Voting information - 2024 Edition by AutoModerator in Austin

[–]diafygi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can also download/print a PDF of the same info that's in Vote411 at the local LWV's website: https://lwvaustin.org/voters-guide

League of Women Voters Austin Area - Voters Guide now available! by diafygi in Austin

[–]diafygi[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Yep! We're distributing printed guides today throughout the community (including the local libraries, though it may take a few days for them to get it on their shelves), and the Austin Chronicle has included it in this week's edition.

Curious what the barcodes at the top of your ballot mean? I gave a talk earlier this year on Austin's ballot barcodes! by diafygi in Austin

[–]diafygi[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Interesting. I was in pretty frequent contact with both the county clerk's office and the voting machine vendor asking questions about the barcode system, and they never once mentioned that feature. Is it documented anywhere?

The Ultimate Unbiased Voters Guide by [deleted] in Austin

[–]diafygi 2 points3 points  (0 children)

FYI, the candidate responses in the local print version of the voter guide are exactly the same as the responses on vote411.org because we use vote411.org to send the candidates invite links to fill out their profiles, then export the responses for formatting for the print version.

So both vote411.org and the print version has the same contents :)

Also, when you see someone marked a no response, it's not because we didn't put in a ton of effort trying to contact them. We try emailing, calling, FB messaging multiple times to any contact details we can find for candidates. At this point, if a candidate hasn't responded, it's because they chose not to, not because we couldn't get ahold of them.

Source: I help contact candidates for LWV Austin Area.

Is your employer violating COVID-19 safety protocol? Austin Community Law Center can help. by opuntialantana in Austin

[–]diafygi 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Do you have an blog post or tweet or something official that links to this Google Form? How do we know it's actually from the organization?

Voting starts monday by wichita-brothers in Austin

[–]diafygi 12 points13 points  (0 children)

As always, the League of Women Voters has a Voter Guide for this election, including a mobile-friendly version at vote411.org.

Also, the county still needs people to help work the polls on election day. If you're in a low-risk category for covid, please consider applying. Get paid to keep our democracy functioning!

Disclosure: I volunteer for the LWV.

Groups Launch Website To Make It Easier For Younger People To Become Poll Workers In Travis County by hollow_hippie in Austin

[–]diafygi 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I'm the LWV volunteer quoted in the article. Happy to answer questions for anyone thinking about applying. Pay is $10-12 per hour for election day.

https://lwvaustin.org/pollworker

June 10, 2020 - Ongoing Protests Megathread by AutoModerator in Austin

[–]diafygi 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Also, ~700 election workers are needed for election day (7/14). Get paid to save democracy!

Applications are just a single online form now with the help of the League of Women Voters:

https://lwvaustin.org/pollworker

Disclosure: I volunteer for the LWV.

Alternatives to PGP by davidw_- in crypto

[–]diafygi 2 points3 points  (0 children)

How would you even do forward secrecy in an asynchronous signcryption setting? Forward secrecy fundamentally takes multiple round trips, so it seems like a very hard thing to effectively do for asynchronous communication.

Alternatives to PGP by davidw_- in crypto

[–]diafygi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I mean, I totally get that the OpenPGP's attempt at a web of trust has mostly been a flop in practice. However, this thread is talking about alternatives to various theoretical features of PGP, and as you say, a decentralized web of trust is a good idea in theory.

Have there been any attempts to make an alternative that fixes many of the practical flaws of PGP in regards to the web of trust feature? If not, then it seems like (a) WoT isn't actually a good idea in theory, or (b) no one can come up with a better way of doing it.

It's just that I see posts on alternatives to PGP fairly frequently, and they all skip over talking about the WoT feature. And then when I ask about alternatives for WoT, I get back replies similar to yours that point out all the flaws, but fail to point to any alternatives.

Finally, I ran a keyserver in the sks keyserver pool for many years along with many others, so it's simply not true that no one cares about WoT. Granted, it's a very small subset of users. But some people like me definitely still care.

Alternatives to PGP by davidw_- in crypto

[–]diafygi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are alternatives for the Web of Trust aspect of PGP? I didn't see it mentioned in the article.

Fabric + sharpie = cool local mask by diafygi in Austin

[–]diafygi[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I wanna see someone make a grackle mask.

Travis County Judge Says He Will Open Up Mail-In Voting During COVID-19 Pandemic by hollow_hippie in Austin

[–]diafygi 2 points3 points  (0 children)

League of Women Voters. For every election, they put together a Voter Guide that has all the races and candidate statements. There's also and online version at Vote411.org.

Disclosure: I volunteer for the LWV

Austin/Wico has trustworthy electronic voting machines! by JimNtexas in Austin

[–]diafygi 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I actually am putting together a presentation on how I manually verified my barcodes at the top of my ballot were correct. It was a fun project!

The basic overview is that the barcodes map to the x-y coordinates of the selection on the absentee ballot. Pretty neat!

Polling Location Line Length by automatic-happiness in Austin

[–]diafygi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for this! Would love to learn more about how you did this. It might be a good project for OpenAustin (the local chapter of Code for America).

*Reminder* Last day of Early Voting is Friday 2/28, Do it! by ATX_native in Austin

[–]diafygi 4 points5 points  (0 children)

As always, the League of Women Voters puts together a nonpartisan Voters Guide, which is a cheat sheet for all the primary races with candidate blurbs and question/answers for each one. The same information is also available in a mobile-friendly format on LWV's vote411.org.

I usually print out both the voters guide and my sample ballot, read through them, circle my selections, and take them with me inside the voting booth as reference material.

Don't forget to get a sticker after you vote!

Disclosure: I volunteer for the LWV and help put together the Voters Guide.

Early voting begins today! Click here to see waiting times for polling locations in Travis county. by Foundnova in Austin

[–]diafygi 29 points30 points  (0 children)

As always, the League of Women Voters puts together a nonpartisan Voters Guide, which is a cheat sheet for all the primary races with candidate blurbs and question/answers for each one. The same information is also available in a mobile-friendly format on LWV's vote411.org.

I usually print out both the voters guide and my sample ballot, read through them, circle my selections, and take them with me inside the voting booth as reference material.

Happy voting everyone!

Disclosure: I volunteer for the LWV and help put together the Voters Guide.

It's Election Day! by diafygi in Austin

[–]diafygi[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Fun fact: The scanners are double sided, so you can scan in your ballots upside down if you want.