858
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2026
858 points (99.0% liked)
Technology
89155 readers
4414 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Voting machines are vulnerable just like any other machine, and have been proven time and time again that they're not particularly difficult to hack. DEF CON has been doing it for almost ten years at this point. First time in 2017, with lots of articles covering it. The year after even TIME reported about how an 11 year old did it. In 2024 they got some attention again due to Trump going for second term. But I don't think much came of it...
The US is a flawed democracy, and has been on a steady decline for years.
I worry that comments like this can degrade the confidence in the system.
States run their own elections and they're usually administered at the county level. I can't speak for any other county but the way we do elections here are legit. This system is audited and administered by bipartisan teams. During elections I work with people from different parties and facilitate a system to ensure our voting process maintains integrity.
If you don't know how elections are administered where you live I encourage you to take an interest and get involved. We all have a duty here to oversee that we are administering elections with integrity.
The system is made up of many components, and voting machines are but one part. Even though they might be hackable in various ways, there are much more efficient ways these days to sway an election. The Cambridge Analytics scandal proved one efficient way, while there's now a growing belief that whoever controls the social media algorithm effectively controls public opinion.
And don't get me started on the two-party-system in the US...
So no need to hack the machines, really. The system is flawed/corrupt elsewhere more severely.
What about my voice? Can that be hacked? And my heart?
I'm sorry to say this to you. It wasn't difficult to make a voting machine in 2011. What we have are fraud machines. It's just politically impossible to make a secure voting machine, even though it's technically trivial.
Most democracies do not use voting machines because it’s impossible to trust anyone with creating and maintaining it.
If there is a way to change the vote tallies, then clever people will use it to enrich themselves.
The only way to circumvent most cheating is by paper ballots recounted manually in front of representatives of all candidates: recounted as many times as asked; and the ballots must be kept in public view until a winner is declared.
Putting the ballots into any other device negates some or all of the above.
And I would only have to say this in American political posts. But Americans are married to voting in ways that cannot be verified, except in some states. So most likely what’s seen as common sense in most of the world is either ignored or viewed with suspicion here.
Ask any student in the uk though; and I’m just echoing what has been taught in school to young children
thats why red states are solely using it as the majority, they know it is rigged to favor them.
funny how the machines are solelyused in only republican areas. in the west its all paper ballots. wether thats from mail in or in person.
Maybe it's more: funny how areas that use voting machines come up Republican.