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  • your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦blogdiva@mastodon.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 4:05 PM

    ❝ The state says voting systems include several opportunities for voters to verify their choices:

    - The initial selection screen
    - A final review screen
    - The paper ballot or paper record generated by the system

    Voters who believe there is a problem should immediately tell a poll official before casting their ballot, the Secretary of State’s Office said.❞ wbir.com/article/news/politics

    that's the important part: voting in Tennessee is set up to triple check and stop before recording.🧵…

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  • your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦blogdiva@mastodon.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 4:11 PM

    🗣 EARLY VOTING IN #NEWYORK #NY #NYS #NYC STARTS SATURDAY

    NYS
    elections.ny.gov/

    NYC
    vote.nyc/
    nycvotes.org/

    Voter Registration Deadline
    Sat, October 24, 2026

    Mail Ballot Request Deadline - Online or Mail
    Sat, October 24, 2026

    Early Voting Period
    Sat, October 24, 2026 - Sun, November 1, 2026

    Mail Ballot Request Deadline - In Person
    Mon, November 2, 2026

    General Election Day
    Tue, November 3, 2026

    🧵…

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  • your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦blogdiva@mastodon.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 4:22 PM

    #NYC has 5 ballot initiatives that everybody needs to take a look at, especially the one about losening restrictions on selling the city’s public land.

    i have yet to make an opinion on the matter. here’s the OG text:
    vote.nyc/page/ballot-proposals

    and articles about them:

    NYC Election: Ballot Proposals Explained - Documenterpd NY documentedny.com/2026/10/15/ny

    Ballot questions ask NYC voters whether to cut red tape on outdoor dining, bike lanes - Gothamist - gothamist.com/news/ballot-ques

    🧵…

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  • your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦blogdiva@mastodon.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 4:34 PM

    LAST BUT NOT LEAST

    if November 3rd comes, you are ready to get your ballot but for some bizarre reason you are not in the rolls, YOU CAN STILL VOTE BY AFFIDAVID:

    ❝ Affidavit Voting: Whenever your name does not appear in the poll ledger or the voter registration or enrollment list, or you do not provide identification when required, you will be offered an affidavit ballot.❞

    New York State Voter's Bill of Rights | NYC Board of Elections - vote.nyc/page/voters-rights

    🗣 VOTE #NEWYORK #NYC

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  • Matt Blazemattblaze@federate.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 4:03 PM

    @blogdiva One of the problems with touchscreens and ballot marking devices (the kind evidently used in this Tennessee county) is that there is no way to distinguish a machine error (or malicious machine behavior) from an innocent mistake (voter touched the wrong place on the screen, etc). And in practice, it's almost always the latter. So no individual case is a "smoking gun".

    But it underscores how critical it is for voters to check the paper carefully!

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  • Matt Blazemattblaze@federate.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 4:07 PM

    @blogdiva This is also why experts recommend away from any kind of touchscreen voting device in favor of optical scan hand marked paper ballots (except for voters who require assistive tech).

    But that's a battle for another day; no county can change its voting equipment at this point in the election.

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  • Steve Herseyn1xnx@tilde.zone
    Oct 22, 2026, 4:45 PM

    @mattblaze @blogdiva
    Hand-marked optical scan balloting is, or should be, the gold standard for voting systems. It becomes (comparatively) easy to independently verify and recount vote totals, even in the event that the scanners are unavailable or their software is in doubt.

    Assistive devices to mark ballots for visually impaired voters are a valuable adjunct.

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  • clewclew@ecoevo.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 4:54 PM

    As I remember it, Washington State government had a big consultation with our earlier computer boom notables when planning our current voting system. 1990s?

    The techies were _completely_ in favor of paper ballots (and simple ones!) for both money and security reasons.

    @n1xnx @mattblaze @blogdiva

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  • Cycy@fedicy.us.to
    Oct 22, 2026, 5:11 PM
    Electronic voting is more complex, which I'd say is generally a bad thing. More moving parts, more opportunity for failure (or sabatoge).

    But it has to be open source.

    Nobody is talking about that. They're all talking about voter error, and machine failure, and sabatoge, but not that these giant voting machine companies are allowed to install complete black boxes, secret code, secret hardware, with no way for anyone to tell they're even counting your vote.

    All machines need to be open source and open spec, independently inspected and verified. Until then, the USA is not a democracy.
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  • Mark T. Tomczakmark@mastodon.fixermark.com
    Oct 22, 2026, 4:12 PM

    @mattblaze @blogdiva This times a million.

    We used to use touch screen machines in my county in Pennsylvania and I was responsible for helping voters. Voters had lost a significant amount of faith in the machines because they believed they were misrecording votes.

    I had no reason to believe the machines had any malicious flaws, or even issues the developer thought were errors.

    What I did see was users trying to use a machine balanced on little stilts with hands that were unsteady, and to steady the whole artifice they would grasp the bezel with their other hand... And their palm would touch the top left corner of the screen. And like most low resolution touch screen devices, the machine averaged the input touch.

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  • Urzlgooba42@mastodon.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 4:09 PM

    @blogdiva Missouri uses electronic, paperless. You fill out the scantron and it tells you "You were voter 649 for this location" and nothing more.

    It's intentionally impossible to verify for yourself.

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  • Urzlgooba42@mastodon.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 4:50 PM

    @blogdiva I've been trying to find better resources.

    We don't have "no excuse" vote by mail.
    Affidavit voting is a thread I can pull though.

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  • Paco Hopepaco@infosec.exchange
    Oct 22, 2026, 4:48 PM

    @blogdiva There was another simple and practical reason to dislike the direct recording electronic voting machines (DRE). You can only support as many simultaneous voters as you have machines in the room.

    When I was an election official in 2008, we had 8 DRE machines that were basically touch-screen laptops. Each one cost THOUSANDS of dollars. I could support 8 simultaneous voters. No more. Big mad rush? Tough. Wait until someone's done.

    Today we use paper and optical scanners. I can fill a room full of privacy partitions, chairs, tables, and pens. I can easily have dozens of people all reading and marking their ballots at the same time. And the scanner is quick.

    Big, mad rush? Get more tables, chairs and pens. That's usually pretty easy. Getting another DRE machine quickly in the middle of the day is essentially impossible.

    A queue at a ballot scanner is a really different issue than waiting for a turn at a machine that displays the ballot. If someone takes 10 minutes to think through their paper ballot, which is their right, that's no big deal. If they take 10 minutes at one of a small number of DRE machines, it affects other voters.

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  • Space Catitude 🚀TerryHancock@realsocial.life
    Oct 22, 2026, 5:19 PM

    @paco @blogdiva

    I mean, personally, I kind of enjoy filling in the little bubbles on our paper ballots.

    They offered something called an "express ballot" option. I didn't investigate or see the actual kiosk, but I think it's an electronic machine that prints out a filled-in ballot for you. Not sure about the benefits of that.

    I guess i could see that if you had mobility issues, like palsy, but as it is, I always carefully fill out the form and then double check to make sure I didn't make a mistake down-ballot.

    I presume I could get a replacement ballot if I screwed it up -- I've never had that happen yet.

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  • Paco Hopepaco@infosec.exchange
    Oct 22, 2026, 5:32 PM

    @TerryHancock If they're calling it "express" it might be an ExpressVote machine.

    This is a ballot marking device that lets a voter navigate the ballot using a braille-enabled controller for an audio ballot. It also includes large print letters on screen, and other assistive techniques (like translation into other languages). It ultimately marks a piece of paper that can be verified by visual inspection, and then the paper is inserted into ballot scanners the same way as the other paper ballots.

    The ExpressVote is what we use in Fairfax County. And we joke that it's neither "express" nor a "vote." It's slower and it doesn't record your vote, it just marks a ballot.
    @blogdiva

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  • Space Catitude 🚀TerryHancock@realsocial.life
    Oct 22, 2026, 6:29 PM

    @paco @blogdiva

    Yeah, that's probably it. At the time, I just wanted to vote and distrusted any changes.

    Of course, I'm in a very red county, so odds are they're not effing with OUR polling places. But I'm still suspicious of everything they do.

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  • D Ingramingram@mastodon.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 8:33 PM

    @paco @blogdiva I was an election worker in Australia in 2019 for the federal election. Direct marking of ballot papers with pencil and into the ballot box is so nice an simple for the voters. The most complex thing is folding up the 1m long Senate paper to fit.

    Hand counting is done on the night (my job) and scanning counting done over the next week to fully allocate prefernces (it's a ranked choice system, effectively voting for who you dislike least).

    Image attached toot
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  • taskettasket@mas.to
    Oct 22, 2026, 5:36 PM

    @blogdiva This is why computers shouldn't fill out forms for anonymous, high-stakes transactions.

    Think of all the people who don't bother to check... quite significant.

    Getting a piece of paper after the fact only helps in some cases; its very inferior to filling out a paper form manually and using a simple optical scanner on it.

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  • Barbara MonacoBarbramon1@mas.to
    Oct 22, 2026, 6:06 PM

    @blogdiva Virtually all counties in every state offer paper ballots in lieu of machine voting, but check your county rules.
    I stopped using machine voting after a machine stopped working at the exact moment I touched the screen to approve my ballot and record my vote. The screen went black, and I was unable to obtain a receipt. A poll worker assured me that my vote was counted, but no proof was available.
    Nothing could be done.
    After that, I always voted early at the election board, using a paper ballot that was provided upon my request.
    Glad to be in CA now, with secure mail in ballots. 🌞

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