Mastodawn

Jan Wildeboer 😷

Of course, in the Netherlands, election loser Geert Wilders starts spreading messages suggesting a rigged election. It's what far-right people always do when they lose. But, unlucky for him, the Netherlands still votes on paper, so while a full recount will take time, it is perfectly possible to do. Democracy deserves the paper trail. It's something I will never stop preaching as loud as I can.

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#Netherlands #Election

Jan Wildeboer 😷

The history on how the Netherlands returned to paper ballots after it was shown that voting machines cannot be trusted sounds rather boring on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_by_country#Netherlands

"In September 2007 a committee chaired by Korthals Altes reported to the government that it would be better to return to paper voting. The deputy minister for the interior Ank Bijleveld said in a first response she would accept the committee's advice, and ban electronic voting"

Trust me, it was quite the drama at the time :)

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Electronic voting by country - Wikipedia

Magnus Ahltorp Oct 31

@jwildeboer Sweden never left paper voting. And in Sweden it’s incredibly simple. Small (A6) pieces of paper with one prominently printed party name (you pick the piece of paper of the party you want to vote for). The vote counters then sort them into very manageable heaps and count them. Extremely easy process to watch over.

Gary Houston Oct 31

@ahltorp @jwildeboer The Dutch papers are like this:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dutch_general_elections_2021_ballot_2.jpg

File:Dutch general elections 2021 ballot 2.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Ariaflame Nov 1

@ahltorp @jwildeboer Australia has bigger ones because of ranked choice voting for the Senate. But I wouldn't give it up for anything.

Magnus Ahltorp Nov 1

@ariaflame Yes, the Swedish system is very limited in what it can do: party voting in each subelection (local, regional, national) plus candidate voting inside each party. It could quite easily be extended to ranked choice candidate voting within each party, however.

And now that I think of it, parties could actually be allowed to have a (small) list of other parties that votes could be transferred to if they get too few votes themselves, still keeping most of the simplicity.

Current ballots:

@jwildeboer I hope we'll keep paper ballots in Germany, too. In the end, it's easier to fax a bunch of ballots as a computer screen doesn't fit into a fax machine.

Krist van Besien Nov 1

@jwildeboer Switzerland votes on paper. Switzerland also votes by mail. I have never gone to a polling station on election day here in my life.
There are lots of parties, but we avoid the big ballot by having a ballot per llist. So you pick the list you want to vote for out of the stack of 100+ lists you get, and put that in your voting enveloppe. Or, and that is rather unique, you can also make up your own list if you want, and send that in.

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦Nov 1

Interesting to see the different methods. This is what a Finnish ballot looks like. If a voter is unable to hand write, they can bring an assistant to the booth. Last spring the elections were special: two votes at the same time. Some confusion did occur.
@jwildeboer

I am totally in favour of paper ballots.

Whilst they are a bit more costly, this is a well established procedure, extremely transparent and almost impossible to hack or rig.

Also: They're not too bad in terms of efficiency.

In Switzerland, they vote 3 times per year (it's a direct democracy, so besides local, cantonal and federal elections, there are always issues to decide), and results are always in within a few hours.

@jwildeboer yeah, I remember that #NEDAP shit…

They tried to push these #VotingMachines in #Germany too but rightfully that shit got banned as well…

@jwildeboer unless some supreme court judge blocks a recount

Jan Wildeboer 😷

@crmsnbleyd Chances are extremely slim for that to happen, as far as I can see. Dutch society is based on consensus. A recount will only delay things. Not that much of a biggie.

@crmsnbleyd @jwildeboer Do we even have a supreme court?

Jan Wildeboer 😷

@irina Yes, the Hoge Raad: https://www.hogeraad.nl/english/ @crmsnbleyd

About the Supreme Court

As the highest court in the fields of civil, criminal and tax law in the Netherlands, the Supreme Court is responsible for hearing appeals in cassation and for a number of specific tasks with which it is charged by law.

Hoge Raad

@jwildeboer @crmsnbleyd O ja natuurlijk!

Zalasur 🐸🇺🇦Oct 31

@irina @crmsnbleyd @jwildeboer The Dutch are in the EU, so yes.

@irina @crmsnbleyd @jwildeboer ja maar met een andere functie dan het supreme court in de VS. Nederland heeft een heel ander rechtsbestel.

TheFwGuy 🇪🇺🇮🇹🇺🇸🖖Oct 31

@jwildeboer The problem is accountability, all around the world.
For example who screams about rigged election and then is debunked, who screams should pay somehow.
I'm sick enough to see all around the world people who DAMAGE others in name of greed or stupid ideologies and NOTHING happens to them !!!
Enough is enough !

@jwildeboer Therefore he now claims that full ballot boxes have been disappeared.

Jan Wildeboer 😷

@QuantumAspect And soon he will claim space lasers have disintegrated even more votes or something. The best solution: ignore him and his conspiracy theories. That's what I will do going forward.

Caspar van der Burgh Oct 31

@jwildeboer @QuantumAspect chemtrails ate his home work. Mr Wilders is a farcical bimbo of a man.

@jwildeboer This! It is possible to optimize on a paper-based voting/election system, but the ultimate source of truth should remain paper ballots selected by the voter in secrecy.

Among many other benefits, it's also about the only system of voting that can, in principle, be audited by *anyone*.

Yes, there are costs involved; but the costs of not having an ultimate source of truth about the outcome of a vote can be *immeasurably* larger.

#election #elections

Aurimas Černius Oct 31

@mkj @jwildeboer paper voting is auditable and annonymous and, to be fair, doesn't really cost all that much.
Once you involve computers, it's a compromise between auditing and annonymity, it still costs if people vote in centers, it opens up fraud if they can vote at home, not to meantion that those who don't come to vote in center typically don't care that much who to vote for and are easier target for populists.

@aurisc4 Indeed. Plenty of good reasons to maintain a paper trail as the source of truth. Remote/online voting opens up all sorts of issues, not just fraud as you mention but also things like how do you guarantee that any one person only votes once while simultaneously maintaining an impossibility of linking a particular vote to a particular person? ("Trust us" is not an answer to this.) People keep comparing to online banking but those are two *very* different problems.

@mkj
In Germany, mail-in ballots guarantee both by using two envelopes stuffed into each other. The first one has your info on it and is checked against a voter register to make sure you are eligible and don’t vote twice.

But the actual ballot is in the second, sealed envelope and is opened and counted separately and – at that point – anonymously.

All this happens publicly and the papers are kept.

@aurisc4 @jwildeboer

@Flo_Rian @mkj @aurisc4 @jwildeboer yes, in fact you can still recount the last election, cuz those ballouts have to be archived till the next election anyway...

@jwildeboer Do they need a court to order a recount? If so, I would assume it will be hard for them to present enough evidence for that, anyway.

Jan Wildeboer 😷

@marlin No, no court decision is needed. Every municipality can do a recount when they have reasons to do so, they can also be ordered to do a recount by the central election office and finally the parliament can decide on a full recount. See https://www.kiesraad.nl/verkiezingen/tweede-kamer/uitslagen/hertelling-en-herstemming (in dutch)

Hertelling en herstemming

Na een Tweede Kamerverkiezing kunnen gemeentelijk stembureaus, het centraal stembureau en de Tweede Kamer besluiten tot een hertelling van een of meer stembureaus. Alleen de Kamer kan besluiten tot een herstemming, in het geval de Kamer de stemming in een of meer stembureaus als ongeldig bestempelt.

@jwildeboer @marlin in Germany it's a similar story, as election monitoring is not just allowed but encouraged.

UkeleleEric Oct 31

@jwildeboer I still think paper elections are best - simpler, harder to go wrong, don't require technology (or even power supply), and, as you say, harder to rig.

JWcph, Radicalized By Decency Oct 31

@jwildeboer Just as importantly, though, people who make this claim with zero evidence should be told to fuck off as a matter of standard protocol.

Toni Aittoniemi Oct 31

@jwildeboer Now that you said it, here’s an interview of an election audit that says in the digital US voting systems, the data from Florida 2024 presidential election is showing signs typical of voting manipulation.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=uh-5P8FN8a0

#usa #florida #election2024 #votemanipulation

Florida Vote Audit: Election Truth Alliance Uncovers Red Flags, Nathan Taylor

YouTube

Jan Wildeboer 😷

@gimulnautti Good thing that the Netherlands decided against voting machines. That happened because there was quite a scandal where it was shown how comparably easy it is to manipulate them.

"In September 2007 a committee chaired by Korthals Altes reported to the government that it would be better to return to paper voting. The deputy minister for the interior Ank Bijleveld said in a first response she would accept the committee's advice, and ban electronic voting."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_by_country#Netherlands

Electronic voting by country - Wikipedia

@jwildeboer @gimulnautti yeah, I remember the Speedrunning of Chip Swaps on #NEDAP machines…

From xkcd: https://xkcd.com/license.html

Fardels Bear Nov 1

@number6 @jwildeboer

Pencil and paper. It's the gold standard.

Bill Zaumen Oct 31

@jwildeboer Also, a full recount is usually not necessary: you can do some random sampling and check that the vote on paper ballot matches the entry in a file containing all the votes. The number of samples you need depends on how close the vote is, and also on the risk of not detecting fraud that you are willing to accept.

A Catalyst Oct 31

@jwildeboer Tell him if he doesn't like it to move to America where they don't care about election results.

Tim Richards Nov 1

@jwildeboer @j_g_fitzgerald Good point. I'm glad that we still vote via paper ballots here in Australia.

Exactly… and Wilders deserves something else for doing this…

Juho Mäntysalo Nov 1

The paper votes are a good verification, but not unsurmountable.

To Putin, for example, videos of the officials stuffing the boxes is part of the process, with the logic of practice (perhaps) being undermining trust in the process itself.

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦Nov 1

That's why in actually free elections each polling place is observed by monitors from muitlple parties.

All the "excess" people and the "inefficiency" of paper voting is the point of the system. It's what maintains trust.
@iju @jwildeboer

Juho Mäntysalo Nov 1

@osma @jwildeboer

Some of its security theatre, though.

I once counted votes (might've been for europarliament, but might not as well), and the sealed box's bottom fell off while moving it to the counting table. In theory the box might have been stuffed.

There are good practices and they were observed, but during times of peace we easily become compliant and don't recognize signs of danger.

½

Juho Mäntysalo Nov 1

@osma @jwildeboer

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Few years after I read the notes of international observers who had been around for another counting I'd participated in.

Was something around the lines of that we saw several attack vectors that could have been abused, but none of the counters (we all represented different political parties) seemed concerned, so the trust in the system was intact, which was the main thing.

I feel these are anecdotes that should really be discussed more.

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦Nov 1

No human system is infallible. Volunteer election officials are bound to make mistakes and accidents will happen. It's true all those accidents should be documented and learned from to do better next time - and perhaps they are?

Some of the arrangements in the local + regional elections last spring were obviously better than others, for example.
@iju @jwildeboer

Anton Hunter Nov 1

Happy to hear he's lost though! Although I'm sure it's more nuanced than that.

HansUlrich Kaeufl Nov 1

@jwildeboer
You are so right. I just volunteered as election official for the next local elections in #bavaria to demonstrate my firm support for voting in presence on paper.

I am deeply convinced that the default mode of voting must be filling the ballot in full privacy, that's to say in a cabin in a polling station or days before, if necessary in a polling station mock-up in the city hall (my country offers this service).

As polling officer I have witnessed too many attempts to influence

Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE Nov 1

@dr_ulli @jwildeboer "Attempts to influence"

When I ran a polling station in Kosovo two of the rules were:

"No family voting, ie a family can't go into the booth together so that the husband/father makes sure all the women's votes go the right way."

"If a voter is illiterate, they can choose someone else from the queue to help them fill in the ballot."

So we didn't actually see a lot of this, but it was within the second rule for a woman to declare herself illiterate and nominate her husband to help her, this nullifying the first rule.

Though come to think of it this might not have worked in very many cases, because the polling station staff knew most people in the village so they'd quite likely know if a woman was lying about being illiterate.

HansUlrich Kaeufl Nov 1

@TimWardCam @jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.netoh

well this truely interesting; well I had it in Munich once
with one man where I was short of calling the police

@jwildeboer Elections are free and fair only if they win.
Free speech is only free for their hate speech.
Democracy is only if they rule.

Brian Nisbet Nov 1

@jwildeboer As I'm sure you know, we here in Ireland were fully intending to follow the Dutch into electronic voting, even using the same machines, until am amazing bunch of people persuaded the government of what a bad idea it was. Paper voting for the win in these kinds of situations.

@jwildeboer +9001%

#Germany's Constitutional Court made any other method but paper ballouts (and mail-in votes) illegal for the same reasons:

To enable transparency and enshure independent auditability by everyone eligible to vote without relying on external third parties and their expertise.

So yeah OFC everyone could demand a recount anytime and then they'll get to recount the paper ballouts as archived and sorted...

@jwildeboer Now is a good time to plug thkse @tomscott videos:

So yeah #ElectionFraud on behalf of #Trump using #VotingMachines is something I'd consider *a "statistical inevitably" because there are not just billions, but TRILLIONS OF U$D AT STAKE...

Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea - Computerphile

Auf YouTube findest du großartige Videos und erstklassige Musik. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder mit der ganzen Welt teilen.

YouTube

@jwildeboer I love this video that YouTuber Tom Scott made 10 years ago explaining in detail why electronic voting is a terrible idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI It even explains why the UK (or the Netherlands) uses pencils rather than pens to fill in the paper ballots.

Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea - Computerphile

Auf YouTube findest du großartige Videos und erstklassige Musik. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder mit der ganzen Welt teilen.

YouTube

Bård H. (lvl 48 🇳🇴)Nov 3

@eribosot @jwildeboer

If anyone is interested: Here is the five year update! 😊

https://youtu.be/LkH2r-sNjQs

Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea

YouTube