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Speaker 1: Get in Tech of Technology with tech Stuff from stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I am your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm full of them

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Speaker 1: and Vigger. And that's because, unlike almost all other episodes

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Speaker 1: I'm in, I'm actually joined in the studio by the

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Speaker 1: physical being of another human, and it happens to be

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Speaker 1: a human with whom I get along. It is Ben

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Speaker 1: Bowlen from Stuffing I Want you to Know and car

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Speaker 1: Stuff joining once again. Thank you Ben for being here.

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Speaker 1: Hey Jonathan, thanks for having me on this show. And

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Speaker 1: hello tech Stuff audience. I was really excited when you

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Speaker 1: brought up this topic and asked if I if I

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Speaker 1: want to hang out with you on it. However, before

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Speaker 1: we go any further, I've got to ask, are you

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Speaker 1: okay man that in true is getting a little weird? Um,

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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 used 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. But

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

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Speaker 1: a lot harder to change the thing you print it

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: I am no flim flam man um. So yeah, today

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Speaker 1: we're specifically talking and you know from the title of

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

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Speaker 1: machines specifically, and what it is about electronic voting machines

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

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Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. And here in the US we

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Speaker 1: are hurtling towards an election, uh, kicking and screaming all

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

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Speaker 1: I mean, especially when it's a presidential election, which we

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Speaker 1: have every four years. And so I thought it was

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

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Speaker 1: and of course ben as a host of stuff they

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Speaker 1: don't want you to know. There are a lot of

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

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Speaker 1: voting machines, but the whole process. Yeah, yeah, it's true.

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Speaker 1: There are a there are quite a few things that

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Speaker 1: would be called conspiracy theories. There are also quite a

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Speaker 1: few very valid criticisms are observation about the nature of

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Speaker 1: the voting system, everything from the nuts and bolts of

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

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Speaker 1: to just the organizational stuff. You know, the question that

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

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Speaker 1: out their ladies and gentlemen is stuff like why was

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: enlightened leaders. The quote Titian can't even appreciate a coup movement, Julie,

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

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Speaker 1: representative from the state of Virginia. Um, yeah, that's A,

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

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Speaker 1: before we get too far into it, one of the

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Speaker 1: most salient or applicable quote unquote conspiracy theories about elections

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Speaker 1: revolves around the idea that elections have been fixed retroactively

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Speaker 1: or miscounted, whether intentionally or accidentally by a machine or

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

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Speaker 1: I mean, these are are 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 mastered on 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 there

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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 manages 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 a target. Yes. Yes, I actually had a

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Speaker 1: conversation with someone this morning about how uh they they

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Speaker 1: had suggested we moved to h a time where we

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Speaker 1: would be able to assigned votes to specific people so

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Speaker 1: that for verification purposes, and I said, that's a terrible idea.

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Speaker 1: And the reason it's terrible is because it favors the

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Speaker 1: majority and it punishes the minority. Right, if you are

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Speaker 1: in the minority opinion and you vote your conscience. Like

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Speaker 1: you you are not going to be cowed into voting

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Speaker 1: the majority just because all these other people want you to.

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Speaker 1: Then you stand, you know, victim. You're you're vulnerable to

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Speaker 1: the majority who may punish you for your choice to

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Speaker 1: uh to vote your conscience, and or you might just

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Speaker 1: feel pressured to change your vote so that you keep

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Speaker 1: your you, yourself and your family safe. So secret ballots

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Speaker 1: I think are really important. They actually came officially to

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Speaker 1: the scene pretty late, especially when you're talking about standardized ballots.

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Speaker 1: Those didn't become a thing until the mid nineteenth century.

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Speaker 1: So eighteen fifty six was when we saw the first

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Speaker 1: standardized ballots, meaning ballots issued by the government with the

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Speaker 1: candidates arranged in whatever order they had deemed was appropriate.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if they went alphabetically or how they

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Speaker 1: arranged it, but the government had come to a decision

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Speaker 1: on here's how we're going to present the ballot. Um

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Speaker 1: it's standard for everybody. And that government was Australia, so

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Speaker 1: it wasn't the UK. Of course, it wasn't the U

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Speaker 1: S which a lot of people would assume. Yeah, now

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Speaker 1: there had been secret ballots in both the UK and

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Speaker 1: the U s US. But this was a standardized approach, which, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is where you're saying everyone's getting the same sheet

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Speaker 1: of paper to vote on, as opposed to if you

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Speaker 1: went into a voting precinct to one part of the

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Speaker 1: United States for let's say the presidential election, and then

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Speaker 1: went to a voting precinct in a totally different state,

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Speaker 1: the ballots could look dramatically different from one another and

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Speaker 1: have a have completely different presentation. Like you could just imagine,

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Speaker 1: let's say that you're going through a corrupt precinct and

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Speaker 1: the candidate that they all want to win is a nice, big,

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

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Speaker 1: tiny print and you can barely see them Like that

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Speaker 1: would be unfair, obviously, you would say, like, I detect

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Speaker 1: a sense of bias. So this was Australia in the

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Speaker 1: mid ninete century. I guess then the best way to

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Speaker 1: organize the candidates would be by their crime in alphabetical order.

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Speaker 1: So sorry, as always, as always we love to poke

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Speaker 1: fund at Australia for getting its start as a as

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Speaker 1: a as a penal colony. Well, I mean, clearly the

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Speaker 1: Aborigines have been there forever. But but you know, from

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Speaker 1: the European standpoint, Hey, but before we get too cocky, Ben,

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Speaker 1: we live in Georgia, a state that was a penal colony.

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Speaker 1: Do we get a pass for that because we because

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Speaker 1: because Georgia was a debtor's prison essentially. If you've ever

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Speaker 1: been in Georgia you can understand how how when Europeans

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Speaker 1: got here, they first thought, yeah, this is where we

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Speaker 1: want to put bad people. So so the the Australian

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Speaker 1: state would create these out of I guess taxpayer money. Yep, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was and that was a big deal, right, like

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Speaker 1: the decision that because anything the government does, you know,

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Speaker 1: any product that they're going to make, any anything they produce,

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Speaker 1: the money for that comes from taxes. That's where governments

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Speaker 1: get their money. So you know, you're not going to

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Speaker 1: the Australian government gift shop and buying a whole bunch

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Speaker 1: of T shirts and that money goes to making making ballots. Uh.

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

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Speaker 1: I was gonna say caught fire, but that's hard to

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Speaker 1: talk about when you're talking about paper ballots. It got popular,

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

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Speaker 1: the late nineteenth century, it's late eighteen hundreds, inventors, yeah,

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Speaker 1: just a couple of decades later. Inventors were already beginning

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: grow and as you open up the vote to more

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Speaker 1: eligible voters, as you make more people eligible, you know,

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Speaker 1: keep in mind, this is the same period where we

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Speaker 1: start to see uh, various minority populations end up getting

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Speaker 1: the right to vote. That increases your voting population. We

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Speaker 1: see women get the right to vote, that increases your

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Speaker 1: voting population. Being able to count those votes quickly becomes

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Speaker 1: really important because you don't want to hold up like

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Speaker 1: you don't want to everyone waiting, Like we voted three

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Speaker 1: weeks ago. When are we going to find out who won?

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Speaker 1: You don't want that to happen. So there were a

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Speaker 1: lot of experiments in ways to tabulate votes more quickly,

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Speaker 1: and also the idea was that this would be more

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: program 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. It 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? That? Okay? I mean we

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

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Speaker 1: said something works the English Blackguard. Um. He was an

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

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

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Speaker 1: 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. So

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Speaker 1: so you 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 issues that we're voting on, not just the

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

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Speaker 1: but also uh controller uh well, and then 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 had 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 uh one of

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

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

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Speaker 1: curtain behind you. Know, 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, which I think voting will count

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Speaker 1: as my political careers, say, before you burnt all the

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Speaker 1: bridges and before I burned the bridges and became an

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

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Speaker 1: I I was in the very early days before this

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Speaker 1: was institute. I did get to experience like the older

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

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Speaker 1: old lever machine that used to be that used to

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Speaker 1: be in Georgia. But foo, I'll talk about that more

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Speaker 1: in a second. But um, the way that they that

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Speaker 1: they typically would work because this once this innovation was introduced,

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Speaker 1: it was adopted pretty much universally. Uh. You would have

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Speaker 1: a lever that you would use to close the curtain

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Speaker 1: behind you, and only then would the other levers become

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Speaker 1: active where you would be able to cast your vote.

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Speaker 1: So it was great because it meant that you were

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Speaker 1: pretty confident that your vote would be done secretly. No

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Speaker 1: one's going to look in on you, because before you

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Speaker 1: could even get started, you had to close the curtain.

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

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Speaker 1: And Uh, typically the way it would work is that

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Speaker 1: there'd be a mechanism that would just lock all the

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Speaker 1: other levers in place until that curtain lever was activated.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, it was really ingenious. Was again pretty simple.

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Speaker 1: Even when you get to electro mechanical voting booths later on,

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Speaker 1: it's still followed the same principle, And I thought that

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Speaker 1: was really neat. Now, those voting booths were and incredibly heavy,

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Speaker 1: uh and complex, and like I said, they would break

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Speaker 1: down occasionally, which obviously that's a problem. They sound positively

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Speaker 1: steam punk if we're being honest. Yeah, if you were

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Speaker 1: to ever like look in the back of one. You

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

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

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Speaker 1: a copper store or something. It was pretty cool. That

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Speaker 1: is such a beautiful description. That might be your best

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Speaker 1: writing this week. Well, like a piano with a store. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and then you that's you got a lever action voting machine. Uh.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty one, Anthony C. Baroneck received a U

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Speaker 1: S patent for a push button voting machine that was

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Speaker 1: more suited for American elections. This one had the multiple

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Speaker 1: rows and column so it was more advanced than than sprats.

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Speaker 1: And then in eighteen eighty nine, Jacob H. Myers patented

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Speaker 1: the first lever voting machine also known as a direct

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Speaker 1: recording vote machine, which use mechanical levers to indicate votes

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Speaker 1: and results were counted by the machine itself and then

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Speaker 1: what would happen is he would record the results. A

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Speaker 1: human being would record the results from each machine for

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Speaker 1: it to be UH tabulated in the grand totals. Um

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Speaker 1: and Myers had said that the approach had major advantages

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Speaker 1: over older methods and that it could prevent ballot stuffing

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Speaker 1: because each person could only use the machine once before

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Speaker 1: it had to be reset, so you couldn't vote and

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Speaker 1: then just go ahead and vote again and vote again,

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Speaker 1: and then just keep on creating uh you know, false

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Speaker 1: votes for whatever candidate you chose. You can only do

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Speaker 1: it the one time and then it would have to

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Speaker 1: be reset for the next voter, which meant that, you know,

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Speaker 1: it was a little labor intensive because you had to

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Speaker 1: have someone there to reset the machine. But at the

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Speaker 1: same time, it kept the voting process honest um. And

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Speaker 1: then the first time Myers machine was actually used, I

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Speaker 1: remember it was made in so it didn't take long.

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Speaker 1: And again there still was a weak point here. If

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Speaker 1: you had someone whose job it was to write down

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Speaker 1: the results, they could fudge the results from the machine.

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Speaker 1: Let's also point out that here in the well eight

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Speaker 1: nineteen century, yep, post civil war, at least in the US. Yes,

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

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Speaker 1: even today, I'm just saying, with with that having occurred

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Speaker 1: so recently, corruption was rife and rampant, oh yeah, especially

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Speaker 1: like there's certain areas of the United States that have

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Speaker 1: almost a comical association with election fraud, Chicago, Chicago being

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Speaker 1: the big one. Like you'll hear stories about Chicago elections

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Speaker 1: that are amazing, like like like, how how how many

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Speaker 1: people turn out to vote in an election, including ones

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Speaker 1: who haven't been alive for like ten years? Um, boss

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Speaker 1: tweed kind of stuff. Right, Yeah, yeah, so at any rate,

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Speaker 1: the the this didn't erase the ability for uh, some

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Speaker 1: tampering to happen, right, But again it would be the humans. Ideally,

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Speaker 1: the machines count all the votes as they were cast,

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Speaker 1: but the humans whose job it was to transcribe that

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Speaker 1: could fudge if they wanted, if they if they were

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Speaker 1: so inclined. Not that they were allowed to, but they

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Speaker 1: could have because there's a hierarchy of reporting here. One

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Speaker 1: person tabulates each machine. After each vote goes to a precinct.

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Speaker 1: Precinct tabulates, it goes to a higher authority of a

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Speaker 1: regional swort, and then on and on and on up

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Speaker 1: to the national level. Yeah. And just like you said earlier,

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Speaker 1: the more moving parts we have in a mechanism, whether

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Speaker 1: an organization or a machine, the more potential points of

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Speaker 1: failure we have. Right. And and this again kind of

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Speaker 1: leads into the thinking that would eventually develop into the

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Speaker 1: electronic voting machine. The idea of being that hey, if

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Speaker 1: we can remove some of these steps, then perhaps we

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Speaker 1: can end up having a more accurate reflection of the

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Speaker 1: public's intent, right which that's a very honorable thing, but

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Speaker 1: it gets a little a little muddy and practice. We

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Speaker 1: still have a ways to go. Bea we do so

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty lever voting machines have become a common site

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Speaker 1: throughout elections in US cities. Most major cities had these

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Speaker 1: by nineteen thirty. UM In nineteen sixty two, karn City, California,

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Speaker 1: would use optical scan ballots for the first time. So

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Speaker 1: these are like the center dized tests, like the s

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Speaker 1: A T. I assume they're still like that. I haven't

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Speaker 1: been in high school in a really long time, but

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Speaker 1: you know the kind of test where you have to

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Speaker 1: fill in the bubble all the way to indicate your choice.

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Speaker 1: That's what we're talking about. Optical scans. So you've got

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

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Speaker 1: in order to make your choices, and then those are

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: to have uh, very standardized papers so that they can

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: S A T S, A C T S or L sets, right, yeah,

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

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Speaker 1: don't fill in that bubble fully, then it may not

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Speaker 1: be counted. And obviously every person who goes to the

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Speaker 1: trouble to vote once his or her vote to matter, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, we don't. We don't just stand there just

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Speaker 1: for the fun of it. Um. Maybe the first time,

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Speaker 1: but after that you're like, well, I'm doing my civic duty.

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Speaker 1: It's not my civic Oh boy, let's go and do this.

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Speaker 1: Remind me at some point when we get to the

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Speaker 1: contemporary area, I have a great voting story for you. Okay,

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Speaker 1: but but right now we've got the scanners, and then

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Speaker 1: we move move into something that's a little bit of

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Speaker 1: local history for you and I. Yeah, in nineteen sixty four,

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Speaker 1: Fulton and Decab Counties in Georgia use punch cards and

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Speaker 1: computer tallely machines for the first time in an election. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Fulton and Decab Counties are really the two main counties

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Speaker 1: of Atlanta. If you look at Atlanta on a map,

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Speaker 1: especially if you look up the term metro Atlanta, there

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Speaker 1: are a whole bunch of counties that are in that something.

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Speaker 1: There's like thirteen or something. It's crazy at this point,

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Speaker 1: but but the two big ones that make up what

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Speaker 1: we what we who live in Atlanta think of as

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Speaker 1: Atlanta are Fulton and Decab. And so in fact, I

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Speaker 1: think Ben, I think you you might live in one

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Speaker 1: and I live in the other. That is true. I

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Speaker 1: am currently a resident of Fulton County, though for a

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Speaker 1: long time I was over there with you in Decab. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And and to be fair, I think only a couple

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Speaker 1: of miles separate Ben and Ben's house in my a

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Speaker 1: my house, so we're right there on the border of

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Speaker 1: the two counties. Anyway, those counties became the first to

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Speaker 1: use punch cards and computer tally machines for the first time,

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Speaker 1: and that would quickly get adopted by a lot of

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Speaker 1: other places. In Joseph P. Harris would patent the voto

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Speaker 1: Matic punch card system and that would require voters to

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Speaker 1: use like a stylus like pen to punch holes into

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Speaker 1: a ballot. This became very common to and it was

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Speaker 1: on sort of a template thing, right, like it would

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Speaker 1: slide into this thing with the choices, the one that

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Speaker 1: you chose, almost like a frame that would hold the

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Speaker 1: paper taut. Yeah, I remember those. And also I want

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Speaker 1: to point out this is one of my favorite eras

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Speaker 1: of American history for gadgets. It's the time when everything

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Speaker 1: was legitimized by adding oh matic at the end. It

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Speaker 1: was their digital or their organic, their buzzword. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So if you look at any of the cafeterias from

427
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Speaker 1: back then, there were a lot of the like the

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Speaker 1: serve o matic or whatever, and they tend to be, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, like a series of windows and you would

430
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:55,880
Speaker 1: put coins into a slot and you would be able

431
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:57,680
Speaker 1: to open up one of the windows and get your

432
00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:01,040
Speaker 1: you know, the ham sandwich that was aig seven hours ago.

433
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:04,199
Speaker 1: If you really be still my heart or just a

434
00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:07,959
Speaker 1: jar of eggs. Yep, man, those are the days, right,

435
00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:16,280
Speaker 1: So so yeah, this this is something that has an

436
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:21,440
Speaker 1: important difference though, right because the while the act here

437
00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:25,320
Speaker 1: was just relatively simple human technology, a person poppuli style

438
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 1: is into a piece of paper. How did they count this? Again?

439
00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:33,200
Speaker 1: You would put it through a tabulation machine typically, uh.

440
00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:36,720
Speaker 1: You You would do this again using light to detect

441
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:40,919
Speaker 1: where the the punched hole was. This also leads us

442
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:45,879
Speaker 1: to another issue in American elections later on, the the

443
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:49,760
Speaker 1: dreaded hanging chads. But we'll get there. I'll talk about that. Um.

444
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:53,320
Speaker 1: But but does it does open up the opportunity for

445
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:57,359
Speaker 1: tabulation errors only because if the piece of paper that

446
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:03,160
Speaker 1: you are punching out isn't come completely free of the ballot,

447
00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:05,840
Speaker 1: like if it doesn't break off from the ballot, then

448
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 1: it can it can obscure that whole and a tabulation

449
00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:13,879
Speaker 1: device could think that you made no choice whatsoever for

450
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 1: that particular vote, whatever it might be. YEA V four

451
00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:21,880
Speaker 1: That was the first patent for a direct recording electronic

452
00:26:22,080 --> 00:26:25,200
Speaker 1: voting machine or d r e uh. These are also

453
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:27,960
Speaker 1: known as electronic voting machines e v m s. They're

454
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:31,200
Speaker 1: essentially computers the computer terminals UH, and it was first

455
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:33,720
Speaker 1: used in and the first one that was used was

456
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:39,120
Speaker 1: called the video voter. Yeah. Now, typically these days you

457
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 1: have an electronic display that shows you the ballot and

458
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:45,280
Speaker 1: electronic version of the ballot, and then you use some

459
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:48,440
Speaker 1: form of interface to make your choice. It might be buttons,

460
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:50,119
Speaker 1: so it might be a physical button that you have

461
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:52,359
Speaker 1: to press that corresponds to a choice you see on

462
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:55,520
Speaker 1: the screen, or it maybe a touch screen in some

463
00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:58,919
Speaker 1: cases where you you know your your choices pop up,

464
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:02,679
Speaker 1: you press, the screen activates, and your vote is uh

465
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:07,240
Speaker 1: is reflected on what you see on the screen. H.

466
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:09,200
Speaker 1: At that point, a couple of different things could happen.

467
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:12,959
Speaker 1: The vote could just be recorded electronically in memory, and

468
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,800
Speaker 1: then at the end of the day what the precinct

469
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:19,920
Speaker 1: folks will do is remove the memory from each device

470
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:25,399
Speaker 1: and then send that over to a centralized tabulation area

471
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:29,080
Speaker 1: and then the results would be collected there. Or it

472
00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:33,000
Speaker 1: may also print a paper record so that you have

473
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 1: a hard copy to compare against the electronic ones. Not

474
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:40,120
Speaker 1: all e v m s have paper trails. In fact,

475
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:43,520
Speaker 1: a lot do not, which is problematic. Will get more

476
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 1: into that. Yeah, not even not even state to state,

477
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 1: but within within a state, you could have one area,

478
00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 1: one precinct where there's a paper trail, and one whether

479
00:27:55,280 --> 00:27:59,160
Speaker 1: it's not. This is largely because in the United States, Uh,

480
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:02,560
Speaker 1: the decision on what sort of machine you're using is

481
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 1: made at the local level. It's not federally mandated. Right.

482
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:11,280
Speaker 1: The federal mandate is that you must have a system

483
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:13,800
Speaker 1: in place for people to vote. You got you gotta

484
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:17,440
Speaker 1: have somehow, right, But beyond that, it ends up being

485
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:19,760
Speaker 1: a decision made on the local level. And there's been

486
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:22,440
Speaker 1: a lot of arguments about who should foot the bill

487
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 1: for these systems. Should it be a state level thing,

488
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 1: should be regional, should it be federal? And uh, this

489
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 1: is why we get a lot of disparity across the

490
00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:34,720
Speaker 1: United States when it comes to different ways to cast

491
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: a vote on an election year. Um, in two thousand, Uh,

492
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:41,920
Speaker 1: this was a big, big year. This was a year

493
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:45,440
Speaker 1: that really started to change things here in the US. Yeah,

494
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 1: this is the year when Al Gore was running against H.

495
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: George W. Bush and UM, it was a very close

496
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: race throughout the United States, but particularly in Florida, which

497
00:28:57,280 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 1: was seen as a state that was going to decide

498
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 1: every right. And also to add to the allegations and

499
00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:08,960
Speaker 1: the controversy here, the vote in Florida at the time

500
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:12,960
Speaker 1: could be influenced by the governor who was brother to

501
00:29:13,320 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 1: w Yeah, so you had um, you had polls, like

502
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:22,120
Speaker 1: the actual surveys indicating that Gore actually had a bit

503
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 1: of a lead in in a lot of areas, but

504
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:28,760
Speaker 1: a lead elite, enough of a lead to bring into

505
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: question the results that came in later. But then you

506
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 1: also had this issue of the hanging Chad's in Florida,

507
00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 1: millions according to according to some some sources, millions of

508
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: votes were tossed out because you had these ballots that

509
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 1: had Chad's hanging from them and they could not be

510
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 1: tabulated by the machines. And so rather than tear off

511
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 1: the piece of paper, which would almost be seen as

512
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 1: like you could argue as a way of tampering, Like

513
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:58,440
Speaker 1: how could be as sure? Like what have you looked

514
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 1: at a ballot and legitimately they had not made a

515
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 1: choice for a specific issue or a specific position, or

516
00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 1: you weren't sure if it just got messed up, right, Yeah,

517
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 1: you don't know, if maybe they started to tear and

518
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:13,800
Speaker 1: then they change their mind, Like how how far does

519
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 1: the chad have to hang before you can make the determination? Oh,

520
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 1: this is what they meant to do. And of course

521
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 1: I wish I jumped in with this earlier. But when

522
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 1: you talked about these millions of hanging chad's, of course

523
00:30:25,120 --> 00:30:27,960
Speaker 1: we're saying that the chad is the is the leftover

524
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 1: piece of paper. It's not, you know, a bunch of

525
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:34,960
Speaker 1: guys in backwards chats, a cargo shorts hanging out. Although

526
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:37,920
Speaker 1: I wish I was, Yeah, I wish that the I mean, yeah,

527
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:40,640
Speaker 1: I would expect to see see a bunch of chads

528
00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 1: hanging out in Florida, but only on spring break, right, Okay,

529
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 1: and know if it's people named Chad, I don't believe

530
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:49,720
Speaker 1: in nominative determinism, which is the smart word for the

531
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:53,080
Speaker 1: smart phrase for that kind of belief. Yeah, we were

532
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:58,040
Speaker 1: very intelligent about our our short sighted uh bad jokes. Yeah,

533
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:00,480
Speaker 1: so yeah, this is this is a huge eel though,

534
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 1: because UM people who naturally people who support UM the

535
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: Republican candidate at the time, George who would later become president,

536
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:14,959
Speaker 1: George Bush. Uh. They say, well, this is how democracy works,

537
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: and we have to make sure it's a clean election.

538
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 1: And then the Democrats who are supporting al Gore say

539
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 1: this is not how democracy works, and yes, we need

540
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 1: to make sure there's a clean election. These votes you count.

541
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 1: You can't. You can't just throw people's votes out the

542
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:33,480
Speaker 1: door because you don't you don't like what they say,

543
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 1: and use the excuse that they don't fit your standard.

544
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 1: And so this was this was an ugly, ugly mess,

545
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:42,320
Speaker 1: very much so, all the way, all the way to

546
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:45,280
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. That's how far this ugly mess went.

547
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 1: And uh, and they eventually made the decision, going back

548
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 1: to I love that you put this in earlier, going

549
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:56,680
Speaker 1: back to your comments about tabulating things in a timely manner.

550
00:31:57,440 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 1: Ultimately right, Um, the people who, of course the winning

551
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:03,280
Speaker 1: party is going to fight and say there shouldn't be

552
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:06,520
Speaker 1: a recount because they got it done the once. You don't.

553
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 1: When you think about it, a recount to the winner,

554
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:11,800
Speaker 1: it sounds like you're doing the election all over it.

555
00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 1: It's like double jeopardy. Now, you don't wanna you don't

556
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 1: wanna run the risk of losing again. You you want

557
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 1: to you one, you want to keep moving, and you

558
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:22,800
Speaker 1: know you can't really blame someone for wanting that, right,

559
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:25,640
Speaker 1: So ultimately the Supreme Court said, okay, like we can't

560
00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 1: hold up the the American political process, and they and

561
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:37,840
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court ultimately decided the president in that election. Yeah,

562
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 1: this was a big point of contention for lots of

563
00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:43,560
Speaker 1: people on both sides really, because there were people who

564
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 1: were very concerned about what this set meant for future elections.

565
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 1: And so in two thousand to the US government actually

566
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:53,200
Speaker 1: passed the Help America Vote Act or HAVA h a

567
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:57,000
Speaker 1: v A in response to the two thousand Hanging Chad debacle,

568
00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:00,360
Speaker 1: and their goal was to phase out punch cards stems

569
00:33:00,440 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 1: entirely and use other systems. Didn't They weren't specific in saying,

570
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 1: you have to move to electronic voting machines, but just

571
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 1: let's not have this happen again, because that was not pleasant.

572
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 1: And so a lot of regions did opt to go

573
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 1: with electronic voting machines, and in two thousand two, the

574
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:23,320
Speaker 1: first state to use the r E machines statewide it

575
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 1: is mandated at a state level, is Georgia. Yeah, look

576
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:33,200
Speaker 1: at us. Take that. Yeah, we're first in something. We're

577
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:37,880
Speaker 1: first in several things. This is one of the good ones, arguably.

578
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:41,160
Speaker 1: So it was interesting to see that Georgia was just

579
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:44,240
Speaker 1: was taking a leadership position and innovation in this way.

580
00:33:44,240 --> 00:33:48,960
Speaker 1: But we should point out that in most states, electronic

581
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:53,120
Speaker 1: voting machines are not the only way you vote. In fact,

582
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 1: in most states there's some sort of combination of different

583
00:33:56,160 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 1: voting methodologies. Uh, some states, you are, are you still

584
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 1: mail in your vote? You don't even go to a

585
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:08,240
Speaker 1: polling place because, uh, those states are known for having

586
00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:12,520
Speaker 1: low populations dispersed across the wide area, and it's hard

587
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:14,439
Speaker 1: to make a journey all the way to a place

588
00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:16,440
Speaker 1: where you can go and cast a vote, especially depend

589
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 1: on the season. If there's inclement weather in a place

590
00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 1: like Alaska, you know, how how can you realistically expect

591
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:26,920
Speaker 1: someone to travel all the way in? And then you know,

592
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:30,680
Speaker 1: also the reason we have to depend on some hybrid

593
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 1: systems is because we may have UM veterans or state

594
00:34:36,680 --> 00:34:40,000
Speaker 1: level officials, people working for the government that are stationed abroad.

595
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:43,920
Speaker 1: Might have people who are living abroad for some reason

596
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 1: or another. But if it's a legitimate reason, I guarantee

597
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:51,680
Speaker 1: you they want to vote, usually against having their foreign

598
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 1: income tax at US rates. But but then there are

599
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:59,040
Speaker 1: you know, there are multiple people who for one extenuating

600
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:01,759
Speaker 1: circumstance or another need to send a vote can't be

601
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:04,880
Speaker 1: physically at the machine. So overall, it's good for us

602
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:07,719
Speaker 1: to have this mix right, right, and and uh, you

603
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:10,719
Speaker 1: know again, for a lot of places, it's it was

604
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 1: not so much that we have to move to electronic

605
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 1: voting machines. We just had to move off of punch cards. Um. So.

606
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:20,400
Speaker 1: One of the other sad things about Georgia though, is

607
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:24,160
Speaker 1: that in a lot of areas the machines being used

608
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:26,399
Speaker 1: are essentially the same ones that were launched in two

609
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:29,880
Speaker 1: thousand two, which means we have early adopter syndrome. Yeah. Well,

610
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:33,239
Speaker 1: we also have the the problem that a lot of

611
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:35,680
Speaker 1: people have when they get into PCs for the first time,

612
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:37,680
Speaker 1: which is that they realize they have to upgrade every

613
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 1: few years. Uh. We have not done that in a

614
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:45,720
Speaker 1: lot of states, including Georgia. And this also comes in

615
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:48,200
Speaker 1: to play with the idea of the expense, right, you

616
00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:51,560
Speaker 1: have to pay to get those new systems in, and

617
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:55,359
Speaker 1: that means you have to allocate taxpayer money to do that.

618
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:57,839
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you noticed this, Ben, but um,

619
00:35:58,040 --> 00:36:01,400
Speaker 1: a lot of taxpayers aren't keen on the whole idea

620
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:05,320
Speaker 1: of paying more tax, which means that if you aren't

621
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 1: paying more tax, then you have to take money away

622
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 1: from something else in order to pay for the electronic

623
00:36:11,200 --> 00:36:13,480
Speaker 1: voting machines. And it's it's hard to make that a

624
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:18,799
Speaker 1: politically positive move. It is difficult to justify that because

625
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 1: there's so many different interested parties. And if you were

626
00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:24,759
Speaker 1: to say, hey, uh, this group over here, I know

627
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 1: that we typically budget a certain amount every year for

628
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:30,439
Speaker 1: you guys, but we're gonna decrease that budget a little

629
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:31,840
Speaker 1: bit this next year so that we can put that

630
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:34,880
Speaker 1: towards electronic voting machines. And then that group says, why

631
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:38,200
Speaker 1: are you punishing us? Um? And I'm not I'm not

632
00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:40,759
Speaker 1: trying to pass judgment here. I understand like there's it's

633
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:43,399
Speaker 1: just it's a difficult political game to play. And then

634
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:46,759
Speaker 1: we have to also ask, you know, what private industry

635
00:36:46,880 --> 00:36:50,040
Speaker 1: is involved with this. Yeah, so I'm just gonna I'm

636
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 1: just gonna. I don't want to go I know we'll

637
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:54,400
Speaker 1: get into it later, but I do want to point out,

638
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 1: you know, when we're asking that question, or we we're

639
00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: bringing up the point of how difficult it is to

640
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:04,359
Speaker 1: ask taxpayers to pay more in tax so that these

641
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:07,640
Speaker 1: machines can be serviced. The government's not paying itself to

642
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:09,840
Speaker 1: do it. In the case of Georgia, they're paying someone

643
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:16,480
Speaker 1: called Premier Election Solutions. Yeah. Yeah, Electric solutions used to

644
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 1: be die Bald elections and we'll get into Diebold in

645
00:37:21,120 --> 00:37:24,359
Speaker 1: a minute. So over the next several years, from two

646
00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:27,120
Speaker 1: thousand two on to today, various security experts in civil

647
00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:29,279
Speaker 1: rights groups have been challenging the use of d r

648
00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:33,320
Speaker 1: E systems and elections for various reasons. In two thousand twelve,

649
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:35,239
Speaker 1: issues with the election in New York City were so

650
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 1: bad that in the city would actually pull five thousand

651
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: one liver voting machines out of storage to use instead

652
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:47,880
Speaker 1: of electronic voting machines. Yeah. Well, it's a good thing

653
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:50,760
Speaker 1: they kept him. Huh yeah. So whoever was in charge

654
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:53,319
Speaker 1: of keeping all that old stuff, I'm sure you listen

655
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 1: to tech stuff and haye, you're no longer a hoarder. Yeah,

656
00:37:57,239 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 1: now you're a patriot. So what are some of the advantages? Okay,

657
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:05,520
Speaker 1: before we get into all the criticisms, and then we're

658
00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:11,840
Speaker 1: gonna also address the fear of the election being hacked,

659
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:13,840
Speaker 1: because that has been in the news for a while.

660
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:16,240
Speaker 1: Let's talk about what are some of the good things

661
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:20,960
Speaker 1: about election voting. Well, first off, speed is huge, right,

662
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:25,000
Speaker 1: Like you can you can collect and tabulate votes faster

663
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 1: through this method than through any other method, and assuming

664
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:31,720
Speaker 1: that everything is working the way it's supposed to, then

665
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:35,640
Speaker 1: you know you've got a really accurate result and you

666
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:41,160
Speaker 1: can very quickly proclaim a winner in whatever district you're

667
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:45,279
Speaker 1: talking about. So, uh, there's very little delay between the

668
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 1: end of voting and declaring who the winner is using

669
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:51,400
Speaker 1: those methodologies because you don't have to go through any

670
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:56,000
Speaker 1: laborious process to tabulate the votes. And yeah, I mean

671
00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:59,160
Speaker 1: that's it's it's like any other computer program. You know.

672
00:38:59,239 --> 00:39:03,000
Speaker 1: You typically, unless you're talking about a computer whose processor

673
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 1: is just laboring under way too much work, you get

674
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:10,000
Speaker 1: results very quickly. Another is that there are no moving

675
00:39:10,040 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 1: parts in the actual voting mechanism, and electronic voting mechanism

676
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:19,239
Speaker 1: purely electronic, we're not talking about electro mechanical. You don't

677
00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:21,600
Speaker 1: have moving parts, so that means they don't wear down

678
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 1: over time physically. That being said, you can still have

679
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 1: errors pop up in electronic voting machines. You can have

680
00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:35,200
Speaker 1: operational errors, things can crash it's a computer program. And

681
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:37,839
Speaker 1: I'm sure all of us out there have had experiences

682
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:41,720
Speaker 1: where inexplicably a computer has crashed or in my case,

683
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:46,120
Speaker 1: failed to connect to the WiFi. Uh. And so that

684
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:48,439
Speaker 1: is still an issue. But because there are no moving parts,

685
00:39:48,440 --> 00:39:50,040
Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about the physical wear and

686
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:54,520
Speaker 1: tear the way you would with those mechanical devices. Mays

687
00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:57,960
Speaker 1: was wont to say there's more. Yeah. So one of

688
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:00,920
Speaker 1: the big advantages of electronic voting machines, and I think

689
00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:04,160
Speaker 1: this is a really important one, is they are customizable

690
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 1: so that citizens are able to more citizens can participate

691
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:13,160
Speaker 1: in the voting process. For example, if you have people

692
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:16,120
Speaker 1: who have visual impairments, like they can see, but they

693
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 1: might have trouble reading something that's in small print because

694
00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 1: it's on an electronic screen most of the time, you

695
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:26,640
Speaker 1: have an option for a large print version. But beyond that,

696
00:40:26,719 --> 00:40:29,280
Speaker 1: if you have someone who has a complete visual impairment,

697
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:32,239
Speaker 1: perhaps they're blind or they're effectively blind, then you can

698
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:36,160
Speaker 1: have audio versions as well. So it's and you can't

699
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:38,320
Speaker 1: really do that with mechanical ones, right, like you can't

700
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:43,760
Speaker 1: magically make the print on a series of levers larger.

701
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:46,560
Speaker 1: But with a screen, you can do that, so it

702
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 1: creates more accessibility for a larger number of people who

703
00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:55,279
Speaker 1: want to participate in the system. However, not all electronic

704
00:40:55,440 --> 00:41:00,080
Speaker 1: voting machines are created equally. No, Um, I wish I

705
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:02,839
Speaker 1: could see this in the studio. I just did President Handry. Yeah,

706
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:07,600
Speaker 1: you get the thumbs slightly extended and the fist clinched,

707
00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:09,600
Speaker 1: and then you do all your gestures. You know why

708
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 1: you do it that way, right, So you're not pointing

709
00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:14,000
Speaker 1: exactly because if you point, then it almost feels like

710
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:19,440
Speaker 1: an accusation. They train you President one oh one, you

711
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:25,080
Speaker 1: can train don't point. Um. So your basic d r

712
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:28,000
Speaker 1: A is just a computer, right, so it records votes

713
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:32,400
Speaker 1: cast on the device typically you would use here in Georgia.

714
00:41:32,600 --> 00:41:34,840
Speaker 1: You tend to get like a card, an activation card

715
00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 1: that you plug into almost like a little disk drive,

716
00:41:38,120 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 1: and then you can make your votes and then you

717
00:41:39,880 --> 00:41:42,840
Speaker 1: are told to remove the card at the end of it,

718
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:45,800
Speaker 1: and then you turn it back into somebody and a

719
00:41:45,880 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 1: volunteer at your little polling place, Jimmy the volunteer, Ben's

720
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 1: falling place. I'd like to point out that the cab

721
00:41:55,239 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 1: County has much more respectable volunteers at the pollings into

722
00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:04,640
Speaker 1: a free sassafras. Yeah, you get a little bit of that.

723
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:10,640
Speaker 1: Sasaparilla is actually what I was thinking of. It's fair,

724
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 1: but yeah, there are differences. So you've got lots of

725
00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:23,560
Speaker 1: different companies that make these, right, there's no standard across them,

726
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 1: and in fact that ends up causing an issue. But

727
00:42:27,640 --> 00:42:30,759
Speaker 1: once you make those selections on your computer screen, you

728
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:35,640
Speaker 1: get kind of too broad um types of d r s.

729
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:40,759
Speaker 1: In one type, it's all records, just electronically, so all

730
00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:44,120
Speaker 1: you have is the electric electronic record of the votes,

731
00:42:44,560 --> 00:42:48,399
Speaker 1: and the other one you have some sort of paper trail. Uh. Now,

732
00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:51,680
Speaker 1: the paper trail ones you can even divide again because

733
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:54,600
Speaker 1: there's somewhere you have a paper trail. But there's no

734
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:58,480
Speaker 1: way for the voter to verify that the vote recorded

735
00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:03,600
Speaker 1: on paper reflects their are specific choices. So Ben, I'm

736
00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:06,279
Speaker 1: gonna give you an example. All right, let's say let's

737
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:10,879
Speaker 1: let's let's go back in time and uh, you are

738
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 1: picking between um, oh, let's say, uh Jimmy Carter and

739
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:20,480
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan. Alright, you've got you've got your choices of

740
00:43:20,560 --> 00:43:23,000
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. But but back in this

741
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:26,080
Speaker 1: time period, this alternate history, they do have electronic voting machines.

742
00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:29,120
Speaker 1: Write your mind around that. So so there you are.

743
00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:32,239
Speaker 1: You're looking at Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, and you,

744
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 1: being a huge fan of Reagan's Hollywood career, You've decided

745
00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:41,840
Speaker 1: you're gonna support Mr Reagan and not Mr Carter, the

746
00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:45,319
Speaker 1: Georgian native. Right, so I'm going against the home team. Yeah,

747
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:47,120
Speaker 1: you're going against the home team. And this is one

748
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:49,640
Speaker 1: of those cases where you are very pleased that your

749
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:53,480
Speaker 1: your vote is secret. Yeah, because my love of Western's

750
00:43:53,520 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 1: compels Mecause that time for bonds or whatever it was,

751
00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:05,520
Speaker 1: you choose, you choose the Gipper, you choose Ronald Reagan,

752
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:12,480
Speaker 1: and uh and in the distance you hear which indicates

753
00:44:12,520 --> 00:44:17,400
Speaker 1: that indeed the printer has printed out the lines that

754
00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:19,799
Speaker 1: are supposed to reflect your vote, but you are not

755
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:23,839
Speaker 1: able to see the piece of paper. So for all

756
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:26,560
Speaker 1: you know, the piece of paper actually says Jimmy Carter

757
00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:29,760
Speaker 1: was the one you voted on. And so while the

758
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:34,400
Speaker 1: the review screen that you get says you picked Ronald Reagan,

759
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:37,280
Speaker 1: electronically it records that vote as a vote for Jimmy

760
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 1: Carter and on the paper it says it's a vote

761
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:41,480
Speaker 1: for Jimmy Carter. And since you can't see the paper,

762
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 1: you can't say, hey, wait a minute, that's not who

763
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 1: I voted for. Well you didn't, because you voted. You

764
00:44:49,080 --> 00:44:52,919
Speaker 1: did everything you could. Now, there's also the voter verifiable

765
00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:56,000
Speaker 1: paper trail, and the very viable paper trail means that

766
00:44:56,040 --> 00:44:59,759
Speaker 1: you would be able to see the paper representation of

767
00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:03,400
Speaker 1: your vote before you leave the precinct. So in that case,

768
00:45:03,760 --> 00:45:06,439
Speaker 1: you vote for Ronald Reagan, piece of paper prints out

769
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 1: it says you voted for Ronald Reagan. Now I should

770
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:14,160
Speaker 1: add there's still the possibility that electronically it flips your vote.

771
00:45:14,360 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 1: But for that to happen, and for it to essentially

772
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:21,880
Speaker 1: flip back at some point, for it to purport that

773
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:24,440
Speaker 1: you have voted what you thought you were voting for,

774
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 1: that makes Let me put it this way, Jonathan and

775
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:32,440
Speaker 1: I know that we are going to go back and

776
00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:35,560
Speaker 1: forth on some of this, and that's fine. That's a

777
00:45:35,760 --> 00:45:42,240
Speaker 1: very that's a difficult mistake to make. In other words,

778
00:45:42,440 --> 00:45:44,800
Speaker 1: that's not a mistake that's something someone did on purpose.

779
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 1: It seems more plausible that it would be like something

780
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 1: that's something that involves those points occurring, UH register electronically.

781
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:57,640
Speaker 1: Let's say I do vote for Big gip uh and

782
00:45:57,680 --> 00:46:02,080
Speaker 1: then have the verifiable paper trail come out and says, hey, congratulations,

783
00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:06,000
Speaker 1: you voted Ronnie. But then have the machine somehow register

784
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:08,120
Speaker 1: that as a vote for an opposing candidate. No, that

785
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:11,040
Speaker 1: would I would argue that I can't think of a

786
00:46:11,040 --> 00:46:14,839
Speaker 1: scenario where you could innocently do that, right, because you

787
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:17,480
Speaker 1: have to remember that the way these systems tend to

788
00:46:17,520 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 1: work is that you get a verification screen at the

789
00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:23,160
Speaker 1: end that says, hey, is this what you wanted before

790
00:46:23,239 --> 00:46:26,960
Speaker 1: you actually cast your vote? Right, So that electronic screen

791
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:30,320
Speaker 1: is going to, in theory, reflect what you actually chose.

792
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:32,600
Speaker 1: And if you look down, you're like, yep, there's Ronald Reagan.

793
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 1: That's who I picked. And then the piece of paper

794
00:46:35,160 --> 00:46:37,560
Speaker 1: says after you cast your vote, the piece of paper

795
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:39,400
Speaker 1: prints out and it says Ronald Reagan, Like, yep, that's

796
00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:42,120
Speaker 1: who I picked, But electronically it says Jimmy Carter. I

797
00:46:42,200 --> 00:46:48,359
Speaker 1: say something hinky has gone on, and sure that it

798
00:46:48,480 --> 00:46:52,879
Speaker 1: was somebody doing that on purpose. You know, I've got

799
00:46:52,880 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 1: to confess, I'm I'm surprised that you're I'm surprised that

800
00:46:57,920 --> 00:47:00,760
Speaker 1: you were drawing the same conclusion, so quick leap, because

801
00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:06,120
Speaker 1: you're very um. The way that you evaluate situations and

802
00:47:06,160 --> 00:47:08,239
Speaker 1: you guys, you guys know, Jonathan, you listen to this

803
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:11,120
Speaker 1: show is to go through all of these facts. So

804
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:16,880
Speaker 1: to hear you say something with this certitude is is

805
00:47:16,920 --> 00:47:19,960
Speaker 1: pretty significant. Well, and and it's because I understand the

806
00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 1: technology right, Like if you've if you've designed a system,

807
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:24,640
Speaker 1: first of all, in order to get any electronic voting

808
00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:27,000
Speaker 1: system in place, it has to go through lots of

809
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:29,520
Speaker 1: different third party testing to make sure that it actually

810
00:47:29,520 --> 00:47:34,479
Speaker 1: works right. Um. So for it to pass all those

811
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:39,279
Speaker 1: tests and then magically not work properly on election day

812
00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:42,280
Speaker 1: tells me something someone has interfered, whether it was someone

813
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:46,319
Speaker 1: on the actual uh manufacturing side, like someone on the

814
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:49,400
Speaker 1: software side for the company that made the voting machine,

815
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:53,160
Speaker 1: or some other third party actor who has infected a

816
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:57,720
Speaker 1: machine with malicious code to change votes on the electronic level.

817
00:47:58,400 --> 00:48:01,319
Speaker 1: The whole point of this, though, is that if you

818
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:05,680
Speaker 1: have a paper trail, especially a voter verifiable paper trail

819
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:09,800
Speaker 1: that's the most important kind, then you have something against

820
00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:12,799
Speaker 1: which you can perform an audit after an election. So

821
00:48:12,840 --> 00:48:16,440
Speaker 1: the elections over the results are in, and then a

822
00:48:16,480 --> 00:48:18,360
Speaker 1: lot of states, not all, but a lot of states

823
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:21,680
Speaker 1: require a post election audit where they will compare the

824
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:26,279
Speaker 1: electronic results against a hard copy of the results. If

825
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:30,439
Speaker 1: it's a voter verifiable hard copy, then theoretically every single

826
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:32,759
Speaker 1: voter had the opportunity to see that his or her

827
00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 1: vote was actually recorded as intended. And that means that

828
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:39,759
Speaker 1: if there is a disparity, then you could bring that

829
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:42,160
Speaker 1: up and say, hey, we're going through this, and there

830
00:48:42,160 --> 00:48:45,920
Speaker 1: seems to be some significant differences between the electronic copy

831
00:48:45,960 --> 00:48:48,720
Speaker 1: and what's on the hard copy, right, like like, hey,

832
00:48:48,760 --> 00:48:51,920
Speaker 1: some of us voted for Hillary Clinton, some vote for

833
00:48:52,000 --> 00:48:54,560
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, and a couple for some third party candidates,

834
00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:58,040
Speaker 1: but every vote here is for Gary Busey. Yeah what

835
00:48:58,239 --> 00:49:02,680
Speaker 1: gives Yeah that at a terrifying future that I had

836
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 1: never ever considered. But in the in the Reagan Jimmy

837
00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:09,560
Speaker 1: Carter example, we gave before you could say, well, according

838
00:49:09,600 --> 00:49:13,239
Speaker 1: to this paper copy this one person who happens to

839
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:16,719
Speaker 1: be ben but they don't know that. Because voter identity

840
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:18,960
Speaker 1: is very important, we want to keep that. I go

841
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:22,080
Speaker 1: in disguise. Based on our earlier series about how to

842
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:26,160
Speaker 1: use the Internet and without being caught right, So so Ben,

843
00:49:26,480 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 1: They don't know it's Ben, but they look and they

844
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:31,560
Speaker 1: see this voter record that says this person voted for

845
00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan, but electronically it says Jimmy Carter. Something is wrong,

846
00:49:36,120 --> 00:49:38,879
Speaker 1: and then then there could be a better investigation. It's

847
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:41,640
Speaker 1: great to have that, but we'll go more into why

848
00:49:41,719 --> 00:49:47,040
Speaker 1: that's not working everywhere in just a second. So this

849
00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:49,879
Speaker 1: kind of brings us into those concerns more formally. We've

850
00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:53,719
Speaker 1: already kind of addressed a big one. But if your

851
00:49:53,760 --> 00:49:56,360
Speaker 1: goal is to make voting and tabulation easy and efficient,

852
00:49:56,560 --> 00:50:01,040
Speaker 1: then if everything's working properly, there's no hampering involved, there's

853
00:50:01,080 --> 00:50:06,399
Speaker 1: no bias that's been introduced, either unconsciously or purposefully, then

854
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:10,319
Speaker 1: it's a beautiful world. Beat you get that, you get

855
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:13,319
Speaker 1: those votes in, you're done with it and it you

856
00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:16,520
Speaker 1: get the winner and the loser can be gracious and

857
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 1: defeat and all that wonderful stuff. Um, but it's really

858
00:50:20,680 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 1: hard to make sure that your vote is being counted

859
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 1: the way you want it. So, first of all, there

860
00:50:25,200 --> 00:50:27,480
Speaker 1: are a lot of electronic voting machines that have no

861
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:31,759
Speaker 1: corresponding paper trail at all, So let's say let's say

862
00:50:31,760 --> 00:50:36,640
Speaker 1: that again. Uh, Ben, you voted for Reagan and the

863
00:50:36,760 --> 00:50:39,760
Speaker 1: votes come in and there they announced the results for Georgia,

864
00:50:40,320 --> 00:50:43,960
Speaker 1: and it's like ninety seven point three percent of voters

865
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:47,520
Speaker 1: voted for Jimmy Carter. Well, you don't know if you

866
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:50,759
Speaker 1: were in that small percentage that didn't vote for Carter,

867
00:50:50,840 --> 00:50:52,640
Speaker 1: you would have no way of knowing. You're one person,

868
00:50:52,800 --> 00:50:58,279
Speaker 1: I would have nothing to refer to accept perhaps uh,

869
00:50:58,480 --> 00:51:03,680
Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence on exit polls or pre voting polls, so

870
00:51:03,880 --> 00:51:06,680
Speaker 1: I could say, what the heck happened? There were you know,

871
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:11,680
Speaker 1: fifty percent of us last week? Did we all just

872
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:16,719
Speaker 1: not go all? Forget about kings Row bedtime for Bonzo?

873
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:19,400
Speaker 1: I told you be bonso I knew that was the

874
00:51:19,480 --> 00:51:22,319
Speaker 1: chump one. And I don't have a computer in front

875
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:24,399
Speaker 1: of me. I was purely for memory. That's just from

876
00:51:24,680 --> 00:51:27,879
Speaker 1: that's yeah, that's just because you care, because I care.

877
00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:31,279
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's that's a great point. So aside from that,

878
00:51:31,320 --> 00:51:34,480
Speaker 1: there would be no, um, certainly nothing with a legal

879
00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:39,800
Speaker 1: basis right, no legal leg to stand on. Yeah, so uh,

880
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:42,759
Speaker 1: that would be problematic. The only thing that would make

881
00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:47,000
Speaker 1: you really suspicious if they said, of all Georgia voters

882
00:51:47,920 --> 00:51:51,320
Speaker 1: supported Jimmy Carter and you think, I'm pretty sure I didn't.

883
00:51:52,000 --> 00:51:56,520
Speaker 1: But you know, any system where someone's gonna do tampering, um,

884
00:51:56,560 --> 00:51:58,719
Speaker 1: you would figure they'd be smart enough not to make

885
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:03,359
Speaker 1: it uh so noticeable that there would be an investigation

886
00:52:03,520 --> 00:52:06,160
Speaker 1: to follow, right, Like, your whole goal is to do

887
00:52:06,200 --> 00:52:09,520
Speaker 1: this clandestine lee and not get caught. So if you're

888
00:52:09,520 --> 00:52:11,600
Speaker 1: doing that and you're being careful, you would want to

889
00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:16,960
Speaker 1: design a system where it's not a blowout for a

890
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:19,640
Speaker 1: state where it might have been close leading up to

891
00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:23,439
Speaker 1: the election. So if there is no corresponding paper trail,

892
00:52:23,480 --> 00:52:26,120
Speaker 1: then you don't You have nothing to audit against. All

893
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:28,200
Speaker 1: you have is the electronic copies, and as we know,

894
00:52:28,560 --> 00:52:31,239
Speaker 1: you can alter electronic copies. Now, it's in the best

895
00:52:31,239 --> 00:52:33,879
Speaker 1: interest of all the companies that create these electronic voting

896
00:52:33,920 --> 00:52:38,359
Speaker 1: machines to be as secure as possible. Unfortunately that never happens. Right.

897
00:52:38,480 --> 00:52:42,080
Speaker 1: Security on electronic voting machines is a joke, it's terrible.

898
00:52:42,080 --> 00:52:46,440
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, Wired released a pretty uh

899
00:52:46,640 --> 00:52:51,000
Speaker 1: pretty scary article which you you've probably already you're already

900
00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:55,640
Speaker 1: aware of it back in August. Yes, title being American's

901
00:52:55,640 --> 00:53:00,480
Speaker 1: electronic voting machines are scarily easy targets. Yeah, hey, Ben,

902
00:53:01,320 --> 00:53:05,640
Speaker 1: Hey Jonathan, So, um, you and I kept talking after

903
00:53:06,160 --> 00:53:12,560
Speaker 1: this bit that we just stopped just now for a while. So, uh,

904
00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 1: what happened, ladies and gentlemen, is that when we finished talking,

905
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:20,279
Speaker 1: we stepped outside to look and see how long we

906
00:53:20,320 --> 00:53:23,239
Speaker 1: had been talking, because we don't currently have a producer

907
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:27,759
Speaker 1: sitting at our desk to to maintain the recording, just

908
00:53:27,800 --> 00:53:30,480
Speaker 1: because of we got lots of stuff we got. We

909
00:53:30,600 --> 00:53:34,840
Speaker 1: got lots of things going on, thoughts and jokes and fats,

910
00:53:35,080 --> 00:53:36,560
Speaker 1: got a lot of ends, get a lot of outs,

911
00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:40,040
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of big Lebowski's happening, and um,

912
00:53:40,280 --> 00:53:43,320
Speaker 1: so it turned out we had been recording for almost

913
00:53:43,320 --> 00:53:46,440
Speaker 1: two hours, and we realized that's probably too long for

914
00:53:46,560 --> 00:53:50,160
Speaker 1: a single episode. So we're going to conclude part one here,

915
00:53:50,920 --> 00:53:53,399
Speaker 1: but next week we're gonna pick up with part two

916
00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:55,640
Speaker 1: right where we left off. We got a lot more

917
00:53:55,719 --> 00:53:58,640
Speaker 1: to say, so Ben, we'll be back in part two

918
00:53:58,640 --> 00:54:01,680
Speaker 1: because he never left, and you will get to hear

919
00:54:01,719 --> 00:54:04,839
Speaker 1: the conclusion of this and Ben, tell people where they

920
00:54:04,840 --> 00:54:08,920
Speaker 1: can find your stuff. Sure, thanks Jonathan. Folks, if you

921
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:12,040
Speaker 1: haven't heard yet, you can find uh find me and

922
00:54:12,080 --> 00:54:14,920
Speaker 1: several other like minded compatriots at a show called Stuff

923
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 1: They Don't Want You to Know, which examines fringe theories

924
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:21,360
Speaker 1: and applies critical thinkings and stuff the mainstream media would

925
00:54:21,400 --> 00:54:25,200
Speaker 1: often rather not tell you about. And that is true. Uh.

926
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:27,680
Speaker 1: We also have a show called car Stuff that I

927
00:54:27,760 --> 00:54:31,560
Speaker 1: do with my with my co host and erstwhile guests

928
00:54:31,600 --> 00:54:35,360
Speaker 1: here on tech Stuff Scott Benjamin. Also your road trip buddy,

929
00:54:35,560 --> 00:54:37,879
Speaker 1: also my road trip buddy we take Ah, we took

930
00:54:37,920 --> 00:54:40,560
Speaker 1: a road trip together. You can find out about everything

931
00:54:40,600 --> 00:54:43,600
Speaker 1: that floats, fly, swims or drives on that show. So

932
00:54:43,680 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 1: thanks for having me on. And uh then, and I

933
00:54:46,640 --> 00:54:49,960
Speaker 1: hope that you guys come in for the next week's

934
00:54:49,960 --> 00:54:53,040
Speaker 1: podcast because I feel like we had some pretty solid

935
00:54:54,200 --> 00:54:58,120
Speaker 1: jokes and yeah, and we undermined the political system pretty sufficiently.

936
00:54:58,320 --> 00:55:01,960
Speaker 1: We launched a bit of a revel We may have

937
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:07,399
Speaker 1: we may have ventured slightly into rant territory a little bit.

938
00:55:07,640 --> 00:55:10,680
Speaker 1: Oh oh, I forgot that we have a brain stuff video, Jonathan.

939
00:55:10,800 --> 00:55:12,680
Speaker 1: You and I do a show called brain Stuff together.

940
00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:15,640
Speaker 1: We have a brain stuff video about how much it

941
00:55:15,680 --> 00:55:19,719
Speaker 1: costs to run for president. It's not as much as

942
00:55:19,800 --> 00:55:22,279
Speaker 1: you think. Just to run uh, and it's not as

943
00:55:22,320 --> 00:55:24,919
Speaker 1: hard to register. It's just really really it only gets

944
00:55:24,920 --> 00:55:27,080
Speaker 1: really really expensive if you want to win. Yeah, because

945
00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:30,440
Speaker 1: you you got to get in front of those voters faces. Uh.

946
00:55:30,600 --> 00:55:32,960
Speaker 1: We also have a great brain stuff video, the two

947
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:38,080
Speaker 1: of Us for twins. Oh, one of my favorites of

948
00:55:38,200 --> 00:55:43,040
Speaker 1: all times. Corny, I love it. I love it so much.

949
00:55:44,000 --> 00:55:45,839
Speaker 1: But we we did a lot of overacting in that one.

950
00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:48,320
Speaker 1: So guys, if you have any suggestions or questions, you

951
00:55:48,440 --> 00:55:51,279
Speaker 1: got any any people that I should have on either

952
00:55:51,360 --> 00:55:54,640
Speaker 1: to interview or to be a guest host, please give

953
00:55:54,680 --> 00:55:57,480
Speaker 1: me a shout let me know the email addresses tech

954
00:55:57,480 --> 00:55:59,719
Speaker 1: stuff at how stuff works dot com or dropped me

955
00:55:59,760 --> 00:56:02,279
Speaker 1: a lot and on Facebook or Twitter. The handling both

956
00:56:02,280 --> 00:56:05,359
Speaker 1: of those is text stuff hs W and I will

957
00:56:05,360 --> 00:56:12,600
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon for more on this

958
00:56:12,800 --> 00:56:15,279
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works

959
00:56:15,320 --> 00:56:25,520
Speaker 1: dot com