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[Frozenprince]

It is true that any dollar can be substituted for any other dollar, and it's also true that some things are more of a waste of money than other things, and this is a gigantic waste of money engineered by a shyster that's preying on peoples unresolved anxiety disorders by selling them bullshit.

Thank you. Yes, people can always donate instead of gambling, or donating for a long odds victory.

But that's still something that can net you a positive, gambling is an act that can net you something.

This nets nobody anything. It's a party using peoples fear to beat money out of them with a stick without having to call it a donation. It's disgusting. This is no different than a cult taking peoples money because "THE METEOR IS GUN HIT".

 

[George Washington]

This is a waste of money. In addition, she lost Pennsylvania and Michigan so I don't see how this will change anything...

 

[msdstc]

Why so surprised? How much do people spend gambling or on the lottery every year? People also even donate to long-shot candidates for office still.


there's always a "better" use for someone else's money.

Yeah and this is a particularly gross waste of money given the nonsense it's been built upon.

 

[Jawbreaker]

If only we had dug a really big hole with it.

What if we contribute money to dig a really deep hole, only to bury the millions raised for this endeavor in that hole? I mean, the outcome won't be much different.

 

[KingBroly]

They should do a recount in Texas and Mississippi, too.

You never know....

I want an audit and recount of California and Nevada

Those states. Especially California. BUT ESPECIALLY Nevada. I smell shenanigans aplenty there.

 

[broncobuster]

Well, I very much doubt it will achieve the desired result but I hope something (anything) of value comes from the $5 million in donations. And they still want another two million for a 3DS version.

 

[NullPointer]

[...] It's a party using peoples fear to beat money out of them with a stick without having to call it a donation. It's disgusting.

Fear of easy to hack machines being hacked in an election rife with hacking is rational.

 

[steveovig]

My guess is nothing will change but with this election, I'm not ruling out anything.

 

[commedieu]

Vaxqueen!!!!

No vaccinations, no victory!!!

 

[Boney]

It's hard to believe the amount of good that could be done in the world if the $5 million specifically donated for this had been used for literally any charitable endeavor.

If we're going by that, the amount of money that gets poured for the campaigns is just tone deaf. An entire year of campaigning is just ridiculous

 

[Brakke]

This critique is missing the concept of measurable value. It is not simply about realizing that money can be spent on anything.

People express their preferences by spending money. People who donated to this effort do value it, more than they value other things they could've spent they're money on. We already did measure the value of this: it's worth $5 million to people. To say "I have a different set of preferences than those people" is silly. We already know that. "My preferences are Better or More Important than theirs" is also silly. That's the definition of preferences. I think mine are better than yours. That's why I have them. The whole thing collapses on tautology.

Bring an actual criticism to bear. You gotta say "this thing isn't valuable because _____." There's no persuasion in disdain.

 

[Ihyll]

I think this is more about trying to expose the possible intervention of a foreign nation in our election.

 

[Nibiru]

This is a waste of money. In addition, she lost Pennsylvania and Michigan so I don't see how this will change anything...

The argument that is being made by some is that it isn't about changing the result but more about determining electronic voting fraud or hacking. I don't understand how they would learn that through a recount and I think Michigan was paper ballots? So there was no hacking there. The actual purpose seems to be different things to different people.

Fear of easy to hack machines being hacked in an election rife with hacking is rational.

Don't they have to be hacked directly with a usb or something? I don't think the voting machines have wifi. If that is the case there would need to be Russian agents directly hacking these units on site at multiple locations no?

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

So assuming this changes nothing, is there something we can at least learn about the integrity of our voting system through this exercise?

 

[Frozenprince]

Fear of easy to hack machines being hacked in an election rife with hacking is rational.

This isn't using peoples fear of electoral tampering, it's using peoples fear of Trump to go "SEE WE CAN CHANGE IT WE'LL GET A RECOUNT!" when, even if you account for a scale of fuckery never seen before in human history, is not going to account for a scalable difference of over 60K votes, which was the margin Trump won by.

Even if it does, she still lost Michigan and Pennsylvania, so Hillary still lost, no matter what.

So this solves nothing. It's just using peoples fear to bilk money out of them.

 

[Palette Swap]

Are they burning that money just because of that crank who essentially said "there's something going on with these figures whose context I'm ignoring" ?

 

[Stumpokapow]

People express their preferences by spending money. People who donated to this effort do value it, more than they value other things they could've spent they're money on. We already did measure the value of this: it's worth $5 million to people. To say "I have a different set of preferences than those people" is silly. We already know that. "My preferences are Better or More Important than theirs" is also silly. That's the definition of preferences. I think mine are better than yours. That's why I have them. The whole thing collapses on tautology.

Bring an actual criticism to bear. You gotta say "this thing isn't valuable because _____." There's no persuasion in disdain.

"Fraud is a bad thing"

"No, the people involved consented to being defrauded, therefor this is not an actual criticism"

Thanks Ayn.

 

[soco]

Yeah and this is a particularly gross waste of money given the nonsense it's been built upon.

I agree that it's built on nonsense, but I don't think it's a waste if they do a full audit. There's nothing wrong with checking equipment and verifying the process was fair -- especially if it gives people confidence in such a process or equipment. Let's be honest, does anyone know exactly how much time and effort any state puts into checking these machines or overseeing security?

Sure there will still be folks that think it's never going to trust it, but they're a minority. If we have to wait for crazy folk to initiate an audit, to verify that these processes are secure, i think that's hardly a waste compared to shit we regularly waste money on.

 

[Moon_frogger]

It's hard to believe the amount of good that could be done in the world if the $5 million specifically donated for this had been used for literally any charitable endeavor.

I don't follow this reasoning. What about all the kickstarter campaigns, gofundmes, and patroons, are you gonna lament those too? 5 million is a drop in the pond compared to whatwas spent during this election. If you don't think it's money wisely spent, fair . I don't think it's fair to frame it as some sort of humanitarian travesty though

 

[NullPointer]

This isn't using peoples fear of electoral tampering, it's using peoples fear of Trump to go "SEE WE CAN CHANGE IT WE'LL GET A RECOUNT!" when, even if you account for a scale of fuckery never seen before in human history, is not going to account for a scalable difference of over 60K votes, which was the margin Trump won by.

Even if it does, she still lost Michigan and Pennsylvania, so Hillary still lost, no matter what.

So this solves nothing. It's just using peoples fear to bilk money out of them.

That's your take, and doesn't align with any of the major new stories I've read on this. The computer scientists that found what they consider to be anomalous data from electronic voting and have pushed for a recount on that basis have stated that they don't expect the election results to change, but that this kind of an audit should still be run to protect the process.

 

[Stumpokapow]

I don't follow this reasoning. What about all the kickstarter campaigns, gofundmes, and patroons, are you gonna lament those too? 5 million is a drop in the pond compared to whatwas spent during this election. If you don't think it's money wisely spent, fair . I don't think it's fair to frame it as some sort of humanitarian travesty though

I do follow and track gaming Kickstarters in large part to highlight fraud and advise people not to give to high-risk or misleading projects, so yes I do lament fraud in those endeavors too. I also agree that election spending is largely a waste of money, which is why my paid job involves working on research related to election spending. Let me know if you need my vaccination records too before I can point out that this is a gigantic fraud.

 

[AstroLad]

I'm the opposite of a tinfoil-hat person, but e-voting needs way better security and auditing. Literally the fucking vending machine at Motel 6 does a better job.

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

So assuming this changes nothing, is there something we can at least learn about the integrity of our voting system through this exercise?

Yea that Republicans are really good at making it near impossible for people who vote Democrat to not be able to vote

Democrats need to mobilize and use their massive amounts of fundraising money to go and get a major organization effort started to find these peoples proper identification to get ID's in the states that have been robbed because of ID laws.

 

[Crayon]

It's only 5 million bucks. Geez.

 

[msdstc]

People express their preferences by spending money. People who donated to this effort do value it, more than they value other things they could've spent they're money on. We already did measure the value of this: it's worth $5 million to people. To say "I have a different set of preferences than those people" is silly. We already know that. "My preferences are Better or More Important than theirs" is also silly. That's the definition of preferences. I think mine are better than yours. That's why I have them. The whole thing collapses on tautology.

Bring an actual criticism to bear. You gotta say "this thing isn't valuable because _____." There's no persuasion in disdain.

If that were universally true? Sure. The problem is far too many people are thinking this actually has merit. Conspiracy theorists exist on both sides wether you know it or not. People on the left can fall for fake news stories as well, and imo the reporting of the mysterious hacker was as useful as fake news. For fuck sake the article itself even said there was no actual proof of what they were claiming. Multiple analysts came out and ripped the article as misleading and false. This is a waste of time and energy.

Point being? If people weighed this and legitimately said "yeah this helps protest Trump", then they analysed wrong. If you wanna push back against Trump stand with the people he hurts. Give this money to help fight climate change, donate this money to those who need it in the event they can't afford healthcare going forward. Donate to the DNC. Do something that's positive and will help us limit the damage Trump can do.

Instead we just gave money to a scam artist, who has been bullish on vaccinations, inferred that Clinton was scarier than Trump, and now has been vague about the money needed and the implications of the recount. It's now revealed that leftover money goes straight to the green party. What a waste.

 

[draetenth]

Even if by some miracle Wisconsin did go to Clinton. It still won't be enough.

I would imagine that if (and big if there) Wisconsin flipped, it would cast a lot of doubt in the election and make people start to question the results for other states.

 

[KingBroly]

So assuming this changes nothing, is there something we can at least learn about the integrity of our voting system through this exercise?

It depends on what happens here. There are a number of scenarios.

IMO, the most likely scenario, given Stein's positions, and how much she DESPISES Hillary Clinton, is you'll see that votes were taken from Stein and given to Clinton. How many? Uh...a small amount. IF it goes the way Stein wants it to, mind you.

Stein talked about doing this last year, and the Green Party has done this multiple times in the past. So I think she saw an opportunity to leech off of upset Clinton supporters and perhaps try and shove it in their faces. Whether or not she can get recounts done or not isn't really important to her, but to bolster the Green Party's notoriety.

 

[soco]

I'm the opposite of a tinfoil-hat person, but e-voting needs way better security and auditing. Literally the fucking vending machine at Motel 6 does a better job.

i don't even care about the e-voting as much as i care about small government computer system security. I would not be surprised if some the computers used to store vote counts and transmit them are running an unpatched version of windows 98 without a firewall.

 

[msdstc]

Are they burning that money just because of that crank who essentially said "there's something going on with these figures whose context I'm ignoring" ?

Absolutely. Again this is why I and others continue to compare this to the same fake news articles and conspiracy theories people so often mock others for falling for. Confirmation bias is a hell of a thing.

 

[Extra Sauce]

any additional money not used for the recount would be used to train Green Party candidates for local office.

We just lost 2020 didn't we.

 

[cdyhybrid]

If they would have spent that money on time travel research we could have gone back and kept Trump from winning.

What a waste.

 

[Chezzymann]

Trump is going to be president. This will do nothing, money should have gone to charity.

 

[Amikami]

Even if by some miracle Wisconsin did go to Clinton. It still won't be enough.

If just one state flipped, it would be grounds for suspicion I would think and would warrant an entire audit, but who knows. Not one state should flip if the votes were counted accurately and honestly

 

[Intheflorsh]

So, the outcome of this will be that Hillary still loses, opportunistic lawyers will make some bank, and the fucking loonies over at the green party will enjoy some additional funding. Let it never be said that liberals are any less susceptible to conspiracy than conservatives.

 

[KingBroly]

i don't even care about the e-voting as much as i care about small government computer system security. I would not be surprised if some the computers used to store vote counts and transmit them are running an unpatched version of windows 98 without a firewall.

My ideas for fixing the US voting system:
1 - No Universal ID card that's free (I guess paid through taxes so it's not free) for US Citizens ONLY
2 - Machines must be made and paid for by not-profit entities or by the State Government with massive supervision from various sources
3 - PREFERABLY Touschreen/Electronic Ballots with a Paper Trail Receipt (where I live in NC, we're going to full paper next year, but I love our current setup, so it makes me sad)

In PA, their machines are from the 80's.

 

[Hyperactivity]

2016 wants to rev the engine up again

Spoiler

Spoiler

Given that it's still 2016, I expect a 270 to 268 EV result

 

[Bessy67]

I'm confused, if they think Hillary lost in these states because of hacking of electronic polling but can't prove said hacking of electronic polling, how will a recount change anything?

 

[Sweeney Tom]

I'm confused, if they think Hillary lost in these states because of hacking of electronic polling but can't prove said hacking of electronic polling, how will a recount change anything?

Exactly

 

[theignoramus]

It's hard to believe the amount of good that could be done in the world if the $5 million specifically donated for this had been used for literally any charitable endeavor.

Michigan is certifying their results on Monday & Clinton needs to take Pennsylvania, Wisconsin & Michigan to defeat Trump right? Its over.

 

[Frozenprince]

Donate to the individual states electoral commissions bureau if you want them to actually do anything productive about preventative voter fraud measures.

 

[ErasureAcer]

People literally just want to throw money away on a vain hope huh.

Not, you know, donate to NASA who's funding is gonna be gutted. Not donate to an organization providing meals to Africa. Or a place that tries to install plumbing in remote areas so everybody has access to clean running water?

Sounds about right.

We could fund all those things and 5000 more if Republicans would stop giving tax breaks to the rich.

 

[deadscreensky]

Good.

Regardless of whether it changes things, with this election especially and its preponderance of foreign influence, including wide ranging hacks, we could use some peace of mind.

People need faith in the process, now and for the future.

Exactly. It's probably not going to change anything, but at least it means people won't be wondering and getting paranoid for the next 8 years.

 

[Zimbardo]

what a waste of cash. nothing is gonna come of this.

should have given that money to the homeless, the vets, etc ...some worthwhile cause.

 

[Amikami]

what a waste of cash. nothing is gonna come of this.

should have given that money to the homeless, the vets, etc ...some worthwhile cause.

I agree with everyone with similar sentiments I'm assuming however that when you raise money for one reason and use it for another unstated reason, it doesn't go over well and let's be honest, this sort of money is never raised for such things. *sigh*

 

[gamechanger87]

So, the outcome of this will be that Hillary still loses, opportunistic lawyers will make some bank, and the fucking loonies over at the green party will enjoy some additional funding. Let it never be said that liberals are any less susceptible to conspiracy than conservatives.

Correct. Most of the funding is going to the voting rights attorneys who pushed this kickstarter with Jill's backing. They just got a few million dollars to hold them over until the next election.

This isn't a hacking recount, this is literally lets double check the ballots and see if a few hundred move around.

 

[OrangeGrayBlue]

So, the outcome of this will be that Hillary still loses, opportunistic lawyers will make some bank, and the fucking loonies over at the green party will enjoy some additional funding. Let it never be said that liberals are any less susceptible to conspiracy than conservatives.

Eh? Leftist loonies got like 1.2% of the national vote. Conservative loonies got like 46% and won the presidency.

 

[Dekutulla]

Lol, with the GOP taking Congress and Senate, does anyone even want Hillary to be president? I'd much rather the GOP be the sole reason for blame and for the democrats to continue being pounded by the L so they can get their shit together. Also, what's in it for the green party? I don't understand the sudden doubts

I'd rather have four more years of gridlock than a Trump presidency

but the recount isn't going to change that anyways, soooo

 

[Atom Heart Mother]

what a complete waste and a scam. If this was such a concern, the Democrats would've filed for a recount. Nobody asked the fucking shitty Green Party to do this. Accept the loss, move on.

They're not going to find a hidden drawer with a shitload of Hillary votes.

 

[Dirca]

Gonna get bonus lulz when it's determined this doesn't change anything

 

[soco]

Donate to the individual states electoral commissions bureau if you want them to actually do anything productive about preventative voter fraud measures.

This makes the assumption that states have an ability to donate to just those organizations, and that it wouldn't be wasted in some other way.