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Speaker 1: Welcome to text Stuff, a production from my 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 a love of all things tech. And if you

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Speaker 1: listened to last Wednesday's episode, you heard a classic episode

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Speaker 1: of tech Stuff about electronic voting machines. The episode published

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Speaker 1: back in October twenty six and Mr Ben Bolan of

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Speaker 1: Stuff They Don't Want You to Know and Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Fame joined me for that discussion. We are going to

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Speaker 1: continue that discussion today. This is part two of that episode,

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Speaker 1: and we are going to continue to dive down the

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Speaker 1: tricky and potentially disastrous pathway to creating voting systems. The

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Speaker 1: idea that if you create a voting system that is

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Speaker 1: perceived to be unfair, then you're really undermining the entire

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Speaker 1: foundation of democracy. And I know that sounds like I'm exaggerating,

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Speaker 1: but I'm not because if we lose faith in the system,

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Speaker 1: if we do not believe the system works, then it

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Speaker 1: becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Of course, we have to

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Speaker 1: make sure that the system does work. If the system

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Speaker 1: is not working, then we absolutely have to fix it.

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Speaker 1: So it is a very tricky subject, Ben and I

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Speaker 1: will go into much more detail that I hope you

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Speaker 1: guys are doing well. I know this is still a

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Speaker 1: very trying and challenging time for so many reasons. I

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Speaker 1: want you guys to know I believe in you. I

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Speaker 1: think that you guys are awesome. Uh you all have

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Speaker 1: proven that over and over. So let's sit back and

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Speaker 1: listen to this classic episode about the scary world of

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Speaker 1: e v M S Part two. At the close of

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Speaker 1: our conversation, we has our votes and we decided democratically

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Speaker 1: that this would be better as a two part series

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Speaker 1: than a single epic length episode that would have stretched

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Speaker 1: the patience of the most uh most forgiving of listeners.

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Speaker 1: Now we have broken it up into two parts, so

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Speaker 1: what you are about to hear is the conclusion of

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Speaker 1: that two parts. Also, I should add that when we

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Speaker 1: get to the end and we sign off, we did

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Speaker 1: not know at that point that it was going to

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Speaker 1: be a two parter, so we actually have already recorded

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Speaker 1: the end of the episode that I'm recording the beginning

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Speaker 1: of now. And yes, time travel does confuse me. So

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Speaker 1: let's just segue in to part two of how electronic

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Speaker 1: voting machines are going to ruin everything. Remember we mentioned

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Speaker 1: that in two thousand two, that's when they started to

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Speaker 1: appear on the scene. That's when Georgia. Actually they started

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Speaker 1: to appear before two thousand two, but two thousand two

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Speaker 1: is when Georgia became the first state to have just

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Speaker 1: the electronic voting machines out there in the polling places. Um,

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Speaker 1: many of those machines have not been updated since, and

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Speaker 1: almost all of them are running on a version of

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Speaker 1: Windows XP which hasn't been updated since April two thou fourteen.

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Speaker 1: So that means any security vulnerability that has been discovered

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Speaker 1: since two thousand and fourteen is still there. Chances are

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Speaker 1: some of the ones before two thousand fourteen are still

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Speaker 1: there because I bet a lot of those machines have

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Speaker 1: never received a patch, right, They're just these big there,

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Speaker 1: these machines that are being overseen by the government, and uh,

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Speaker 1: you know it, Chances are a lot of them are unpatched.

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Speaker 1: So there's a lot of potential for people to tamper.

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Speaker 1: And not only that, you know, I mentioned the idea

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Speaker 1: of either unconsciously or purposefully inserting a bias. That's a

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Speaker 1: real concern too, right, because private companies are the ones

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Speaker 1: designing these machines. They do so with using proprietary software

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Speaker 1: that is not visible to the general public, nor is

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Speaker 1: it uh what's what's word, nor is it in any

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Speaker 1: way compelled to answer to the general public, Like the

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Speaker 1: public doesn't have a the quote unquote Capital p public

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Speaker 1: doesn't have a vote regarding which companies run these machines.

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Speaker 1: You look at this and you see that everyone says, well,

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Speaker 1: we can't reveal our code because if we did, uh,

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Speaker 1: then our competitors would see how we do things, and

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Speaker 1: then we can't compete in the marketplace anymore. And so

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Speaker 1: meanwhile you've got security experts saying this should all be

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Speaker 1: open source. And the reason it should be open source

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Speaker 1: is so that the community at large would have the

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Speaker 1: opportunity to look at the code and see if there

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Speaker 1: are any vulnerabilities and if so, make sure that those

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Speaker 1: get patched before you get to a point where the

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Speaker 1: code is being put into play in an actual election,

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Speaker 1: so that those vulnerabilities can't be exploited. Because if something

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Speaker 1: is proprietary and someone figures out an exploit to that software,

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Speaker 1: then it's all behind closed doors. There's no way to

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Speaker 1: address it, and you end up with a huge problem.

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Speaker 1: But but beyond that, you have companies that could insert

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Speaker 1: a bias into the programming itself. And this kind of

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Speaker 1: stems from an interesting story that happened in the early

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Speaker 1: two thousand's. So two thousand three, Walden Wally O'Dell and

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Speaker 1: I'm not making up the nickname Wally, that is what

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Speaker 1: he would go by. Wally O'Dell was at that time

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Speaker 1: the CEO and chairman of die Bald. Now Diebald's best

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Speaker 1: known for making a t M S but dial, Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: they also for a while made electronic voting machines. There

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Speaker 1: was a subsidiary called Diebold Election Systems, which the company

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Speaker 1: has since divested itself of that particular property. But Diebold

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Speaker 1: Election Systems made a lot of electronic voting machines. And

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Speaker 1: die Bald, by the way, is headquartered in Ohio, a

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Speaker 1: very important state in national elections here in the United States.

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Speaker 1: Swing states, that's what we call it, yep swing some

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Speaker 1: meeting swing states for you know, there's probably I've got

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Speaker 1: some listeners who are outside the US. You may have

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Speaker 1: heard the term swing state, and you don't know what

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Speaker 1: that means. So the way elections work in the US.

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Speaker 1: You know, you've got your major two party system, and

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Speaker 1: ninety five percent of the time that's the those are

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Speaker 1: the only parties that really make an impact. So you've

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Speaker 1: got your Republicans and your Democrats, and you've got a

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Speaker 1: lot of states that that lean toward one or the other,

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Speaker 1: and it is almost unheard of for them to support

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Speaker 1: a candidate of the opposite party, sure like uh for

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Speaker 1: one example of this would be UH state like Utah

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Speaker 1: would be legendarily not voting Democratic, and a state like

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Speaker 1: Vermont would be legendarily not voting Republicans. Right, So it

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Speaker 1: would be an incredibly strange set of circumstances to see

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Speaker 1: one of these states support a candidate of the opposite

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Speaker 1: party that it tends to support. So for the most part,

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Speaker 1: we just assume those electors in the electoral college will

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Speaker 1: support the traditional candidates that those states would support. But

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Speaker 1: there's some states that could go either way. They could

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Speaker 1: swing towards the Republican side one election and swing towards

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Speaker 1: the Democratic side and another Florida, Pennsylvaniaia. So the the

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Speaker 1: electors in these states, UH, it may be that they

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Speaker 1: are the ones that are chosen are the ones for

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Speaker 1: Republican uh in one one election our Democrat and another election.

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Speaker 1: So Ohio is one of those states, which means it's

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Speaker 1: incredibly valuable. Right. It means it's a battleground state. You

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Speaker 1: want to win that state because you know you've got

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Speaker 1: your your foundation, that's almost guaranteed. Nothing's ever a guarantee,

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Speaker 1: but it's almost a guarantee. And uh so you need

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Speaker 1: to really concentrate on the states where you have the

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Speaker 1: potential to flip it. So that's on your side and

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Speaker 1: not your opponents side. Well, Ohio is one of those states.

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Speaker 1: Eyebold has its headquarters in Ohio, and Wally, the CEO

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Speaker 1: of Diebold at that time, wrote a letter where he

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Speaker 1: was uh committing himself to quote helping Ohio deliver its

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Speaker 1: electoral votes to the president end quote, president being George W.

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Speaker 1: Bush at that time. So the CEO of a company

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Speaker 1: that makes voting machine saying he's committed to delivering Ohio's

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Speaker 1: electoral votes to the president. Now, the company was quick

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Speaker 1: to say, hey, he's not talking about using our products

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Speaker 1: to push the elections a personal fundraiser dotor, right, he's

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Speaker 1: talking about campaigning and but a lot of people said, hey,

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Speaker 1: isn't there a conflict of interests if you've got the

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Speaker 1: head of a company making the voting technology that people

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Speaker 1: depend upon also openly supporting a specific candidate in the race.

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Speaker 1: It's very It's very close to a member of the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court saying like, I will do anything I can

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Speaker 1: to get you elected, George, and then and then saying, oh,

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Speaker 1: fiddle D D. We don't have time to recount the

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Speaker 1: votes from Florida, and we look, there's some things that

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Speaker 1: are more important than making absolutely certain that the people's

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Speaker 1: vote was reflected in the actual election. Like reasons. I

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Speaker 1: just like saying fiddle D D. But I don't think

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Speaker 1: the Supremes say that. But you're you're raised the supremest

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Speaker 1: they sing, I referred to them as the Supremes. I

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Speaker 1: like that. John robertson the Supremes. So many wonderful visions

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Speaker 1: going through my head right now. Oh man, you should

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Speaker 1: have seen the comedy show we did with that with

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Speaker 1: that sketch. Well, but anyway that at that point inside

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Speaker 1: like what you're saying is really important here because let's

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Speaker 1: assume if we were to take Wally at his word,

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Speaker 1: then even is that a PR firm would say, the

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Speaker 1: optics look bad. So when you when you make those

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Speaker 1: sorts of statements, you have to be very conscious, conscious

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Speaker 1: of what is going to happen. This is uh, this

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Speaker 1: is an environment wherein uh, let's see what year was this,

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Speaker 1: two thousand three, right, two thousand three was when you

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Speaker 1: wrote the letter. Thousand four was the election. So people

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Speaker 1: are already very sore off of the two thousand election,

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Speaker 1: and we have seen an accelerating distrust in the American

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Speaker 1: political system or sometime you know, and this this thing

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Speaker 1: is just making it, exacerbating it. And I think in

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Speaker 1: one of the Wired pieces I read it might have

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Speaker 1: even been the one you just referenced. Uh. The the

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Speaker 1: author of the piece made a really great point, which

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Speaker 1: was that you don't need any case of tampering or bias.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't have to exist, but the possibility of it

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Speaker 1: of it existing is an off to cause turmoil. Right,

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Speaker 1: you can cause real world turmoil just from the possibility

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Speaker 1: of this being a thing without any evidence of it

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Speaker 1: actually happening. So you don't need to have evidence of

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Speaker 1: someone purposefully trying to rig the system in order for

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Speaker 1: people to not trust the system. As long as it's

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Speaker 1: clear that it's a possibility. That's enough to have people

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Speaker 1: say like, well, how can I trust anything? How can

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Speaker 1: I trust the results? Because you know you're telling me

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Speaker 1: there's no evidence, But how do I know there's no evidence?

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Speaker 1: I know it's possible. Twice you can't get fooled aget. Yeah, thanks,

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Speaker 1: it's a it's a great quote that I'm not gonna

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Speaker 1: make any fun of. All Right, So then we've got

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Speaker 1: the fear of hackers. We've got the fear of bias

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Speaker 1: from the standpoint of the manufacturers of the voting machines themselves,

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Speaker 1: and then we get the fear of hackers third parties

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Speaker 1: that want to rig the results or prevent people from voting.

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Speaker 1: Completely possible, absolutely, completely possible, because again, these systems are

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Speaker 1: not terribly secure. Um. Now you've got a couple of

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Speaker 1: different arguments about this, Right, You've got people who support

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Speaker 1: d r S and they say, listen, hacking trying to

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Speaker 1: trying to affect politics on a national level here in

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Speaker 1: the United States is a fool's errand for multiple reasons,

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Speaker 1: and a big one is that we have so many

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Speaker 1: different types of electronic voting machines out there, and they

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Speaker 1: are proprietary. They don't all work on the same software,

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Speaker 1: so you can't develop a universal approach to affect all

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Speaker 1: the machines. Now, if the entire United States, if all

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Speaker 1: of us use the exact same kind of machine across

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Speaker 1: all the states and the territories, then that could be

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Speaker 1: a potential vulnerability. If in fact they were also connected

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Speaker 1: to like the Internet, right, you would have an amazing

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Speaker 1: target because you think, well, if I developed the right

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Speaker 1: kind of software, I can affect every single vote cast

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Speaker 1: in the United States. But that's not the reality of

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Speaker 1: our situation. We have all these different types of machines,

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Speaker 1: some of which are connected to the Internet, some of

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Speaker 1: which aren't. You have running on different types of software,

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Speaker 1: so you cannot create that one size fits all approach

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Speaker 1: to affecting all of them. That being said, you could

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Speaker 1: still affect specific ones, like you could target specific regions

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Speaker 1: that you think are particularly important and and try to

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Speaker 1: affect voting that way. In fact, critics say that because

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Speaker 1: the return on investment is so high, it's an incredibly

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Speaker 1: tempting target for hackers. Like you might say, yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: a lot of work, but look at the outcome. The

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Speaker 1: outcome is the effect of a national election. It's it's

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Speaker 1: harder to have a bigger set of stakes than that,

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Speaker 1: So you can say like, yeah, it's hard, but the

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Speaker 1: the goal is so huge that justifies the hard work

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Speaker 1: on the part of the hackers. Ben and I have

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Speaker 1: a little bit more to say about the scary world

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Speaker 1: of e v ms, but first let's take a quick break.

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Speaker 1: Here's the thing. Yeah, you don't have to be like

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Speaker 1: the Liam Neeson taken level of hacker. You don't have

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Speaker 1: to be anonymous or you know, some faction set operations.

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Speaker 1: You don't have to have a particular set of skills. Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: And that was that was not very bad. I've had

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Speaker 1: a little thing stuck in my teeth, that's all. But

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Speaker 1: but yeah, you you don't have to be some amazing

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Speaker 1: savvant hacker with these crazy credentials and qualifications. You don't

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Speaker 1: even have to be states a state sponsored hacker like

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Speaker 1: a you know from the Chinese military, right, No, you

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Speaker 1: can if you're talking about systems running on when nose

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Speaker 1: XP that haven't been patched in two years at the

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Speaker 1: very at at best, they haven't been patched in two years.

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Speaker 1: At worst, it's been much longer than that. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: if there is a way to access the machines, either

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Speaker 1: over the Internet or through physical contact with the machines,

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Speaker 1: it's entirely possible for someone to use code developed by

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Speaker 1: somebody else and infect that machine. So yeah, so the

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Speaker 1: diminutive term for these people, uh, and my friend Shannon

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Speaker 1: hates this term would be script kitties. Script kitties meaning

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Speaker 1: a type of person who uh profits off of malicious code.

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Speaker 1: But they didn't develop the code themselves. They went to

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Speaker 1: some place that where that code is available. They either

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Speaker 1: purchase the code or they download the code for free,

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Speaker 1: depending upon the place that they're going to, and then

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Speaker 1: they deploy that code. And in some cases the code

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Speaker 1: is pretty much automated. It does everything for you. You

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Speaker 1: just have to be the one. You just have to

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Speaker 1: be able to deploy it somehow right, and you don't

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Speaker 1: have to have any knowledge of how it works. All

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Speaker 1: you need to do is just make sure the code

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Speaker 1: gets on the machine that you wanted to get on

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Speaker 1: in the right direction. Yeah. So, imagine that you've got

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Speaker 1: a thumb drive with this code and it's in a file,

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Speaker 1: so it will auto execute once it connects to a

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Speaker 1: USB drive on a machine. You come out to a

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Speaker 1: voting machine that happens at USB drive, which would be

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Speaker 1: a terrible idea. I'm not even suggesting that there are

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Speaker 1: electronic voting machines that have USB ports. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if there are. If there are, that's a terrible idea.

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Speaker 1: You plug in the thumb drive, automatically executes runs the

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Speaker 1: malicious code that has become part of the voting machines

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Speaker 1: programming from that point forward, and you can no longer

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Speaker 1: trust the results generates. Uh, that is entirely possible, assuming that, again,

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Speaker 1: you have some way of of injecting the code into

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Speaker 1: the machine. So if you do have that possibility, that

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Speaker 1: would be bad um. And also you don't even necessarily

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Speaker 1: have to set out to change votes. Right like that,

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Speaker 1: that's the way we mostly think of it. Like again,

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Speaker 1: going back to the Reagan Carter example, we would think, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: they've programmed it so that it took that Reagan vote

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Speaker 1: and flipped it to Carter. You could also just try

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Speaker 1: and overload the voting machine so that no votes could

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Speaker 1: be cast on it at all. You can take it down. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're just taking down the machine you just wanted to

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Speaker 1: to crash and be unrecoverable, and then you you really

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Speaker 1: impact that the ability for people to cast votes. If

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Speaker 1: you do that in enough places that have very particular

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Speaker 1: political leanings, you can affect the outcome of an election

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Speaker 1: simply because the people who wanted to vote were physically

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Speaker 1: unable to do so. And unless you make special allowances

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Speaker 1: for that, then those those votes will never happen. Uh.

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Speaker 1: So that's kind of ugly to um. And also finally,

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Speaker 1: uh turns out at the results are unencrypted, which is

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Speaker 1: crazy to me, which yeah, is bizarre. Yeah, it doesn't

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Speaker 1: make any sense. Votes recorded in plain text in a

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Speaker 1: file where you're not you haven't even encrypted the results,

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Speaker 1: so there's no protection there. Like if someone does get

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Speaker 1: access to that data somehow, no matter you know, whatever

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Speaker 1: methodology you might need, they can make changes. And you

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Speaker 1: know this is not just theoretical. And the state of

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Speaker 1: Virginia de certified hundreds of wind vote e v m

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Speaker 1: s because they were insecure, and according to the officials,

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Speaker 1: you could change the votes in these wind vote machines

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Speaker 1: undetected if you were anywhere within a half mile radius

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Speaker 1: of the machine, even if you weren't like a knowledgeable

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Speaker 1: hack like you don't want to have to get out

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Speaker 1: of the car. It's like Pokemon go, but for election. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 1: that's crazy. Now. I should also add that according to

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Speaker 1: the Wired article where I've pulled that from, UH, they

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Speaker 1: never found any evidence that someone had tampered with the votes,

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Speaker 1: but they did discover that the vulnerability was there, which

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Speaker 1: meant that there was always the possibility someone could tamper

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Speaker 1: with the votes, which is why they were de certified. Um. Luckily,

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Speaker 1: at least according to the officials, it doesn't look like

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Speaker 1: anyone actually managed to do that or took the time

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Speaker 1: to do that, But that's that's a possibility that has

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Speaker 1: to be addressed, right um. And that kind of brings

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Speaker 1: us up to the hacking threat. So I don't know

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Speaker 1: if you guys have been paying attention here in the

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Speaker 1: United States. Earlier in hackers gained access to the Democratic

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Speaker 1: National Convention databases and they stole a whole bunch of

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Speaker 1: emails and files, more than twenty thousand of them, and UH,

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Speaker 1: a lot of them were released by wiki leaks. Around

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Speaker 1: twenty thousand were released by wiki leaks, but that doesn't

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Speaker 1: mean that that's all of them. And there were a

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Speaker 1: lot of questions like who the heck hacked into the

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Speaker 1: d n C. Yeah, and we were pointing out a

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Speaker 1: specific country and that country is Russia, thank you, but

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Speaker 1: but it's want okay, yeah, all right, Well, so here's

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Speaker 1: here's one of the things that makes this an interesting story,

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Speaker 1: and into some degree the reports of it remind me

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Speaker 1: a little bit of the famous Sony hack, right where

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Speaker 1: they talking about North Korea being the culprit and you

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Speaker 1: and I explored that together as well. So one of

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Speaker 1: the big questions is to what end, to what what

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Speaker 1: value would Russia's state sponsored hacking branch, which does exist,

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Speaker 1: what what value would it see in interfering on such

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Speaker 1: a minimal level at this point? Is this a buy

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Speaker 1: in for blackmail? Further down the line, is this to

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Speaker 1: discredit something? Because the d n C is a domestic

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Speaker 1: facing organization, so it's a lot, it's much more. Um,

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Speaker 1: it's an entirely different animal in comparison to something like

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Speaker 1: a State Department server which would have stuff about Russia. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: any of those things like c I A are you

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Speaker 1: know that would be another or n s A. Right,

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Speaker 1: like the targets that you would think of if you

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Speaker 1: wanted to gather a lot of intelligence yeah, and so

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Speaker 1: the issue here. Initially, I I don't know about you,

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Speaker 1: but initially I was skeptical because I thought, this, all

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Speaker 1: this bear poking that's going on now is not gonna

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Speaker 1: it's not. Yeah, yeah, it's not. It's not gonna. It's

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Speaker 1: not gonna pay off. Because there is a reason that

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Speaker 1: the Putin government has been in power for as long

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Speaker 1: as it has, and it's it's because, as you know,

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Speaker 1: this this government is seen. American presidents come and go,

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Speaker 1: and they have a maybe a longer horizon politically sure

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Speaker 1: when they contemplate these things. So I it's strange to

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Speaker 1: see what appears to be harmless rhetoric trotted out against them. However,

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Speaker 1: I had to rethink my skepticism on this when more

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Speaker 1: than one security firm came out saying evidence indicates it's

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Speaker 1: probably these guys. Yeah. As it turns out, a security

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Speaker 1: firm immediately, pretty much shortly after the leak was was

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Speaker 1: made public, said that the signs were pointing towards a

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Speaker 1: Russian actor, um that the methodologies and software used were

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Speaker 1: the same that had been employed by Russian state sponsored

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Speaker 1: hacking groups in the past. And uh, there are some

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Speaker 1: folks who said I'm you know, I don't think so.

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Speaker 1: In fact, one um jusipher to point, oh hacker came

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Speaker 1: out and said, no, no, no, it was me. I'm

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Speaker 1: a lone wolf. I did it. It wasn't. I was

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Speaker 1: the one who who stole all that and gave it

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Speaker 1: over to Wiki leaks and uh. Although they also claimed

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Speaker 1: that he was Romanian or he or she the hacker

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Speaker 1: claimed that he or she was Romanian, but then when

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Speaker 1: people were trying to communicate with him or her in Romanian, Uh,

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Speaker 1: the responses did not seem particularly coherent, which seems to

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Speaker 1: give the lie that they are in fact Romanian. But

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Speaker 1: other security firms ended up corroborating the findings of the

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Speaker 1: first one. They said, yeah, the exploits that were used,

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Speaker 1: the malware that was used is identical to the type

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Speaker 1: of malware that has been used by this Russian hacking group.

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Speaker 1: It is exactly the m O that we've seen in

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Speaker 1: other cases, including a case that involved the German parliament.

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Speaker 1: In so uh, either it's again another Russian hacking group,

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Speaker 1: or it's someone who learned everything they know from a

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Speaker 1: Russian hacking group because it was identical in nature. Yes,

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Speaker 1: So why would Russia want to infere interfere with the DNC.

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Speaker 1: And I think the most distinct way of putting that

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Speaker 1: is that Pewton doesn't like Clinton, huh. Kind of kind

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Speaker 1: of what it boils down to is that Pewton uh

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Speaker 1: and would not want Clinton and the White House well

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Speaker 1: as president. Yeah, also as an active Secretary of State

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Speaker 1: at times when NATO and NATO and Russia as well

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Speaker 1: as its allies were engaged in geopolitical tensions that sparked

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Speaker 1: into Right now, there's an ongoing proxy war in Syria

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Speaker 1: and it's between Russia and between the U S. No,

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Speaker 1: of course it's not being reported that way or marketed

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Speaker 1: that way, but unless you're reading any media outside of

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Speaker 1: the US or Russia, in which case everyone says RUSSI

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Speaker 1: and who backs the Syrian government and the US that

401
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Speaker 1: backs the rebels like, and that goes across political spectrum.

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Speaker 1: I'm glad you pointed that out. So you know, a

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Speaker 1: very very um historically conservative papers of note in England,

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Speaker 1: like like the magazine The Economist or the much more

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Speaker 1: liberal paper The Independent, will both pretty much say what

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Speaker 1: it is. It's just we don't talk about it here

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Speaker 1: on CNN. Uh. There is, there is an antagonistic thing.

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Speaker 1: So I would say there's probably resentment or concern about

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Speaker 1: having a commander of chief who knows all the State

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Speaker 1: Department's skeletons and including the Russian ones. And then additionally,

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Speaker 1: and there always has to be a question when there's

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Speaker 1: this level of nepotism in American politics, where the because

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Speaker 1: we had the son of a former president become president

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Speaker 1: somehow in a meritocracy, and then actually right right multiple times,

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Speaker 1: and then having the um the spouse of a former

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Speaker 1: president be in the running for president. What's really crazy

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Speaker 1: is if you ever see a family tree of all

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Speaker 1: the presidents and see how much except for that one,

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Speaker 1: there's like one guy. Yeah, but everyone is pretty much

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Speaker 1: everyone else's cousin at at most. And there's an interesting

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Speaker 1: mathematical aspect to that, because if you go for far

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Speaker 1: enough out or the further you go, the more people

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Speaker 1: you're related to us, like I've probably you're probably sixteen

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Speaker 1: cousins with someone that would completely it would completely baffle you. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so that I mean, that's true, but I could

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Speaker 1: see that it. I could see the Russian government having

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Speaker 1: that kind of concern, but also funding wise, uh, funding wise,

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Speaker 1: and infrastructural wise, they're pretty strapped for cash right now

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Speaker 1: and strapped for manpower as well, So it's a question

430
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:01,360
Speaker 1: of how well quick they are as well as how

431
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 1: motivated they are. Right and and let's also point out

432
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:07,200
Speaker 1: that hacking the d n C is different than hacking

433
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:10,679
Speaker 1: an election, because, like I said earlier, with the electronic

434
00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:13,239
Speaker 1: voting machines, you have all these different targets, with all

435
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:17,200
Speaker 1: these different softwares, Whereas hacking the d n C means

436
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 1: focusing on a single target, not looking at a bunch

437
00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 1: of different targets across the United States. So that requires

438
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:28,679
Speaker 1: less of an investment. I mean, it's still, you know,

439
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 1: obviously requires a great deal deal of work in order

440
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:37,159
Speaker 1: to find to create a vulnerability or to exploit a vulnerability,

441
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:39,680
Speaker 1: But it's different than having to target whole bunch of

442
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:42,000
Speaker 1: different machines. But it has raised the question a lot

443
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:44,960
Speaker 1: of people have asked, well, if they hacked the DNC,

444
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:49,960
Speaker 1: could Russia also interfere with the actual election of sixteen

445
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:54,199
Speaker 1: uh And Wired's Brian Barrett, who wrote one of the

446
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 1: articles I read for this episode, specifically says he does

447
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:01,840
Speaker 1: not think so. Uh most because if in fact Russia

448
00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:04,959
Speaker 1: wanted to interfere with the election, it would not have

449
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:11,000
Speaker 1: also targeted the DNC database and hacked into it, because

450
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 1: once everyone finds out about that, then you are on

451
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:20,199
Speaker 1: high alert for the election. Uh And so if you

452
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 1: wanted to hack the election, you would not want people

453
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:26,119
Speaker 1: to know that you were capable of doing something on

454
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:29,600
Speaker 1: that scale before you did it. You don't want to

455
00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:32,080
Speaker 1: You don't don't monologue in front of James Bond before

456
00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:35,680
Speaker 1: you push the button exactly exactly. And it's not the

457
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:38,920
Speaker 1: first time at the geopolitical rodeo. So they've done this

458
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 1: if Yeah, they're they're old hands at uh and as

459
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 1: as is the United States. I'm not giving the US

460
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 1: a pass. Yeah, we've got any major player in geopolitics.

461
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:52,760
Speaker 1: There's some dark stuff going on, which in regimes the

462
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 1: way that people named Chad changed cargo pants right, So

463
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:01,840
Speaker 1: probably Russia has not gone to be uh involved. And

464
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 1: plus again it would it would require a much broader

465
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:09,239
Speaker 1: attack that would require multiple strategies and where for you

466
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 1: to play it out. So but the fact that the

467
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:18,480
Speaker 1: possibility has been raised again creates uncertainty among the US public,

468
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 1: and that alone is enough to cause a lack of

469
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 1: confidence and results. Right, we've already seen I mean Trump

470
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:31,120
Speaker 1: has even said, like I expect there's gonna be a

471
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 1: lot of tampering involved in this, uh in this election,

472
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 1: already bringing into question the results which haven't happened yet.

473
00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:41,360
Speaker 1: It's like he's it's like he's already said we can't

474
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:44,760
Speaker 1: trust what the results will say. And we haven't even

475
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 1: gone into the voting booths. We're just about to wrap

476
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 1: up this discussion about electronic voting machines. But before we

477
00:29:50,960 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 1: get to that, let's take another quick break. What do

478
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:04,480
Speaker 1: we think how do we wrap this wall up? Well,

479
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 1: first we should remember that while in Georgia it's hard,

480
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:12,000
Speaker 1: it's easy for us to forget we're in the minority,

481
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: not everyone is using an electronic voting machine to cast

482
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 1: their vote. In fact, according to uh UM Pamela Smith

483
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 1: of Verified Voting, about the nation will vote on some

484
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 1: form of paper ballot in the two thousand sixteen election,

485
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 1: only us using other methods. So there's not some maniacal

486
00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 1: corporate super villain who's out to rig the election across

487
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:40,720
Speaker 1: the nation for the Clinton campaign, the Trump campaign, or

488
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:44,600
Speaker 1: Gary Busey, right right, Gary Busey can try and infect

489
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 1: as many computers as he wants, but as it turns out,

490
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 1: unless he's figured out away to replace all the choices

491
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 1: on a paper ballot with Gary Busey, which would be amazing,

492
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: I kind of want to see an official ballot that

493
00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 1: just as Gary Busey as all the different options, like

494
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 1: including including the resolutions that are exactly Unless he's able

495
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 1: to do that, then it's not going to have that

496
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:12,640
Speaker 1: big of a scale of impact. So so this is

497
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:15,840
Speaker 1: also some of that fear uncertainty in doubt, right, Like,

498
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:20,280
Speaker 1: on the one hand, yes, these systems are not as

499
00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:23,440
Speaker 1: secure as they should be. They aren't encrypting data, which

500
00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:26,880
Speaker 1: they should be, or at least not all of them are. Um,

501
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 1: they not all of them have paper trails. Even the

502
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:33,040
Speaker 1: ones that do have paper trails may not the state

503
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:37,120
Speaker 1: may not require a post election audit, which they absolutely

504
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:39,880
Speaker 1: lee should. Also, the paper trails may not be voter

505
00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:43,720
Speaker 1: or verifiable, which they absolutely should be, so that we

506
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 1: can be well, so that we can have confidence that

507
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 1: the results announced are in fact reflective of the actual

508
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:54,880
Speaker 1: choices that people made. Whether it's in favor of your

509
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 1: candidate or against your candidate, you want to know that

510
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:03,280
Speaker 1: the results it happened. We're real and not reflective of

511
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 1: someone else's machiavellian plan to put put a specific person

512
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 1: in power, or specific group in power, or specific set

513
00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 1: of laws into play. You want to feel like the

514
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 1: process works, and in order to do that, you need

515
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:20,720
Speaker 1: this verifiable voter trail. You need to have these post

516
00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:25,640
Speaker 1: election audits. And not everywhere has that ability or option.

517
00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:30,160
Speaker 1: So now that's one thing. Um. Another thing to remember

518
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 1: is that, uh, it's hard to get these systems up

519
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:39,719
Speaker 1: to date and at that level where we could be

520
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:43,800
Speaker 1: confident in their results, because again, it costs money, and

521
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:50,360
Speaker 1: it's politically difficult to convince groups to spend that money,

522
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: specifically to upgrade election equipment. Keeping in mind that this

523
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 1: is stuff that's used only a couple of times a

524
00:32:56,680 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 1: year at most, right, Like you might have to if

525
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 1: you are very active in your local community, you may

526
00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:05,200
Speaker 1: be voting maybe a couple of times per year, depending

527
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 1: upon how things are run in your area. Uh, some

528
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:13,240
Speaker 1: people only come out to vote for the presidential elections.

529
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 1: They don't vote for any of the other ones. And

530
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: so it's hard to justify like you're gonna spend X

531
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 1: million dollars this year for equipment that you're gonna be

532
00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 1: able to use maybe in two elections before you need

533
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 1: to like to general elections before you need to upgrade

534
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:31,560
Speaker 1: the equipment again. And there's a great argument about open

535
00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:38,480
Speaker 1: sourcing yware exactly. So I mean, I think I would

536
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 1: love to see more transparency both on that open source approach,

537
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:46,239
Speaker 1: so people can make sure there's no inherent bias in

538
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 1: the code again, conscious or not, because there there are

539
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:53,480
Speaker 1: times where people can insert of by us without even

540
00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:55,920
Speaker 1: thinking they are right like that that just happens because

541
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 1: we're human. You don't have to be making a conscious

542
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:01,560
Speaker 1: decision to be a jerk to create. Yeah, And there's

543
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 1: also there's also a perception problem that comes out post event,

544
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:11,120
Speaker 1: which is, you know, humans are intensely tribalistic. It's we're

545
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 1: not particularly fact based creatures, unfortunately, and because we were,

546
00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:21,759
Speaker 1: we evolved to live off of perceptions. So what what

547
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:25,680
Speaker 1: inevitably happens is no matter what side of the political

548
00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 1: aisle you find yourself kicking it on the people who

549
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 1: feel that their candidate has one or when a candidate wins,

550
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:39,040
Speaker 1: the supporters will say the system works. These people who

551
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:44,320
Speaker 1: object to my candidate are just total Yeah, just sour grapes,

552
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 1: these n income poops. They don't understand. And of course

553
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:53,279
Speaker 1: I would be I would be a dignified, a dignified,

554
00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:57,359
Speaker 1: dissenting voice if I, you know, if I didn't pick

555
00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:00,040
Speaker 1: the obviously the best candidate, which if the other and

556
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 1: it had one, which they didn't, but if they had,

557
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:05,719
Speaker 1: then I would have been a gracious loser. However, in

558
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 1: the alternative, in the alternative, university schrod Injur's cat this

559
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:13,400
Speaker 1: for a second, what what would happen if the same

560
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:18,840
Speaker 1: people lost? They would say, well, the systems rigged. It

561
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:21,480
Speaker 1: was rigged from the beginning. It was rigged because the media.

562
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:23,960
Speaker 1: The media reported things in such a way as to

563
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:30,440
Speaker 1: minimize the the opponents flaws and maximize my candidates flaws

564
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:33,279
Speaker 1: which didn't even really exist. They manufactured flaws and then

565
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 1: they maximize them and etcetera, etcetera. And this this is

566
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:38,920
Speaker 1: like a natural sort of thing that happens. We're not

567
00:35:38,960 --> 00:35:42,200
Speaker 1: trying to vilify anyone in particular or any political party,

568
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 1: to be honest, we've already seen it here in the

569
00:35:44,080 --> 00:35:47,960
Speaker 1: US this year, just through the primaries. Primaries happened. You

570
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:54,879
Speaker 1: saw people who were like progressives, who were supporting Bernie Sanders. Uh,

571
00:35:55,239 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 1: refusing to believe that Clinton had won the primary. Now

572
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 1: there's another Uh, there's another Wally Adell situation there. However, Yes,

573
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:11,200
Speaker 1: where you had the the chairwoman of the Democratic Convention

574
00:36:11,719 --> 00:36:17,920
Speaker 1: who in some of those leaked messages that Wiki Leaks released, Uh,

575
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:22,240
Speaker 1: it was clear that she was favoring She she personally

576
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 1: favored Clinton over Sanders. Whether that actually ever had any

577
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:31,279
Speaker 1: effect beyond her personal beliefs is less clear. In fact,

578
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 1: the evidence doesn't really support that there was like a

579
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 1: a concentrated effort to diminish Sanders to a point where

580
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:43,719
Speaker 1: he would be he would not be allowed to be

581
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:46,400
Speaker 1: a candidate. Um. That doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

582
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:48,799
Speaker 1: It just means that there wasn't like a smoking gun

583
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:51,400
Speaker 1: from that Wiki Leaks release. Yeah. But again, just like

584
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 1: a PR company would see Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was

585
00:36:55,560 --> 00:36:57,719
Speaker 1: the head of that who was the head of the

586
00:36:57,719 --> 00:37:02,160
Speaker 1: convention at the time, did write and vociferously supported, uh,

587
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 1: the Clinton campaign. So whether or not there was any shenaniganry, yeah,

588
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:12,319
Speaker 1: I just barely stumbled through that word. Whether or not

589
00:37:12,440 --> 00:37:15,560
Speaker 1: there was the fact of the matter is that it

590
00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:21,359
Speaker 1: increases Uh, distrust and fear and uncertainty you said earlier, Right,

591
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:25,280
Speaker 1: so you get this lack of confidence in the system. Uh.

592
00:37:25,320 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 1: And obviously that's not the direction we want to move in.

593
00:37:27,360 --> 00:37:30,239
Speaker 1: We want to move in a direction where everyone is

594
00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:34,040
Speaker 1: at least confident that their voices being heard. It may

595
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 1: turn out that their voice does isn't powerful enough to

596
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: make the change they want, which is frustrating obviously, but

597
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:43,880
Speaker 1: less so than feeling like you are being ignored or

598
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:48,359
Speaker 1: purposefully silenced. Right, you don't want that at all. But

599
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:53,120
Speaker 1: so is the direct democracy really an answer, because if

600
00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:57,520
Speaker 1: we define direct democracy as well, let's see, for example,

601
00:37:58,440 --> 00:38:03,080
Speaker 1: one of the best arguments against direct democracy. Alright, ch okay,

602
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:06,920
Speaker 1: anyone with anyone with an Internet connection can go on

603
00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:09,840
Speaker 1: there and say whatever they want. And now we're starting

604
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:13,439
Speaker 1: to see the priorities of a massive people without some

605
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:19,839
Speaker 1: kind of structure to their interaction. Well, uh I, I'm

606
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:24,400
Speaker 1: really in favor of um approaching this from a plurality standpoint,

607
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 1: where at least in most areas of government, where you

608
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:33,360
Speaker 1: make sure that the representatives of government reflect the levels

609
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:37,080
Speaker 1: of support in the general population. So instead instead of

610
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:43,360
Speaker 1: it being like every single position is determined by a majority.

611
00:38:43,600 --> 00:38:46,000
Speaker 1: If you have a plurality, then you say, all right,

612
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:50,480
Speaker 1: well X percentage of Congress must be made up of

613
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:55,720
Speaker 1: this party because that reflects the American the American voters.

614
00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 1: And then this why percentage must be of this other

615
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 1: party because that represents and then these independents also won

616
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 1: this amount, so they should take up these seats. But

617
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 1: that would be a totally different approach to government than

618
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:09,839
Speaker 1: the way the United States is structured, and it could

619
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: get complicated. Who from where, from what? But this is

620
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:18,520
Speaker 1: already complicated. Could I could I plug some stuff real quickly? Alright, So,

621
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 1: first off, thank you so much for having me on,

622
00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:25,080
Speaker 1: and ladies and gentlemen, uh off the Jury, I almost

623
00:39:25,120 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 1: said of the podcast Jury, thank you so thank you

624
00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:32,320
Speaker 1: so much for checking out this episode. If you're interested

625
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:35,840
Speaker 1: in this. In this process, um, Jonathan and I have

626
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 1: looked at some other some other tech related conspiracy theories,

627
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:46,320
Speaker 1: including that Sony hack, and you've been on several episodes together.

628
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:49,279
Speaker 1: So you can find all of those in either one

629
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 1: of our various internet uh presences. There are videos or

630
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 1: podcasts or you know sometimes the mad scribblings on a

631
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:05,160
Speaker 1: blog somewhere. Yes, yes, uh, the whispers of the whispers

632
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 1: of a a person passing you buy on a moonless

633
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:11,359
Speaker 1: night at the crossroads. Occasionally you'll just be in the

634
00:40:11,360 --> 00:40:14,440
Speaker 1: woods and you'll hear the sound of a baby laughing.

635
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:17,760
Speaker 1: And if you listen very carefully, just before the blair

636
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:24,239
Speaker 1: witch gets you, you'll hear at any rate. Right, yes, uh,

637
00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:27,799
Speaker 1: that's uh, that's how we met. So there's another There

638
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:29,560
Speaker 1: are another couple of things that I think would be

639
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:31,799
Speaker 1: worth your time to check out if you're interested in

640
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:35,279
Speaker 1: this subject that's specifically applied to uh, the U S.

641
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:38,719
Speaker 1: Voting system and stuff they want you to know. Has

642
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:41,000
Speaker 1: a couple of videos about this. We have one about

643
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:43,920
Speaker 1: the Federal Election Commission, one that's a grab bag of

644
00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 1: political conspiracies for seen, and then one thing called five

645
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 1: things you should know about primary elections. So do check

646
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:53,640
Speaker 1: this out. They are free on the internet. Well, I

647
00:40:53,640 --> 00:40:55,719
Speaker 1: mean they're free, you know, assuming that you have an

648
00:40:55,719 --> 00:40:59,320
Speaker 1: Internet connection, right, Yeah, the content is free. The manner

649
00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 1: of trans mission may be uh, somewhat less so depending

650
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:06,200
Speaker 1: on whether or not you're at the local library. And

651
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 1: no wonder this is maybe a forward thinking question that

652
00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:13,440
Speaker 1: you know. Jonathan has another show called forward Thinking the

653
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:15,279
Speaker 1: Future of voting. So go ahead and hit me. Yeah,

654
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:18,920
Speaker 1: it's a future it's a future facing show about the

655
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:23,240
Speaker 1: evolution of tech. Did you Did you touch on anything

656
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 1: about machine consciousness or artificial intelligence and voting a couple

657
00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:31,239
Speaker 1: of times. Actually, we did an episode specifically about what

658
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 1: it would be like to have a robot as president?

659
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:35,719
Speaker 1: Would you ever want a future where a robot could

660
00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:38,560
Speaker 1: be president? Uh? The idea being that if you had

661
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:43,520
Speaker 1: a truly impartial, artificially intelligent creature that would be able

662
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:48,040
Speaker 1: to make choices that are the greatest benefit and the

663
00:41:48,120 --> 00:41:52,560
Speaker 1: least detriment to the population. Would you want to do that?

664
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:55,759
Speaker 1: Or do you think humanity is absolutely essential in order

665
00:41:55,800 --> 00:41:58,120
Speaker 1: for you to have a leader? We did an episode

666
00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 1: about that. We also did an episode about the future

667
00:42:00,920 --> 00:42:04,319
Speaker 1: of voting and some of the pitfalls, including things like

668
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 1: machine intelligence, Uh in the future. That one was not

669
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:11,279
Speaker 1: too long ago. That that published, probably was about a

670
00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:14,839
Speaker 1: month or two ago maybe, So, Yeah, we've got some

671
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 1: stuff that we've talked about. I personally think that there

672
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 1: are a lot of problems we need to solve in

673
00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:27,800
Speaker 1: the immediate future that uh, some of which would would

674
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:32,279
Speaker 1: avoid the machine learning artificial intelligence question for quite some time,

675
00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:35,560
Speaker 1: because um, like there there have been people who have asked, well,

676
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:39,239
Speaker 1: what about the possibility of voting via the internet, the

677
00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 1: idea being that if you could vote via in an internet,

678
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:46,759
Speaker 1: you could drive up voter participation dramatically. You've you, the

679
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 1: more you reduce the investment required to participate, the more

680
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 1: people will participate. That's the idea, right, So if you

681
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 1: make it less of a chore to vote, more people

682
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:01,800
Speaker 1: will vote. Because that that's one of those ongoing narratives

683
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 1: in the United States, right, that's such a small, relatively

684
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:07,520
Speaker 1: small percentage of our population actually participates in the process,

685
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 1: particularly if it's not a presidential election. Yeah, I think though,

686
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:16,319
Speaker 1: I think that people should I know this is controversial,

687
00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:18,680
Speaker 1: but I think people should be required to vote. I

688
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:22,359
Speaker 1: think it should be part of the stuff you have

689
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 1: to do, and there's not there's not very much stuff

690
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:28,600
Speaker 1: you have to do. Uh, if you were born here

691
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:32,680
Speaker 1: to be a citizen's services, there's actually way more stuff

692
00:43:32,719 --> 00:43:36,799
Speaker 1: that you aren't supposed to do. Yeah, there's a much

693
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:40,359
Speaker 1: bigger list of do not. But I think it's While

694
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 1: it's controversial, it's a good system to consider because then

695
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:49,200
Speaker 1: we will see all of the people who for one

696
00:43:49,239 --> 00:43:51,399
Speaker 1: reason or another. We're not able to get time off

697
00:43:51,440 --> 00:43:54,600
Speaker 1: to vote. We're not able to get which is which is,

698
00:43:54,640 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 1: by the way, illegal. You are supposed to be your

699
00:43:56,920 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 1: employer is supposed to allow you the time to vote.

700
00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:01,600
Speaker 1: That's it's illegal in theory. It's a legal in theory

701
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:05,600
Speaker 1: and practice it is much different, right, Yeah, I mean again,

702
00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:08,600
Speaker 1: just like we were talking about with the electronic voting machines.

703
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 1: Ideally it works one way. In reality it may work

704
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 1: a totally different way. There are countries that have compulsory voting.

705
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:19,160
Speaker 1: Because often when you see the United States the voting numbers,

706
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:22,440
Speaker 1: the percentage of people participating, it will be compared against

707
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:25,320
Speaker 1: other nations and say, look, how terrible the US turnout

708
00:44:25,400 --> 00:44:27,839
Speaker 1: is compared to these countries. And then you start looking like, yeah,

709
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:31,640
Speaker 1: but four of those countries you listed require everyone to vote.

710
00:44:32,080 --> 00:44:34,239
Speaker 1: So therefore, first of all, that none of them are

711
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:38,560
Speaker 1: at a ent, so someone slacken. And secondly, that's not

712
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 1: fair to to hold up a country that doesn't have

713
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:45,759
Speaker 1: compulsory voting against ones that do. Um, I don't know

714
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:47,920
Speaker 1: that I whoever go with compulsory I kind of I

715
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:51,200
Speaker 1: kind of feel you, I mean, I kind of I

716
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:53,759
Speaker 1: want I want to see more people involved in it,

717
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:57,480
Speaker 1: whether it's but I also don't know the reasons behind

718
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 1: people not voting, right, If they're not voting because there

719
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:07,960
Speaker 1: is an uh a hardship on them in order to

720
00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 1: participate in the system, It's not like I can blame them, right,

721
00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:14,719
Speaker 1: if there's some form of hardship, whether it's economic or

722
00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:17,080
Speaker 1: it's just you know, practical, like how do I get

723
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:20,920
Speaker 1: to the voting station, whatever it may be. I have

724
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:22,879
Speaker 1: a lot of sympathy for those people. And I even

725
00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:26,640
Speaker 1: have sympathy for people who have lost confidence in the

726
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:28,839
Speaker 1: system and the reason they don't vote is because they

727
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:33,680
Speaker 1: feel like their vote doesn't really have um an impact.

728
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 1: And I can certainly see, especially based upon the rhetoric

729
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:41,880
Speaker 1: that you tend to be subjected to in the election seasons,

730
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:47,040
Speaker 1: how you can get disillusioned and sad and therefore you're like,

731
00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:52,920
Speaker 1: I kind of just want to disappear until this is over. UM.

732
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:57,400
Speaker 1: Although this every time there's an election, it's really important,

733
00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:01,080
Speaker 1: very very important, including at the local level, maybe especially

734
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:03,840
Speaker 1: at the local level. UM. Here in the US, we

735
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:07,120
Speaker 1: give a lot of attention to the presidential elections. Truth

736
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:10,080
Speaker 1: to be known, your local elections are going to have

737
00:46:10,160 --> 00:46:12,520
Speaker 1: a much larger impact on your day to day life

738
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:17,920
Speaker 1: than your national ones. Um, but obviously that's not the

739
00:46:17,920 --> 00:46:20,960
Speaker 1: big story. You're looking at who Who's who's sitting on

740
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:24,320
Speaker 1: the on the throne I'm sorry in the oval office.

741
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 1: I'm the Royalist, so I have a little bit of

742
00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:31,000
Speaker 1: a different view on things. Um, I'm not really a royalist.

743
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:34,960
Speaker 1: So well that that was a great discussion about it.

744
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:38,200
Speaker 1: Obviously we got a little philosophical and um, you know,

745
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:43,000
Speaker 1: I don't want anyone to base their political opinion on

746
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:45,200
Speaker 1: anything I say. I think it's very important for you

747
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:47,920
Speaker 1: to form your own even if I fully disagree with it,

748
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:51,400
Speaker 1: I respect the fact that you guys have a political opinion.

749
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:54,799
Speaker 1: So I'm not trying to sway anyone to my side. Um,

750
00:46:55,400 --> 00:46:58,000
Speaker 1: which is good because your side is crazy. My side

751
00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 1: votes Reagan uh in this election. Yeah, he's he's he's

752
00:47:03,640 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 1: passed on and yet I write it in. Also, by

753
00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:08,279
Speaker 1: the way, you may not be able to write in

754
00:47:09,239 --> 00:47:13,160
Speaker 1: a president presidential candidate. Not all states allow it. Yeah, yeah,

755
00:47:13,200 --> 00:47:15,800
Speaker 1: that's a bummer. I think it's like forty seven states

756
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:18,320
Speaker 1: allow it, so there's like three that do not. Something

757
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:20,960
Speaker 1: like that. You know what probably happens somebody was screwing

758
00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:23,359
Speaker 1: around too much with what they thought was a great bit,

759
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:27,760
Speaker 1: and they were like, guys, we cannot make we cannot

760
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:31,919
Speaker 1: make the pink panther the state senator or build a cat,

761
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:35,440
Speaker 1: or build a cat. Bloom County has run the presidential

762
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:39,520
Speaker 1: candidacy quite a few times, right, Yeah, so, uh, maybe

763
00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:41,719
Speaker 1: it's just the joke gone wrong. But if you're in

764
00:47:41,719 --> 00:47:44,239
Speaker 1: one of the vast majority of states and you want

765
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:49,680
Speaker 1: to write a vote in, then civic Seneca right as

766
00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:52,480
Speaker 1: a citizen of the United States. Some would argue your

767
00:47:52,520 --> 00:47:57,840
Speaker 1: moral responsibility depends on your on your perspective on the candidates,

768
00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 1: I suppose, but I didn't the rate there we go

769
00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 1: see at any rate. That's how you know it's me

770
00:48:02,960 --> 00:48:06,120
Speaker 1: when you hear that voice in the woods. Uh. Thank

771
00:48:06,160 --> 00:48:08,919
Speaker 1: you again Ben for being on the show. And that

772
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:12,799
Speaker 1: wraps up this pair of classic episodes. Thank you so

773
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:15,439
Speaker 1: much for listening. I think these are very important things

774
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:17,759
Speaker 1: for us to be aware of, things that we need

775
00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:20,959
Speaker 1: to pay very close attention to. We can't just take

776
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:24,160
Speaker 1: for granted that the systems that we have in place

777
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:28,600
Speaker 1: to allow us to to participate in the democratic process

778
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:32,040
Speaker 1: just work or that they just don't work. We need

779
00:48:32,040 --> 00:48:36,400
Speaker 1: to really examine them, ask questions, make ourselves accountable, and

780
00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:40,439
Speaker 1: make certain that we still have a system that people

781
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:43,960
Speaker 1: can believe in. It's hard enough out there right now

782
00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:48,600
Speaker 1: to find representatives sometimes that actually reflect our own values.

783
00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:51,440
Speaker 1: That can be a real challenge. We don't need to

784
00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:54,839
Speaker 1: make it even harder by making the process one that

785
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:58,240
Speaker 1: we feel we cannot rely upon. We need that process

786
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:01,799
Speaker 1: to be rock solid. I hope you guys enjoyed these

787
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:04,880
Speaker 1: classic episodes. Will be back with a new episode in

788
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:09,600
Speaker 1: Wednesday's show, so stick around for that. And uh yeah,

789
00:49:09,640 --> 00:49:13,279
Speaker 1: I apologize for running reruns in a way, but at

790
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:15,120
Speaker 1: the same time, I just felt like this is something

791
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:18,759
Speaker 1: that we need to think about, especially in the advance

792
00:49:19,040 --> 00:49:21,840
Speaker 1: of another election year here in the United States. We

793
00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:25,600
Speaker 1: really need to pay attention to this stuff and be

794
00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:30,320
Speaker 1: active participants if we want to make any real substantive change.

795
00:49:31,080 --> 00:49:33,400
Speaker 1: All right, guys, if you want to reach out to me,

796
00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:35,760
Speaker 1: you can do so on Facebook or Twitter. The handle

797
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:39,000
Speaker 1: for both of those is text stuff hs W and

798
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:47,840
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is

799
00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:51,000
Speaker 1: an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from My

800
00:49:51,120 --> 00:49:54,759
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I heart radio, app, Apple podcasts,

801
00:49:54,880 --> 00:49:56,840
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.