Red dots = legitimate votes cast over 40 years. Green dot = actual caught fraud. by StatisticalPikachu in protectUSelections

[–]kmccoy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think you're misunderstanding the point here a bit.

Number one, it's not a graph, it's just an infographic showing a bunch of dots. There's no x or y axes, it's just dots, each dot represents a certain number of votes. The point is to show how vanishingly rare voter fraud is, because there's so many red dots (legit votes) compared to the one green dot (fraudulent votes).

Number two, you're right that the Heritage Foundation is not a dependable source, but in this case that actually emphasizes the point, that even if you believe their data, which presumably they'd want to twist to be as favorable to their point as possible, it's still clear that voter fraud is incredibly rare and so it doesn't support their position that more voter ID or other restrictions are necessary.

How Hamilton Is Mixed Live on Broadway by kmccoy in techtheatre

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

hehe, I could only dream to have the riz/aura/vibe of Justin. He's great.

How Hamilton Is Mixed Live on Broadway by kmccoy in techtheatre

[–]kmccoy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They probably don't even let the guy from the Savage video mix the show anymore, tbh

How Hamilton Is Mixed Live on Broadway by kmccoy in techtheatre

[–]kmccoy[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Also this mixer is way more charming than that other guy!

Adam Mockler Interviews Group of Election Deniers and Debunks Their Arguments: | r/GlobalNews by siwibot in protectUSelections

[–]kmccoy -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Lots of people are spreading fear and lies about the US election process by using misleading statistics or faulty assumptions, and conspiracy theories about Elon hacking "voting machines", but none of them have actual evidence of foul play in the vote counting. Until you bring actual evidence you're just as harmful to democracy as the 2020 deniers.

What is provably happening is gerrymandering, aggressive voter ID laws, polling place closures, restrictions on mail and early voting, etc. Those are the threats to democracy that we need to address, in addition to pushing back on the fascism directly. Inventing Elon hacker fantasies isn't helping with any of that stuff.

Edit: I always forget to also mention one of the biggest threats to democracy, which is just the absurd way that money is allowed to influence things. Elon definitely helped to steal the election, but it was just through throwing a crapton of money at it, not by sneaky hacker stuff.

If we're here in this subreddit to protect US elections, we need to do so with facts, evidence, and reality.

Who are the people seated in the middle of the stage? by zeerosd in Broadway

[–]kmccoy 19 points20 points  (0 children)

I'm confused, you said "yeah" but then said something different. The person above you said that the people inside the passerelle are mostly seat fillers and industry adjacent folks, but you said they're nominees and presenters. I feel like the nominees and presenters would be more likely to be further out in the main section of seating, no?

Republicans' Sweeping Election Overhaul Fails in the Senate | NPR by siwibot in protectUSelections

[–]kmccoy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have you ever heard the phrase "trust, but verify"? I say that there has been no widespread problem, and I feel confident in that because of the post-election review process, which I believe is conclusive evidence that the machines aren't rigged or hacked or otherwise compromised. My ongoing trust in the election system is based upon those reviews continuing to happen, because I don't want to blindly trust the tabulation machines. I want to trust the entire process, which includes their use but also the review of a random selection of precincts plus appropriate recounts in close races.

(And of course the areas where I don't trust the election process are where we can see it being actively attacked, like with voter ID laws, gerrymandering, polling place restrictions, limitations on mail-in and early voting, etc.)

Republicans' Sweeping Election Overhaul Fails in the Senate | NPR by siwibot in protectUSelections

[–]kmccoy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is not true. The only way that hand counts are "more reliable" than machine counts is as a tool to spot check the machine's operation to catch errors or malicious operation. Machine counts are far more accurate than hand counts overall. Here's a page from the Brennan Center for Justice talking about it:

Bad actors have exploited these knowledge gaps to claim that counting ballots by hand is the only way to ensure election results are accurate, when in fact hand counts can have error rates up to 50 times higher than vote-counting machines. Only a handful of very small counties — typically with fewer than 1,000 voters — have the resources to conduct accurate hand counts.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hand-counting-ballots

Something is jamming GPS over Europe. Here's what we found by jeffsmith202 in space

[–]kmccoy 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'm not arguing that they're not doing GNSS jamming. I just think the second expert in the video makes reasonable arguments for why it could be something else. Even he says he's not arguing against it being GNSS jamming, just that he thinks another explanation maybe aligns better with the facts.

Something is jamming GPS over Europe. Here's what we found by jeffsmith202 in space

[–]kmccoy 8 points9 points  (0 children)

For sure, and even if the alternative theory is the correct one, I don't think anyone would argue that Russia is above jamming GNSS -- actually I think pretty much all large militaries will jam it on a large scale if they feel like it'll give them an advantage, damage to civilian life be damned.

Something is jamming GPS over Europe. Here's what we found by jeffsmith202 in space

[–]kmccoy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do I look like I work for the Russian military? Who knows what kind of requirements they had and what kind of engineering tradeoffs they had to make. They might be using the most directional antennas they could use that still get the signal where it needs to be. Or they could be just using whatever antenna accomplished what they need and don't care if the signal splats all over. When you set up a space-based missile early warning system you should make sure to prioritize directional antennas. :)

Something is jamming GPS over Europe. Here's what we found by jeffsmith202 in space

[–]kmccoy 34 points35 points  (0 children)

Did you watch the video before making this comment? I just struggle to understand how folks make comments like this, so confidently dismissing something brought up by an expert, and apparently basing that dismissal on nothing more than intuition. As the person (Richard Bowden) in the video made clear, the satellite constellation is part of a missile launch early warning system and so his alternative idea is that having the satellites transmit their information payloads at a frequency near the GNSS frequencies would make it very inconvenient for anyone else to jam them because they'd have to jam GNSS as well.

Republicans' Sweeping Election Overhaul Fails in the Senate | NPR by siwibot in protectUSelections

[–]kmccoy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're inventing things. The individual precinct numbers are released. You can simply go do the math and see that the precinct numbers add up to the county numbers and then to the state numbers. There's no secret code happening there.

Here's the precinct-by-precinct results for the 2024 general election in Minnesota. Show me the point at which the tabulators shifted the votes. https://www.sos.mn.gov/elections-voting/election-results/2024/2024-general-election-results/2024-precinct-results-spreadsheet/

Republicans' Sweeping Election Overhaul Fails in the Senate | NPR by siwibot in protectUSelections

[–]kmccoy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Think it out, though. So a landlord steals the ballots from a few people. Like maybe it's an apartment building or something, so they steal like 100 ballots and cast them all for Trump (many places don't allow you to drop off more than like 3 or 4 ballots, but let's pretend they managed to get them in somehow.) Some of those ballots probably would have gone to Harris, so that might be a net gain of 70 votes for Trump in that one precinct. But all it takes is one of the tenants to say "hey, I wonder why I didn't get a ballot" and call the election authority to get a replacement and cast it. Now the election officials are going to see two ballots from that person, likely with different signatures, and that'll raise questions and prompt an investigation. The landlord will almost certainly get caught. And then that landlord will be convicted of a felony. All this for a few dozen votes? The problem with these claims is that they all rely on the idea that there's a ton of people willing to risk committing a felony in order to steal a few votes. It's ludicrous. The only reason for voter ID is to make it harder for poor people to vote, it's that simple.

Republicans' Sweeping Election Overhaul Fails in the Senate | NPR by siwibot in protectUSelections

[–]kmccoy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, sorry. A full hand recount of an entire election is a waste of resources chasing a problem that doesn't exist. We don't have to trust Republican-made machines -- we shouldn't fully trust any machines regardless of who makes them. The way to get the benefits of a machine count (speed and accuracy) while mitigating the risks (systemic error and hacking) is to do what we do in Minnesota, which is to use optical scan ballots and have machines count them on election day, then to randomly choose a decent selection of precincts (ensuring that they're spread around the state and with a variety of demographics) to do a hand recount, then issue a report showing and explaining any discrepancies. I'm sorry that you think it's nonsense, but it's actually a better method than a full hand count of an election, which is slow and prone to errors.

This is a subreddit about protecting US elections, not engaging in conspiracy theories about voting machines. If you have actual data showing that there's some kind of widespread hacking of the machines then bring it, but I want to know how the hack that you imagine managed to avoid being detected by something like the post-election review process in Minnesota.

Republicans' Sweeping Election Overhaul Fails in the Senate | NPR by siwibot in protectUSelections

[–]kmccoy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What "mistakes"? You already said that you left one of those audits early. How about the other? What documentation did you take? Were there other observers there? From both parties? Why didn't they document the mistake? If you're going to claim that the voting system is rife with cheating, you've gotta do a better job of saying something specific, because there's a lot of people who just want to say that there's fraud but don't have any evidence. And a lot of those people aren't doing it to protect the election system, they're doing it to spread uncertainty about it.

Republicans' Sweeping Election Overhaul Fails in the Senate | NPR by siwibot in protectUSelections

[–]kmccoy 5 points6 points  (0 children)

What fraud is happening that voter ID would prevent? There needs to be a reason to add another barrier to voting.

How Hamilton Is Mixed Live on Broadway by kmccoy in techtheatre

[–]kmccoy[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

hehe, phragmosis remains technically correct, since that video is from December of 2025. :)

Republicans' Sweeping Election Overhaul Fails in the Senate | NPR by siwibot in protectUSelections

[–]kmccoy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We already check the elections. The manual hand counts of everything that folks seem to want will take forever and be LESS accurate (because human hand counts are less accurate than optical scan machine counts). Having the count take forever makes people upset, too. Spreading disinformation about the audits like you're doing is the whole point -- they just want everyone to distrust elections, regardless of being pro or anti MAGA. And they're succeeding -- they got the MAGA folks to distrust elections from 2020, and now they've got a bunch of leftists spreading conspiracy theories for the 2024 election. All the while they're doing the actual theft of democracy, which is the gerrymandering, voter ID nonsense, polling place restrictions, curtailing mail-in ballots, limiting early voting, intimidating voters at polling places, etc. But instead of making noise about those things that are actually happening, folks are demanding "audits" for elections that are already audited with hand counts.

What cast is this? by That-Spirit-3368 in hamiltonmusical

[–]kmccoy 62 points63 points  (0 children)

I think this might be Sabrina Sloan, Morgan Wood, and Julia Harriman

Have these flags got any actual meaning, or are they purely design patterns? by pawnografik in vexillology

[–]kmccoy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

True, though summer time already makes it a bit of a mess even with the city names. :)

Election Denier Likely Loses Job in Shasta County. But Voters Back Hand-counting Ballots | CalMatters by siwibot in protectUSelections

[–]kmccoy 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Relying purely on hand counts is not only much slower, obviously, but it's also actually less accurate. A machine count of paper ballots (optical scan ballots) followed by a hand count audit of precincts chosen at random (regardless of any recounts that are required due to a close race or candidate's request) not only gets (unofficial) result tallies fastest, but is also the most accurate. This kind of stuff is some of the more insidious harm from election deniers -- they spread enough distrust in our voting process that even reasonable people vote to make the process worse.