,

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Speaker 1: and or you might just feel pressured to change your

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Speaker 1: vote so that you keep your you, yourself and your

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Speaker 1: family safe. So secret ballots I think are really important.

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Speaker 1: They actually came officially to the scene pretty late, especially

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Speaker 1: when you're talking about standardized ballots. Those didn't become a

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Speaker 1: thing until the mid nineteenth century. So eighteen fifty six

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Speaker 1: was when we saw the first standardized ballots, meaning ballots

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Speaker 1: issued by the government with the candidates arranged in whatever

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Speaker 1: order they had deemed was appropriate. I don't know if

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Speaker 1: they went alphabetically or how they arranged it, but the

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Speaker 1: government had come to a decision on here's how we're

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Speaker 1: going to present the ballot. Um it's standard for everybody.

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Speaker 1: And that government was Australia, so it wasn't the UK.

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Speaker 1: Of course, it wasn't the U S which a lot

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Speaker 1: of people would assume. Yeah, now there had been secret

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Speaker 1: ballots in both the UK and the US, but this

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Speaker 1: was a standardized approach, which, yeah, this is where you're saying,

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Speaker 1: everyone's getting the same sheet of paper to vote on,

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Speaker 1: as opposed to if you went into a voting precinct

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Speaker 1: to one part of the United States for let's say

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Speaker 1: the presidential election, and then went to a voting precinct

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Speaker 1: in a totally different state, the ballots could look dramatically

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Speaker 1: different from one another and have a have completely different presentation.

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Speaker 1: Like you could just imagine, let's say that you're going

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Speaker 1: through a corrupt precinct and the candidate that they all

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Speaker 1: want to win is a nice, big, bold print, and

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Speaker 1: then the other candidates are in teeny tiny print and

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Speaker 1: you can barely see them. Like that would be unfair. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: you would say, like, I detect a sense of bias.

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Speaker 1: So this was Australia in the mid nineteen century, and

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Speaker 1: I guess then the best way to organize the candidates

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Speaker 1: would be by their crime, right, I'm so sorry. As always,

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Speaker 1: As always we love to poke fund at Australia for

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Speaker 1: getting its start as a as a as a penal colony. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, clearly the Aborigines have been there forever. But

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Speaker 1: but you know, from the European standpoint, Hey, but before

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Speaker 1: we get too cocky, Ben, we live in Georgia, a

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Speaker 1: state that was a penal colony. Do we get a

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Speaker 1: pass for that because we because because Georgia was a

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Speaker 1: debtor's prison essentially. If you've ever been in Georgia you

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Speaker 1: can understand how how when Europeans got here they first thought, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is where we want to put bad people. So

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Speaker 1: so the the Australian state would create these out of

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Speaker 1: I guess taxpayer money. Yeah, yeah, it was, and that

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Speaker 1: was a big deal, right, like the decision that because

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Speaker 1: anything the government does, you know, any product that they're

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Speaker 1: going to make, any anything they produce, the money for

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Speaker 1: that comes from taxes. That's where governments get their money.

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Speaker 1: So you know, you're not going to the Australian government

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Speaker 1: of shop and buying a whole bunch of T shirts

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Speaker 1: and that money goes to making making ballots. But once

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Speaker 1: this was established, then it quickly caught Uh. I was

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Speaker 1: gonna say caught fire, but that's hard to talk about

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Speaker 1: when you're talking about paper ballots. They got popular, um

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Speaker 1: I was adopted throughout the world. And so by the

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Speaker 1: late nineteenth century, so late eighteen hundreds, inventors yeah, just

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Speaker 1: a couple of decades later, inventors were already beginning to

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Speaker 1: experiment with ways to create machines for voting, things like

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Speaker 1: using punch cards so that you could tabulate the data

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Speaker 1: really quickly. And you know, because especially as populations grow

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Speaker 1: and as you open up the vote to more eligible voters,

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Speaker 1: as you make more people eligible, you know, keep in mind,

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Speaker 1: this is the same period where we start to see uh,

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Speaker 1: various minority populations end up getting the right to vote.

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Speaker 1: That increases your voting population. We see women get the

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Speaker 1: right to vote, That increases your voting pop relation. Being

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Speaker 1: able to count those votes quickly becomes really important because

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Speaker 1: you don't want to hold up like. You don't want

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Speaker 1: to everyone waiting, Like we voted three weeks ago. When

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Speaker 1: are we going to find out who won? You don't

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Speaker 1: want that to happen. So there were a lot of

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Speaker 1: experiments in ways to tabulate votes more quickly. And also

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Speaker 1: the idea was that this would be more reliable than

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Speaker 1: a human, like, less likely to make an error, less

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Speaker 1: prone to uh, less prone to a user error or

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Speaker 1: or fraud or fraud. You know, you can't bribe a

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Speaker 1: tabulation machine to give you incorrect results. You could program

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Speaker 1: it to do that, but we'll get into that later. Um. Now,

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Speaker 1: even though people were working on it in the late

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, it would be another half century before you

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Speaker 1: actually started to see some of these punch card systems

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Speaker 1: make their way into voting booths. Uh, it just wasn't

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Speaker 1: ready yet. Um. And then we get into the first

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Speaker 1: actual voting machines and we get to a man by

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Speaker 1: the name of Henry W. Sprat. He sounds like a

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Speaker 1: like a LIMI he is or he was. Can I

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Speaker 1: say limey on the air? Is that okay? I mean

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Speaker 1: we can beep it out. It's just gonna sound like

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Speaker 1: I said something worse. The English Blackguard. Um. He was

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Speaker 1: an Englishman and he received a U. S. Patent for

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Speaker 1: a push button voting machine back in eighteen seventy five.

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Speaker 1: And so imagine that you have a column of buttons, okay,

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Speaker 1: and each button corresponds to a choice for a vote

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Speaker 1: for a single vote. Now it's just a column, or

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Speaker 1: it could be arranged as a row. It depends on

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Speaker 1: how you built it. But it's a single row or

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Speaker 1: a single column. And you might have three buttons that

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Speaker 1: are activated because you have three choices that you could

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Speaker 1: choose from. You would choose and then that's it. You

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Speaker 1: only had that one that one option because uh, it

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Speaker 1: only had the one row or the one column. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So so like in other words, like when we go

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Speaker 1: in for an election, frequently we have multiple uh positions

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Speaker 1: or or um issues that we're voting on. Not just

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Speaker 1: the president or maybe a state rep or a state senator,

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Speaker 1: but also uh controller uh well and ann and people

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Speaker 1: in the actual House of Representatives in the U. S. Senate.

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Speaker 1: So you've have multiple positions that could be open, well,

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Speaker 1: you would need to have multiple rows or multiple columns

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Speaker 1: so that you could make that kind of vote. And

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Speaker 1: in fact we did see those follow but in eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventy five we saw that first push button patent um

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Speaker 1: that in several variations that follow. We're all purely mechanical devices,

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Speaker 1: so no electricity here. These are all working from like

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Speaker 1: levers and joints and hinges, and so it's actual just

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Speaker 1: pure mechanical action, which is great, um, but also problematic

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Speaker 1: because things can break down, things can jam. Like if

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Speaker 1: you've ever used an old typewriter sometimes you know the

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Speaker 1: keys can jam. Same sort of thing could happen. I mean,

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Speaker 1: especially with the more complex voting machines, more moving parts

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Speaker 1: creates just simply more opportunities for something to go wrong, exactly,

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Speaker 1: more points of failure. Yeah, and so one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite inventions that came out fairly early was a lever

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Speaker 1: that you would pull in order to close the curtain

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Speaker 1: behind you. Not Ben, I didn't even ask you this,

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Speaker 1: but uh have you for all of your voting experiences.

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Speaker 1: Have you only used the direct recording type the computer

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Speaker 1: monitor types, or have you ever used a voting booth

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Speaker 1: like I had used a booth very very early in

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Speaker 1: my political career. Yeah, and I think voting will count

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Speaker 1: as my political careers. I said, before you burnt all

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Speaker 1: the bridges, and before I had burned the bridges and

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Speaker 1: became an inspiration for several characters in the House of Cards. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: uh yeah, I I was in the very early days

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Speaker 1: before this was institute. I did get to experience like

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Speaker 1: the older paper based voting I I did. Um, I

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Speaker 1: did the old lever voting machine used to be that

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Speaker 1: used to be in Georgia before two thousand two. I'll

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Speaker 1: talk about that more in a second. But um, the

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Speaker 1: way that they that they typically would work. Because this

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Speaker 1: once this innovation was introduced, it was adopted pretty much universally. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You would have a lever that you would use to

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Speaker 1: close the curtain behind you, and only then would the

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Speaker 1: other levers become active where you would be able to

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Speaker 1: cast your vote. So it was great because it meant

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Speaker 1: that you were pretty confident that your vote would be

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Speaker 1: done secretly. No one's going to look in on you,

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Speaker 1: because before you could even get started, you had to

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Speaker 1: close the curtain. You didn't have an option to vote

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Speaker 1: with the curtain open. And uh, typically the way it

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Speaker 1: would work is that there'd be a mechanism that would

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Speaker 1: just lock all the other levers in place until that

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Speaker 1: curtain lever was activated. And yeah, it was really ingenious.

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Speaker 1: It was again pretty simple. Even when you get to

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Speaker 1: electro mechanical voting boosts later on, it's still followed the

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Speaker 1: same principle. And I thought that was really neat. Now,

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Speaker 1: those voting booths were and incredibly heavy, uh and complex,

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Speaker 1: and like I said, they would break down occasionally, which

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Speaker 1: obviously that's a big problem. They sound positively Stephen punk

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Speaker 1: if we're being honest. Yeah, if you were to ever

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Speaker 1: like look in the back of one, you would be

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Speaker 1: pretty impressed. It would look kind of like a piano

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Speaker 1: got in the fight with you know, like a copper

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Speaker 1: store or something. It was pretty cool. That is such

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Speaker 1: a beautiful description. That might be your best writing this week. Well,

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Speaker 1: like a piano with story. Yeah, and then you that's you.

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Speaker 1: You got a lever action voting machine. In eighteen eighty one,

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Speaker 1: Anthony C. Baroneck received a U S patent for a

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Speaker 1: push button voting machine that was more suited for American elections.

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Speaker 1: This one had the multiple rows and column so it

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Speaker 1: was more advanced than than sprats. And then in eighteen

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Speaker 1: eighty nine, Jacob H. Myers patented the first lever voting

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Speaker 1: machine also known as a direct recording vote machine, which

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Speaker 1: use mechanical lever syndicate. Votes and results were counted by

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Speaker 1: the machine itself and then what would happen is he

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Speaker 1: would record the results. A human being would record the

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Speaker 1: results from each machine for it to be uh tabulated

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Speaker 1: in the grand totals. Um and Myers had said that

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Speaker 1: the approach had major advantages over older methods and that

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Speaker 1: it could prevent ballot stuffing because each person could only

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Speaker 1: use the machine once before it had to be reset,

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Speaker 1: so you couldn't vote and then just go ahead and

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Speaker 1: vote again, and vote again and and then just keep

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Speaker 1: on creating uh you know, false votes for whatever candidate

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Speaker 1: you chose. You can only do it the one time

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Speaker 1: and then it would have to be reset for the

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Speaker 1: next voter, which meant that, you know, it was a

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Speaker 1: little labor intensive because you had to have someone there

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Speaker 1: to reset the machine. But at the same time, it

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Speaker 1: kept the voting process honest. Um. And then the first

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Speaker 1: time Myers machine was actually used, I remember it was

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Speaker 1: made Ino, so it didn't take long. And again there

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Speaker 1: still was a weak point here. If you had someone

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Speaker 1: whose job it was to write down the results, they

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Speaker 1: could fudge the results from the machine. And let's also

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Speaker 1: point out that here in the late nineteen century, yep,

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Speaker 1: post civil war, at least in the US, Yes, late

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Speaker 1: nineteenth the three is post civil war even today, even today,

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Speaker 1: I'm just saying with with that having occurred so recently,

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Speaker 1: corruption was rife and rampant, oh yeah, especially like there's

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Speaker 1: certain areas of the United States that have almost a

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Speaker 1: comical association with election fraud, Chicago, Chicago being the big one,

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Speaker 1: Like like you'll hear stories about Chicago elections that are amazing,

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Speaker 1: like like like how how how many people turn out

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Speaker 1: to vote in an election, including ones who haven't been

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Speaker 1: alive for like ten years, um, boss tweed kind of stuff. Right, yeah, yeah, So,

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Speaker 1: at any rate, the the this didn't erase the ability

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Speaker 1: for some tampa to happen, right, But again it would

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Speaker 1: be the humans. Ideally, the machines count all the votes

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Speaker 1: as they were cast. But the humans whose job it

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Speaker 1: was to transcribe that could fudge if they wanted, if

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Speaker 1: they if they were so inclined. Not that they were

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Speaker 1: allowed to, but they could have because there's a hierarchy

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Speaker 1: of reporting here. One person tabulates each machine. After each

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Speaker 1: vote goes to a precinct, precinct tabulates, it goes to

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Speaker 1: a higher authority of a regional sort, and then on

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Speaker 1: and on and on up to the national level. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And just like you said earlier, the more moving parts

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Speaker 1: we have in a mechanism, whether an organization or a machine,

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Speaker 1: the more potential points of failure we have, right, And

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Speaker 1: and this again kind of leads into the thinking that

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Speaker 1: would eventually develop into the electronic voting machine, the idea

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Speaker 1: of being that, hey, if we can remove some of

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Speaker 1: these steps, then perhaps we can end up having a

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Speaker 1: more accurate reflection of the public's intent. Right, Which that's

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Speaker 1: a very honorable thing, but it gets a little a

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Speaker 1: little muddy in practice. Yeah, we do so. Nineteen thirty

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Speaker 1: lever voting machines have become a common site throughout elections

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Speaker 1: in US cities. Most major cities had these by nineteen thirty. UM.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty two karn City, California, would use optical

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Speaker 1: scan ballots for the first time. So these are like

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Speaker 1: the center dized tests, like the s A T. I

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Speaker 1: assume they're still like that. I haven't been in high

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Speaker 1: school in a really long time. But you know the

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Speaker 1: kind of test where you have to fill in the

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Speaker 1: bubble all the way to indicate your choice. That's what

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Speaker 1: we're talking about optical scans. So you've got your ballot

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Speaker 1: and you fill in the ballot as directed in order

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Speaker 1: to make your choices, and then those are later put

402
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Speaker 1: through a scanning machine. It's essentially like a camera. It

403
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Speaker 1: just detects where the dots are and then it can

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Speaker 1: tell who you voted for based upon the position of

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Speaker 1: the dots. And obviously this means that you have to

406
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Speaker 1: have uh very standardized paper so that they can load

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Speaker 1: in properly, be read by the machine correctly, so that

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Speaker 1: you don't get misidentified votes that sort of stuff. You

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Speaker 1: have to also have the seemingly unnecessary but in practice

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Speaker 1: crucial instructions for every voter on what we actually mean

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Speaker 1: when we say filling in a bubble. Yes, you know,

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Speaker 1: check marks no X. You have to fill it in

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Speaker 1: completely all the stuff you may remember from your S

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Speaker 1: A T S A C T S or EL sets

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Speaker 1: right right, yeah, because if you don't fill it in correctly,

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Speaker 1: if you don't fill in that bubble fully, then it

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Speaker 1: may not be counted. And obviously every person who goes

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Speaker 1: to the trouble to vote once his or her vote

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Speaker 1: to matter, right, I mean we don't. We don't just

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Speaker 1: stand there just for the fun of it. Um, maybe

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Speaker 1: the first time, but after that you're like, well, I'm

422
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Speaker 1: doing my civic duty. It's not my civic Oh boy,

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Speaker 1: let's go and do this. Remind me at some point

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Speaker 1: when we get to the contemporary area. I have a

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Speaker 1: great voting story for okay, but but right now we've

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Speaker 1: got the scanners, and then we move into something that's

427
00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:08,400
Speaker 1: a little bit of local history for you and I. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty four, Fulton and Decab Counties in Georgia

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Speaker 1: used punch cards and computer tallely machines for the first

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Speaker 1: time in an election. Uh. Fulton and Decab Counties are

431
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:21,280
Speaker 1: really the two main counties of Atlanta. If you look

432
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 1: at Atlanta on a map, especially if you look up

433
00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:26,679
Speaker 1: the term metro Atlanta, there are a whole bunch of

434
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:29,680
Speaker 1: counties that are in that something. There's like thirteen or something.

435
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:32,040
Speaker 1: It's crazy at this point. But but the two big

436
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 1: ones that make up what we what we who live

437
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:38,880
Speaker 1: in Atlanta think of as Atlanta are Fulton in Decab.

438
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 1: And so in fact I think Ben, I think you

439
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 1: you might live in one and I live in the other.

440
00:25:46,920 --> 00:25:50,480
Speaker 1: That is true. I'm currently a resident of Fulton County,

441
00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:52,159
Speaker 1: though for a long time I was over there with

442
00:25:52,240 --> 00:25:56,440
Speaker 1: you in Decab. Yeah, and then to be fair, I

443
00:25:56,480 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 1: think only a couple of miles separate Ben and Ben's

444
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 1: how in my house, so we're right there on the

445
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:06,080
Speaker 1: border of the two counties. Anyway, those two counties became

446
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: the first to use punch cards and computer tally machines

447
00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:10,400
Speaker 1: for the first time, and that would quickly get adopted

448
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:14,159
Speaker 1: by a lot of other places. In Joseph P. Harris

449
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 1: would patent the votomatic punch card system and that would

450
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:20,399
Speaker 1: require voters to use like a stylus like pen to

451
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 1: punch holes into a ballot. This became very common to

452
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 1: and it was on a sort of a template thing, right,

453
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:28,200
Speaker 1: like it would slide into this thing with the choices,

454
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:32,159
Speaker 1: the one that you chose almost like a frame that

455
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:34,639
Speaker 1: would hold the paper taut. Yeah, I remember those. And

456
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 1: also I want to point out this is one of

457
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:40,439
Speaker 1: my favorite eras of American history for gadgets. It's the

458
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 1: time when everything was legitimized by adding oh matic at

459
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 1: the end. It was their digital or their organic the buzzword. Yeah. Yeah.

460
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:51,360
Speaker 1: So if you look at any of the cafeterias from

461
00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:53,239
Speaker 1: back then, there were a lot of the like the

462
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 1: serve ohmatic or whatever, and they tend to be uh,

463
00:26:57,080 --> 00:26:59,160
Speaker 1: you know, like a series of windows and you would

464
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:01,239
Speaker 1: put coins into a slot and you would be able

465
00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 1: to open up one of the windows and get your

466
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:06,440
Speaker 1: you know, the ham sandwich that was made seven hours ago,

467
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 1: if you really be still my heart or just a

468
00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:13,400
Speaker 1: jar of eggs. Yea man, those are the days, right,

469
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:16,879
Speaker 1: Ben and I have more to say about electronic voting machines,

470
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:26,840
Speaker 1: but before we get to that, let's take a quick break. So, so, yeah,

471
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 1: this this is something that has an important difference though,

472
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 1: right because the while the act here was just relatively

473
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:40,000
Speaker 1: simple human technology, a person popping the style is into

474
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:43,960
Speaker 1: a piece of paper. How did they count this? Again?

475
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:46,840
Speaker 1: You would put it through a tabulation machine typically, uh

476
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:50,360
Speaker 1: you you would do this again using light to detect

477
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 1: where the the punched hole was. This also leads us

478
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 1: to another issue in American elections later on, the the

479
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:03,440
Speaker 1: dreaded hanging chads. But we'll get there, we'll talk about that, um.

480
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:06,720
Speaker 1: But but it does it does open up the opportunity

481
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:10,920
Speaker 1: for tabulation errors only because if the piece of paper

482
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:16,800
Speaker 1: that you are punching out isn't completely free of the ballot,

483
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:19,480
Speaker 1: like if it doesn't break off from the ballot, then

484
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:24,240
Speaker 1: it can it can obscure that whole, and a tabulation

485
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 1: device could think that you made no choice whatsoever for

486
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:32,640
Speaker 1: that particular vote, whatever it might be. YEA n seventy four.

487
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:35,520
Speaker 1: That was the first patent for a direct recording electronic

488
00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 1: voting machine or d r e UH. These are also

489
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:41,640
Speaker 1: known as electronic voting machines e v m s. They're

490
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 1: essentially computers computer terminals UH. And it was first used

491
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 1: in and the first one that was used was called

492
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:52,959
Speaker 1: the video voter. Yeah. Now, typically these days you have

493
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 1: an electronic display that shows you the ballot and electronic

494
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 1: version of the ballot, and then you use some form

495
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:02,440
Speaker 1: of interface make your choice. It might be buttons, so

496
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:03,880
Speaker 1: it might be a physical button that you have to

497
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 1: press that corresponds to a choice you see on the screen,

498
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:10,640
Speaker 1: or maybe a touch screen in some cases where you

499
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:13,440
Speaker 1: you know your your choices pop up, you press the screen,

500
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 1: it activates, and your vote is uh is reflected on

501
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 1: what you see on the screen. UH. At that point,

502
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 1: a couple of different things could happen. The vote could

503
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:27,080
Speaker 1: just be recorded electronically in memory, and then at the

504
00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:31,239
Speaker 1: end of the day, what the precinct folks will do

505
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 1: is remove the memory from each device, and then you

506
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:39,720
Speaker 1: send that over to a centralized tabulation area and then

507
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 1: the results would be collected there. Or it may also

508
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 1: print a paper record so that you have a hard

509
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: copy to compare against the electronic ones. Not all e

510
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 1: v M s have paper trails. In fact, a lot

511
00:29:54,280 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 1: do not, which is problematic. Will get more into that. Uh.

512
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 1: Location Yeah, not even not even state to state, but

513
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:06,280
Speaker 1: within within a state, you could have one area, one

514
00:30:06,360 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 1: precinct where there's a paper trail, and one whether it's not.

515
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 1: This is largely because in the United States, UH, the

516
00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:17,640
Speaker 1: decision on what sort of machine you're using is made

517
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:21,440
Speaker 1: at the local level. It's not federally mandated. Right. The

518
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 1: federal mandate is that you must have a system in

519
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 1: place for people to vote. You got you gotta have

520
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:31,239
Speaker 1: somehow right, But beyond that, it ends up being a

521
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:33,480
Speaker 1: decision made on the local level. And there's been a

522
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:36,719
Speaker 1: lot of arguments about who should foot the bill for

523
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 1: these systems. Should it be a state level thing, should

524
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 1: be regional, should it be federal? And uh, this is

525
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 1: why we get a lot of disparity across the United

526
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:48,440
Speaker 1: States when it comes to different ways to cast a

527
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 1: vote on an election year. Um, in two thousand, Uh,

528
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 1: this was a big, big year. This was a year

529
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 1: that really started to change things here in the US. Yeah,

530
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 1: this is the year when Al Gore was running against

531
00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:06,480
Speaker 1: uh George W. Bush and um, it was a very

532
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 1: close race throughout the United States, but particularly in Florida,

533
00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:12,760
Speaker 1: which was seen as a state that was going to

534
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:17,240
Speaker 1: decide everything right and also, to add to the allegations

535
00:31:17,440 --> 00:31:22,200
Speaker 1: and the controversy here, the vote in Florida at the

536
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 1: time could be influenced by the governor who was brother

537
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:31,360
Speaker 1: to w Yeah. So you had, um, you had polls,

538
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:35,640
Speaker 1: like the actual surveys indicating that Gore actually had a

539
00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:38,360
Speaker 1: bit of a lead in in a lot of areas,

540
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:42,400
Speaker 1: but elae elite enough of a lead to bring into

541
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:45,720
Speaker 1: question the results that came in later. But then you

542
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 1: also had this issue of the hanging chad's in Florida,

543
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 1: millions according to according to some some sources, millions of

544
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:57,520
Speaker 1: votes were tossed out because you had these ballots that

545
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:00,480
Speaker 1: had chad's hanging from them and they would not be

546
00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:05,360
Speaker 1: tabulated by the machines, and so rather than tear off

547
00:32:05,400 --> 00:32:07,479
Speaker 1: the piece of paper, which would almost be seen as

548
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:09,640
Speaker 1: like you could argue as a way of tampering, like

549
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:12,239
Speaker 1: how to be sure? Like what have you looked at

550
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 1: a ballot and legitimately they had not made a choice

551
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:19,560
Speaker 1: for a specific issue or a specific position, or you

552
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 1: weren't sure if it just got messed up, right, Yeah,

553
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 1: you don't know if maybe they started to tear and

554
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:27,440
Speaker 1: then they change their mind, Like how how far does

555
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 1: the chad have to hang before you can make the determination? Oh,

556
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 1: this is what they meant to do. And of course

557
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 1: I wish I jumped in with this earlier. But when

558
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:38,720
Speaker 1: you talked about these millions of hanging chad's, of course

559
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:41,600
Speaker 1: we're saying that the chad is the is the leftover

560
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 1: piece of perforated piece of paper. It's not you know,

561
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:47,479
Speaker 1: a bunch of guys in backwards chats a cargo shorts

562
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:50,360
Speaker 1: hanging out. Although I wish I was, Yeah, I wish

563
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 1: that the I mean, yeah, I would expect to see

564
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 1: see a bunch of chads hanging out in Florida, but

565
00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 1: only on spring break, right, and know if it's people

566
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:01,560
Speaker 1: named Chad. I don't believe in comitti determinism, which is

567
00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:04,920
Speaker 1: the smart word for the smart phrase for that kind

568
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 1: of belief. Yeah, we were very intelligent about our our

569
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:13,040
Speaker 1: shortsighted uh bad jokes. So yeah, this is this is

570
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 1: a huge deal though, because UM people who naturally people

571
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 1: who support UM the Republican candidate at the time, George

572
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 1: who would later become president, George Bush. Uh, they say, well,

573
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 1: this is how democracy works, and we have to make

574
00:33:29,800 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 1: sure it's a clean election. And then the Democrats who

575
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:37,320
Speaker 1: are supporting Al Gore say, this is not how democracy works,

576
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:40,240
Speaker 1: and yes, we need to make sure there's a clean election.

577
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:43,760
Speaker 1: These votes count. You can't you can't just throw people's

578
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 1: votes out the door because you don't you don't like

579
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 1: what they say, and use the excuse that they don't

580
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:53,080
Speaker 1: fit your standard, and so this was this was an ugly,

581
00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:55,640
Speaker 1: ugly mess, very much so, all the way, all the

582
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 1: way to the Supreme Court. That's how far this ugly

583
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 1: mess went. And and they eventually made the decision going

584
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:04,600
Speaker 1: back to I love that you put this in earlier,

585
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:09,480
Speaker 1: going back to your comment about tabulating things in a

586
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:14,560
Speaker 1: timely manner. Ultimately, right, the people who, of course the

587
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:16,880
Speaker 1: winning party is going to fight and say there shouldn't

588
00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:19,480
Speaker 1: be a recount because they got it done the once.

589
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:22,560
Speaker 1: You don't when you think about it, a recount to

590
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 1: the winner, it sounds like you're doing the election all

591
00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:27,319
Speaker 1: over it. It's like double jeopardy. You don't wanna you

592
00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:30,759
Speaker 1: don't want to run the risk of losing again. You

593
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 1: you want to you one, you want to keep moving,

594
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 1: and you know you can't really blame someone for wanting that, right,

595
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:39,280
Speaker 1: So ultimately the Supreme Court said, okay, like we can't

596
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:46,200
Speaker 1: hold up the the American political process, and they and

597
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:51,480
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court ultimately decided the president in that election. Yeah,

598
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 1: this was a big point of contention for lots of

599
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 1: people on both sides really, because there were people who

600
00:34:57,200 --> 00:34:59,720
Speaker 1: were very concerned about what this set meant for future

601
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:02,399
Speaker 1: alle actions. And so in two thousand to the US

602
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:05,960
Speaker 1: government actually passed the Help America Vote Act or HAVA

603
00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:09,480
Speaker 1: h a v A in response to the two thousand

604
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:13,040
Speaker 1: Hanging Chad debacle, and their goal was to phase out

605
00:35:13,080 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 1: punch card systems entirely and use other systems. Didn't They

606
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 1: weren't specific in saying, you have to move to electronic

607
00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:23,439
Speaker 1: voting machines, but just let's not have this happen again,

608
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:27,440
Speaker 1: because that was not pleasant. And so a lot of

609
00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 1: regents did opt to go with electronic voting machines, and

610
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:34,040
Speaker 1: in two thousand two, the first state to use d

611
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:38,760
Speaker 1: r E machines statewide it is mandated at a state

612
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:43,959
Speaker 1: level is Georgia. Yeah, look at us. Take that. Yeah,

613
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:48,120
Speaker 1: we're first in something. We're first in several things, but

614
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:52,960
Speaker 1: this is one of the good ones, arguably. So it

615
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 1: was interesting to see that Georgia was was taking a

616
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 1: leadership position in innovation in this way. But we should

617
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 1: point out that in most states, electronic voting machines are

618
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:07,040
Speaker 1: not the only way you vote. In fact, in most

619
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:11,680
Speaker 1: states there's some sort of combination of different voting methodologies. Uh,

620
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 1: some states you are are you still mail in your vote?

621
00:36:16,040 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 1: You don't even go to a polling place because, uh,

622
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:24,680
Speaker 1: those states are known for having low populations dispersed across

623
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 1: the wide area, and it's hard to make a journey

624
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:28,640
Speaker 1: all the way to a place where you can go

625
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:30,799
Speaker 1: and cast a vote, especially depending on the season. If

626
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:34,840
Speaker 1: there's inclement weather in a place like Alaska, you know,

627
00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:38,840
Speaker 1: how can you realistically expect someone to travel all the

628
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:41,840
Speaker 1: way in? And then you know, also the reason we

629
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 1: have to depend on some hybrid systems is because we

630
00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 1: may have UM veterans or state level officials, people working

631
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:54,880
Speaker 1: for the government that are stationed abroad. Might have people

632
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:59,200
Speaker 1: who are living abroad for some reason or another. But

633
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 1: if it's a legit intimate reason, I guarantee you they

634
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 1: want to vote, usually against having their foreign income taxes

635
00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:09,319
Speaker 1: US rates. But but then there are you know, there

636
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:13,720
Speaker 1: are multiple people who, for one extenuating circumstance or another,

637
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:17,000
Speaker 1: need to send a vote, can't be physically at the machine.

638
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 1: So overall, it's good for us to have this mix right, right,

639
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:23,280
Speaker 1: and and uh, you know again, for a lot of places,

640
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:25,520
Speaker 1: it's it was not so much that we have to

641
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:27,600
Speaker 1: move to electronic voting machines. We just had to move

642
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:32,000
Speaker 1: off of punch cards. Um. So. One of the other

643
00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 1: sad things about Georgia though, is that in a lot

644
00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 1: of areas the machines being used are essentially the same

645
00:37:38,719 --> 00:37:41,319
Speaker 1: ones that were launched in two thousand two, which means

646
00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:44,480
Speaker 1: we have early adopter syndrome. Yeah. Well, we also have

647
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:47,520
Speaker 1: the the problem that a lot of people have when

648
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:49,600
Speaker 1: they get into PCs for the first time, which is

649
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 1: that they realize they have to upgrade every few years. Uh.

650
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:55,760
Speaker 1: We have not done that in a lot of states,

651
00:37:55,760 --> 00:38:00,200
Speaker 1: including Georgia. And this also comes into play with the

652
00:38:00,239 --> 00:38:03,279
Speaker 1: idea of the expense right. You have to pay to

653
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 1: get those new systems in and that means you have

654
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:10,000
Speaker 1: to allocate taxpayer money to do that. And I don't

655
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:12,000
Speaker 1: know if you've noticed this, Ben, but um a lot

656
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 1: of taxpayers aren't keen on the whole idea of paying

657
00:38:16,160 --> 00:38:19,480
Speaker 1: more tax, which means that if you aren't paying more

658
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:21,800
Speaker 1: tax than you have to take money away from something

659
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:25,440
Speaker 1: else in order to pay for the electronic voting machines.

660
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:29,920
Speaker 1: And it's it's hard to make that a politically positive move.

661
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 1: It is difficult to justify that because there's so many

662
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:36,200
Speaker 1: different interested parties and if you were to say, hey, uh,

663
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:40,280
Speaker 1: this group over here, I know that we typically budget

664
00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:42,440
Speaker 1: a certain amount every year for you guys, but we're

665
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:44,759
Speaker 1: gonna decrease that budget a little bit this next year

666
00:38:44,800 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 1: so that we can put that towards electronic voting machines.

667
00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 1: And then that group says, why are you punishing us? Um,

668
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:53,080
Speaker 1: And I'm not I'm not trying to pass judgment here.

669
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:55,680
Speaker 1: I understand like there's it's just it's a difficult political

670
00:38:55,719 --> 00:38:58,240
Speaker 1: game to play. And then we have to also ask,

671
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:02,480
Speaker 1: you know, what private industry is involved with this. Yeah,

672
00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:04,480
Speaker 1: so I'm just gonna I'm just gonna. I don't want

673
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:06,359
Speaker 1: to go I know we'll get into it later, but

674
00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:09,000
Speaker 1: I do want to point out, you know, when we're

675
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 1: asking that question, or we're bringing up the point of

676
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:16,439
Speaker 1: how difficult it is to ask taxpayers to pay more

677
00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:19,840
Speaker 1: in tax so that these machines can be serviced. The

678
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:22,239
Speaker 1: government's not paying itself to do it. In the case

679
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:27,200
Speaker 1: of Georgia, they're paying someone called Premier Election Solutions. Yeah, yeah,

680
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:33,640
Speaker 1: just electric solutions. Used to be die Bald elections. Then

681
00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:36,919
Speaker 1: we'll get into die Bald in a minute. So over

682
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:39,200
Speaker 1: the next several years from two thousand two on to today.

683
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 1: Various security experts in civil rights groups have been challenging

684
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:44,400
Speaker 1: the use of d r E systems and elections for

685
00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:47,840
Speaker 1: various reasons, and two thousand twelve, issues with the election

686
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 1: in New York City were so bad that in the

687
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 1: city would actually pull five thousand one liver voting machines

688
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:59,240
Speaker 1: out of storage to use instead of electronic voting machines.

689
00:39:59,600 --> 00:40:02,239
Speaker 1: She yeah, well, it's a good thing they kept him.

690
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 1: Huh Yeah, So whoever was in charge of keeping all

691
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:07,760
Speaker 1: that old stuff? I'm sure you listen to tech stuff

692
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 1: and hate You're no longer a hoarder. Yeah, now you're

693
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:15,319
Speaker 1: a patriot. So what are some of the advantages? Okay,

694
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 1: before we get into all the criticisms, and then we're

695
00:40:19,160 --> 00:40:25,480
Speaker 1: gonna also address the fear of the election being hacked,

696
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:27,480
Speaker 1: because that has been in the news for a while,

697
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:29,880
Speaker 1: let's talk about what are some of the good things

698
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:34,560
Speaker 1: about election voting. Well, first off, speed is huge, right,

699
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:38,640
Speaker 1: Like you can you can collect and tabulate votes faster

700
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 1: through this method than through any other method, and assuming

701
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:45,360
Speaker 1: that everything is working the way it's supposed to, then

702
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:49,279
Speaker 1: you know you've got a really accurate result and you

703
00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:54,799
Speaker 1: can very quickly proclaim a winner in whatever district you're

704
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:58,920
Speaker 1: talking about. So, uh, there's very little delay between the

705
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:01,560
Speaker 1: end of voting and declaring who the winner is using

706
00:41:01,600 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 1: those methodologies because you don't have to go through any

707
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 1: laborious process to tabulate the votes. And yeah, I mean

708
00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:12,799
Speaker 1: that's it's it's like any other computer program. You know.

709
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:16,640
Speaker 1: You typically, unless you're talking about a computer whose processor

710
00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:20,839
Speaker 1: is just laboring under way too much work, you get

711
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:23,640
Speaker 1: results very quickly. Another is that there are no moving

712
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:29,120
Speaker 1: parts in the actual voting mechanism, and electronic voting mechanism

713
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:32,879
Speaker 1: purely electronic. We're not talking about electro mechanical. You don't

714
00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:35,280
Speaker 1: have moving parts, so that means they don't wear down

715
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 1: over time physically. That being said, you can still have

716
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:42,839
Speaker 1: errors pop up in electronic voting machines. You could have

717
00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:48,840
Speaker 1: operational errors. Things can crash. It's a computer program, and

718
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 1: I'm sure all of us out there have had experiences

719
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:55,360
Speaker 1: where inexplicably a computer has crashed or in my case,

720
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 1: failed to connect to the WiFi. Uh, And so that

721
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:02,040
Speaker 1: is still an issue. But because there's no moving parts,

722
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:03,919
Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about the physical wear and tear.

723
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:08,360
Speaker 1: The way you would with those mechanical devices. May was

724
00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:11,719
Speaker 1: wont to say there's more. Yeah. So, one of the

725
00:42:11,719 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 1: big advantages of electronic voting machines, and I think this

726
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:18,480
Speaker 1: is a really important one, is they are customizable so

727
00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:23,320
Speaker 1: that citizens are able to more citizens can participate in

728
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:26,920
Speaker 1: the voting process. For example, if you have people who

729
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:30,000
Speaker 1: have visual impairments, like they can see, but they might

730
00:42:30,040 --> 00:42:34,279
Speaker 1: have trouble reading something that's in small print because it's

731
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:36,440
Speaker 1: on an electronic screen, most of the time, you have

732
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:40,279
Speaker 1: an option for a large print version. But beyond that,

733
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:42,920
Speaker 1: if you have someone who has a complete visual impairment,

734
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:45,879
Speaker 1: perhaps they're blind or they're effectively blind, then you can

735
00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:49,799
Speaker 1: have audio versions as well. So it's and you can't

736
00:42:49,800 --> 00:42:51,960
Speaker 1: really do that with mechanical ones, right like you can't

737
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:57,280
Speaker 1: magically make the print on a series of levers larger,

738
00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:00,239
Speaker 1: but with a screen you can do that. So it

739
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:03,719
Speaker 1: creates more accessibility for a larger number of people who

740
00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:08,919
Speaker 1: want to participate in the system. However, not all electronic

741
00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:13,480
Speaker 1: voting machines are created equally. No, Um, okay, I wish

742
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:15,279
Speaker 1: you guys could see this in the studio. I just

743
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:19,560
Speaker 1: did President Handry. Yeah, you get the thumbs slightly extended

744
00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:22,560
Speaker 1: and the fist clenched, and then you do all your gestures.

745
00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:24,400
Speaker 1: You know why you do it that way, right, So

746
00:43:24,440 --> 00:43:27,280
Speaker 1: you're not exactly because if you point, then it almost

747
00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:32,600
Speaker 1: feels like an accusation. They train you President one oh one,

748
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 1: you can train don't point. Um. So your basic d

749
00:43:38,680 --> 00:43:41,280
Speaker 1: r E is just a computer, right, so it records

750
00:43:41,360 --> 00:43:45,480
Speaker 1: votes cast on the device typically you would use here

751
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 1: in Georgia. You tend to get like a card, an

752
00:43:47,680 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 1: activation card that you plug into almost like a little

753
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:53,000
Speaker 1: disk drive, and then you can make your votes and

754
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:56,120
Speaker 1: then you are told to remove the card at the

755
00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 1: end of it, and then you turn it back into

756
00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:04,720
Speaker 1: somebody and a volunteer at your little polling place, Jimmy

757
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 1: the volunteer, Ben's polling place. I'd like to point out

758
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 1: that Decab County has much more respectable volunteers at the

759
00:44:13,200 --> 00:44:17,440
Speaker 1: polling centers, all with free sassafras. Yeah, you get a

760
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:21,319
Speaker 1: little bit of that. So Sasaparilla. Sasparilla is actually what

761
00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:25,279
Speaker 1: I was thinking of Fault County. It's fair, but yeah,

762
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:29,560
Speaker 1: there are differences. Ben and I will conclude Part one

763
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:31,600
Speaker 1: of the Scary World of E v M s in

764
00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:41,799
Speaker 1: just a moment. But first another quick break. So you've

765
00:44:41,800 --> 00:44:45,120
Speaker 1: got lots of different companies and make peace right, there's

766
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:48,359
Speaker 1: no standard across them, and in fact that ends up

767
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 1: causing an issue. But once you make those selections on

768
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:58,160
Speaker 1: your computer screen, you get kind of too broad um

769
00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 1: types of d r s. In one type, it's all records,

770
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:06,239
Speaker 1: just electronically, so all you have is the electric electronic

771
00:45:06,320 --> 00:45:09,480
Speaker 1: record of the votes, and the other one you have

772
00:45:09,600 --> 00:45:12,799
Speaker 1: some sort of paper trail. Uh. Now, the paper trail

773
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:16,400
Speaker 1: ones you can even divide again because there's somewhere you

774
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:18,799
Speaker 1: have a paper trail, but there's no way for the

775
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:23,320
Speaker 1: voter to verify that the vote recorded on paper reflects

776
00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:28,400
Speaker 1: their specific choices. So, Ben, I'm gonna give you an example.

777
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:31,840
Speaker 1: All right, let's say, let's let's let's go back in

778
00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 1: time and uh, you are picking between um, oh, let's say, uh,

779
00:45:40,600 --> 00:45:43,799
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. You've got you've got your

780
00:45:43,840 --> 00:45:46,359
Speaker 1: choices of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. But but back

781
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:48,640
Speaker 1: in this time period, this alternate history, they do have

782
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:52,279
Speaker 1: electronic voting machines. Wrap your mind around that. So so

783
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:55,240
Speaker 1: there you are, you're looking at Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan,

784
00:45:55,400 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 1: and you, being a huge fan of Reagan's Holly would career,

785
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:05,000
Speaker 1: you've decided you're gonna support Mr Reagan and not Mr Carter,

786
00:46:05,520 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 1: the Georgian native. Right, so I'm going against the home team. Yeah,

787
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:10,880
Speaker 1: you're going against the home team. And this is one

788
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:13,399
Speaker 1: of those cases where you are very pleased that your

789
00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:17,239
Speaker 1: your vote is secret. Yeah, because my love of Western's

790
00:46:17,280 --> 00:46:24,400
Speaker 1: compels me that time for Bonzo or whatever it was.

791
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:29,280
Speaker 1: Vote you choose, you choose the Kipper, you choose Ronald Reagan,

792
00:46:29,840 --> 00:46:33,520
Speaker 1: and uh and in the distance you hear g G,

793
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:39,879
Speaker 1: which indicates that indeed the printer has printed out the

794
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:43,239
Speaker 1: lines that are supposed to reflect your vote, but you

795
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:47,120
Speaker 1: are not able to see the piece of paper. So,

796
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:49,600
Speaker 1: for all you know, the piece of paper actually says

797
00:46:49,680 --> 00:46:52,520
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter was the one you voted on. And so

798
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:57,200
Speaker 1: while the the review screen that you get says you

799
00:46:57,239 --> 00:47:00,360
Speaker 1: picked Ronald Reagan, electronically it records that vote as a

800
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:02,319
Speaker 1: vote for Jimmy Carter, and on the paper it says

801
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:04,560
Speaker 1: it's a vote for Jimmy Carter. And since you can't

802
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:07,600
Speaker 1: see the paper, you can't say, hey, wait a minute,

803
00:47:07,800 --> 00:47:10,160
Speaker 1: that's not who I voted for. I let down the giver.

804
00:47:10,840 --> 00:47:14,799
Speaker 1: Well you didn't, because you voted. You did everything you could. Now,

805
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:18,040
Speaker 1: there's also the voter verifiable paper trail, and the very

806
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:20,640
Speaker 1: viable paper trail means that you would be able to

807
00:47:20,680 --> 00:47:25,279
Speaker 1: see the paper representation of your vote before you leave

808
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:28,720
Speaker 1: the precinct. So in that case, you vote for Ronald Reagan,

809
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:31,520
Speaker 1: piece of paper prints out, it says you voted for

810
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:35,480
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan. Now I should add there's still the possibility

811
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:39,720
Speaker 1: that electronically it flips your vote. But for that to happen,

812
00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:44,000
Speaker 1: and for it to essentially flip back at some point,

813
00:47:44,040 --> 00:47:47,040
Speaker 1: for it to purport that you have voted what you

814
00:47:47,120 --> 00:47:51,759
Speaker 1: thought you were voting for, that makes let me put

815
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:55,239
Speaker 1: it this way, Jonathan. Yeah, and I know that we

816
00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 1: are going to go back and forth on some of this,

817
00:47:57,280 --> 00:48:02,600
Speaker 1: and that's fine. Yeah, that's a very that's a difficult

818
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:07,000
Speaker 1: mistake to make. In other words, that's not a mistake

819
00:48:07,080 --> 00:48:11,000
Speaker 1: that's something someone did on purpose. It seems more plausible

820
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:14,440
Speaker 1: that it would be like something that's something that involves

821
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:19,600
Speaker 1: those points occurring. Uh. Register electronically, Let's say I do

822
00:48:19,719 --> 00:48:23,480
Speaker 1: vote for Big gif uh and then have the verifiable

823
00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:26,760
Speaker 1: paper trail come out and says, hey, congratulations, you voted Ronnie,

824
00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:30,200
Speaker 1: but then have the machine somehow register that as a

825
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:33,719
Speaker 1: vote for an opposing candidate. That I would argue that

826
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:36,560
Speaker 1: I can't think of a scenario where you could innocently

827
00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: do that, right, because you have to remember that the

828
00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:42,080
Speaker 1: way these systems tend to work is that you get

829
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:45,040
Speaker 1: a verification screen at the end that says, hey, is

830
00:48:45,080 --> 00:48:49,440
Speaker 1: this what you wanted before you actually cast your vote? Right,

831
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:53,000
Speaker 1: so that electronic screen is going to, in theory, reflect

832
00:48:53,040 --> 00:48:55,399
Speaker 1: what you actually chose, and if you look down, you're like, yep,

833
00:48:55,480 --> 00:48:58,279
Speaker 1: there's Ronald Reagan. That's who I picked. And then the

834
00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:00,800
Speaker 1: piece of paper says, do you cast your vote? The

835
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:02,960
Speaker 1: piece of paper prints out and it says Ronald reagular Yep,

836
00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:05,239
Speaker 1: that's so I picked. But electronically it says Jimmy Carter.

837
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:11,840
Speaker 1: I say, something hinky has gone on, and sure that

838
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:16,440
Speaker 1: it was somebody doing that on purpose. You know, I've

839
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 1: got to confess. I'm I'm surprised that you're I'm surprised

840
00:49:21,560 --> 00:49:25,040
Speaker 1: that you're drawing the same conclusion so quickly, because you're

841
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:30,320
Speaker 1: very um the way that you evaluate situations. And you guys,

842
00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:32,920
Speaker 1: you guys know Jonathan, you listen to this show is

843
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:35,319
Speaker 1: to go through all of these facts. So to hear

844
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:41,719
Speaker 1: you say something with this certitude is is pretty significant. Well,

845
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:44,719
Speaker 1: and and it's because I understand the technology right, Like

846
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:46,799
Speaker 1: if you've if you've designed a system, first of all,

847
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:49,160
Speaker 1: in order to get any electronic voting system in place,

848
00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:51,680
Speaker 1: it has to go through lots of different third party

849
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:54,719
Speaker 1: testing to make sure that it actually works right. Um,

850
00:49:54,920 --> 00:49:59,120
Speaker 1: So for it to pass all those tests and then

851
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:03,919
Speaker 1: magically not work properly on election day tells me something

852
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:07,200
Speaker 1: someone has interfered, whether it was someone on the actual

853
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:11,000
Speaker 1: uh manufacturing side, like someone on the software side for

854
00:50:11,040 --> 00:50:14,279
Speaker 1: the company that made the voting machine, or some other

855
00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:18,040
Speaker 1: third party actor who has infected a machine with malicious

856
00:50:18,080 --> 00:50:22,439
Speaker 1: code to change votes on the electronic level. The whole

857
00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:25,360
Speaker 1: point of this, though, is that if you have a

858
00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:29,759
Speaker 1: paper trail, especially a voter verifiable paper trail that's the

859
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:33,880
Speaker 1: most important kind, then you have something against which you

860
00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:37,480
Speaker 1: can perform an audit after an election. So the elections over,

861
00:50:37,760 --> 00:50:40,840
Speaker 1: the results are in, and then a lot of states,

862
00:50:40,920 --> 00:50:43,480
Speaker 1: not all, but a lot of states require a post

863
00:50:43,520 --> 00:50:47,040
Speaker 1: election audit where they will compare the electronic results against

864
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:50,480
Speaker 1: a hard copy of the results. If it's a voter

865
00:50:50,680 --> 00:50:54,800
Speaker 1: verifiable hard copy, then theoretically every single voter had the

866
00:50:54,840 --> 00:50:57,520
Speaker 1: opportunity to see that his or her vote was actually

867
00:50:57,520 --> 00:51:02,080
Speaker 1: recorded as intended, and means that if there is a disparity,

868
00:51:02,200 --> 00:51:04,919
Speaker 1: then you could bring that up and say, hey, we're

869
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:07,319
Speaker 1: going through this, and there seems to be some significant

870
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:11,160
Speaker 1: differences between the electronic copy and what's on the hard copy, right,

871
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:14,880
Speaker 1: like like, hey, some of us voted for Hillary Clinton,

872
00:51:15,080 --> 00:51:17,160
Speaker 1: some vote for Donald Trump, and a couple for some

873
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:20,600
Speaker 1: third party candidates, but every vote here is for Gary Busey.

874
00:51:20,880 --> 00:51:26,200
Speaker 1: Yeah what gives Yeah that that's a terrifying future that

875
00:51:26,239 --> 00:51:29,040
Speaker 1: I had never ever considered. But in the in the

876
00:51:29,120 --> 00:51:32,640
Speaker 1: Reagan Jimmy Carter example, we gave before you could say, well,

877
00:51:32,880 --> 00:51:36,880
Speaker 1: according to this paper copy, this one person who happens

878
00:51:36,920 --> 00:51:39,439
Speaker 1: to be Ben. But they don't know that. Because voter

879
00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:42,399
Speaker 1: identity is very important, we want to keep that when

880
00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 1: I go in disguise, based on our earlier series about

881
00:51:45,640 --> 00:51:49,400
Speaker 1: how to use the Internet and without being caught, right, So,

882
00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:51,680
Speaker 1: so Ben, they don't know it's Ben, but they look

883
00:51:51,719 --> 00:51:54,840
Speaker 1: and they see this voter record that says this person

884
00:51:54,960 --> 00:51:57,840
Speaker 1: voted for Ronald Reagan, but electronically it says Jimmy Carter

885
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:01,239
Speaker 1: something is wrong, and then then there could be a

886
00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:04,560
Speaker 1: better investigation. It's great to have that, but we'll go

887
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:08,960
Speaker 1: more into why that's not working everywhere in just a second.

888
00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:13,400
Speaker 1: So this kind of brings us into those concerns more formally.

889
00:52:13,440 --> 00:52:17,319
Speaker 1: We've already kind of addressed a big one. But if

890
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:20,120
Speaker 1: your goal is to make voting and tabulation easy and efficient,

891
00:52:20,280 --> 00:52:24,799
Speaker 1: then if everything's working properly, there's no tampering involved, there's

892
00:52:24,800 --> 00:52:30,160
Speaker 1: no bias that's been introduced, either unconsciously or purposefully, then

893
00:52:30,440 --> 00:52:34,239
Speaker 1: it's a beautiful world. You get that, you get those

894
00:52:34,320 --> 00:52:37,359
Speaker 1: votes in, you're done with it and it you get

895
00:52:37,400 --> 00:52:40,720
Speaker 1: the winner and the loser can be gracious and defeat

896
00:52:40,719 --> 00:52:44,600
Speaker 1: and all that wonderful stuff. Um, but it's really hard

897
00:52:44,640 --> 00:52:46,360
Speaker 1: to make sure that your vote is being counted the

898
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:49,040
Speaker 1: way you want it. So first of all, there are

899
00:52:49,040 --> 00:52:51,840
Speaker 1: a lot of electronic voting machines that have no corresponding

900
00:52:51,840 --> 00:52:55,960
Speaker 1: paper trail at all. So let's say let's say that again,

901
00:52:56,360 --> 00:53:01,319
Speaker 1: uh Ben, you voted for Reagan and votes come in,

902
00:53:01,400 --> 00:53:04,879
Speaker 1: and there they announced the results for Georgia and it's

903
00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:08,080
Speaker 1: like nineties, seven point three percent of voters voted for

904
00:53:08,160 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter. Well, you don't know. If you were in

905
00:53:11,640 --> 00:53:14,879
Speaker 1: that small percentage that didn't vote for Carter, you would

906
00:53:14,880 --> 00:53:17,040
Speaker 1: have no way of knowing. You're one person. I would

907
00:53:17,040 --> 00:53:23,560
Speaker 1: have nothing to refer to except perhaps uh, circumstantial evidence

908
00:53:23,600 --> 00:53:27,719
Speaker 1: based on exit polls or pre voting polls, so I

909
00:53:27,719 --> 00:53:30,440
Speaker 1: could say, what the heck happened? There were you know,

910
00:53:31,120 --> 00:53:35,080
Speaker 1: fifty percent of us last week, we're gonna did we

911
00:53:35,120 --> 00:53:39,480
Speaker 1: all just not go? They forget about kings Row, bedtime

912
00:53:39,560 --> 00:53:42,839
Speaker 1: for Bonzo. I told you be for bonso I knew

913
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:45,279
Speaker 1: that was the jump one. And I don't have a

914
00:53:45,320 --> 00:53:47,399
Speaker 1: computer in front of me. I was purely for member.

915
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:50,279
Speaker 1: That's just from that's yeah, that's just because you care.

916
00:53:50,880 --> 00:53:53,600
Speaker 1: It's because I care. But yeah, that's that's a great point.

917
00:53:53,640 --> 00:53:57,280
Speaker 1: So aside from that, there would be no, um, certainly

918
00:53:57,320 --> 00:54:03,600
Speaker 1: nothing with a legal basis, no legal le to stand on. Yeah, so, uh,

919
00:54:03,800 --> 00:54:06,520
Speaker 1: that would be problematic. The only thing that would make

920
00:54:06,520 --> 00:54:10,760
Speaker 1: you really suspicious if they said, of all Georgia voters

921
00:54:11,680 --> 00:54:16,000
Speaker 1: supported Jimmy Carter, and you think I'm pretty sure I didn't.

922
00:54:15,760 --> 00:54:20,280
Speaker 1: But you know, any system where someone's gonna do tampering, Um,

923
00:54:20,320 --> 00:54:22,480
Speaker 1: you would figure they'd be smart enough not to make

924
00:54:22,520 --> 00:54:28,239
Speaker 1: it so noticeable that there would be an investigation to follow. Right, Like,

925
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:31,560
Speaker 1: your whole goal is to do this clandestinely and not

926
00:54:31,640 --> 00:54:34,800
Speaker 1: get caught. So if you're doing that and you're being careful,

927
00:54:34,800 --> 00:54:37,879
Speaker 1: you would want to design a system where it's not

928
00:54:39,040 --> 00:54:41,759
Speaker 1: a blowout for a state where it might have been

929
00:54:41,800 --> 00:54:45,920
Speaker 1: close leading up to the election. So if there is

930
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:48,279
Speaker 1: no corresponding paper trail, then you don't You have nothing

931
00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:51,360
Speaker 1: to audit against. All you have is the electronic copies,

932
00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:54,439
Speaker 1: and as we know, you can alter electronic copies. Now,

933
00:54:54,440 --> 00:54:56,279
Speaker 1: it's in the best interest of all the companies that

934
00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:59,359
Speaker 1: create these electronic voting machines to be as secure as

935
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:03,320
Speaker 1: possible on Fortunately, that never happens. Right. Security on electronic

936
00:55:03,360 --> 00:55:06,279
Speaker 1: voting machines is a joke, It's terrible. As a matter

937
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:11,560
Speaker 1: of fact, Wired released a pretty uh, pretty scary article

938
00:55:12,320 --> 00:55:15,319
Speaker 1: which you you've probably already you're already aware of it

939
00:55:15,680 --> 00:55:20,600
Speaker 1: back in August. Yes, title being American's electronic voting machines

940
00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:26,040
Speaker 1: are scarily easy targets. Yeah, hey, Ben, hey Jonathan, so

941
00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:30,600
Speaker 1: um you and I kept talking after this bit that

942
00:55:30,640 --> 00:55:36,279
Speaker 1: we just stopped just now for a while. So, uh,

943
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:40,360
Speaker 1: what happened, ladies and gentlemen, is that when we finished talking,

944
00:55:40,440 --> 00:55:44,000
Speaker 1: we stepped outside to look and see how long we

945
00:55:44,080 --> 00:55:47,000
Speaker 1: had been talking, because we don't currently have a producer

946
00:55:47,160 --> 00:55:51,520
Speaker 1: sitting at our desk to to maintain the recording, just

947
00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:54,239
Speaker 1: because of we got lots of stuff we got. We

948
00:55:54,360 --> 00:55:57,960
Speaker 1: got lots of things going on and thoughts and jokes

949
00:55:58,000 --> 00:55:59,879
Speaker 1: and facts, got a lot of ends, got a lot

950
00:55:59,880 --> 00:56:02,880
Speaker 1: of else you know, a lot of big Lebowski's happening.

951
00:56:03,360 --> 00:56:06,440
Speaker 1: And so it turned out we had been recording for

952
00:56:06,520 --> 00:56:10,040
Speaker 1: almost two hours, and we realized that's probably too long

953
00:56:10,080 --> 00:56:12,600
Speaker 1: for a single episode. So we're going to conclude part

954
00:56:12,760 --> 00:56:16,640
Speaker 1: one here, but next week we're gonna pick up with

955
00:56:16,719 --> 00:56:18,880
Speaker 1: part two right where we left off. We got a

956
00:56:18,960 --> 00:56:21,880
Speaker 1: lot more to say, so Ben, we'll be back in

957
00:56:21,960 --> 00:56:25,640
Speaker 1: part two because he never left. And that wraps up

958
00:56:25,920 --> 00:56:28,880
Speaker 1: this part one of the two part series about electronic

959
00:56:28,920 --> 00:56:31,880
Speaker 1: voting machines. On Monday, we will listen to part two

960
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:35,920
Speaker 1: and we will get the conclusion where Ben and I

961
00:56:36,040 --> 00:56:41,000
Speaker 1: are talking all about the issues around electronic voting and

962
00:56:41,120 --> 00:56:45,080
Speaker 1: what we can do to make sure that the process

963
00:56:45,239 --> 00:56:49,320
Speaker 1: remains intact, that we don't lose confidence in it, because

964
00:56:49,320 --> 00:56:53,360
Speaker 1: if we lose confidence in the process, then democracy itself

965
00:56:53,400 --> 00:56:56,959
Speaker 1: sort of falls apart. Right. If you don't trust that

966
00:56:57,120 --> 00:57:00,440
Speaker 1: the votes you are casting are being counted, then you

967
00:57:00,480 --> 00:57:03,000
Speaker 1: don't have any trust that the people who are representing

968
00:57:03,040 --> 00:57:07,080
Speaker 1: you are actually representing you. That the game is fixed,

969
00:57:07,280 --> 00:57:10,120
Speaker 1: and that is a problem. But we'll listen to that

970
00:57:10,200 --> 00:57:12,640
Speaker 1: part two next week. I hope you guys are well,

971
00:57:13,040 --> 00:57:21,080
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff

972
00:57:21,160 --> 00:57:24,360
Speaker 1: is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from

973
00:57:24,360 --> 00:57:28,120
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

974
00:57:28,240 --> 00:57:30,240
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.