It is very secure. Washington state has been using it for years. Every single citizen gets a ballot mailed to them for every election. It does wonders to increase voter turnout (of course, high voter turnout is largely detrimental for Republicans in elections, so they don't like this practice).
Actually it is probably more secure than voting machines.
I have worked as a signature verifier for two elections in my state.
There is a physical ballot and signature.
For signature verification alone there are at least two people reviewing together each signature submitted with a ballot to match with multiple past signatures on file. The voting portion of the ballot is not seen by us, we only review the signature so there is no way to flag a signature based on how you vote. Any flagged signature goes up to further review by superiors.
Ballots with votes that are not crystal clear to the tally machines (if you put an x in the vote bubble instead of filling it out, if you used a pencil/colored pen instead of a blue or black pen, erasures, etc) are physically reviewed in person by a team of two people and if still uncertain flagged and sent to review by superiors.
Ballots put in the tally machines are manned by at least two people.
Cameras are placed throughout the workplace.
All ballots are locked behind chain link spaces when not in process.
The ballot processing stations are in a secure space open space, anyone can come and watch as we work. You just can’t get closer than about 8 to 12 feet of the work spaces cordoned off by rope.
The tldr, a lot of measures are in place to make sure everything is in the open, machines and people are double checking each other to prevent machine/human error/bias, and there is a evidence trail of paper/witnesses/logs/recording.
Not only did the police target this black man for essentially no reason (really? You chase a driver, which is dangerous to the entire community, because he's missing a mud flap?), the responding officers gave mixed commands at the same time, and then assaulted him with a dog while he had already surrendered.
Anyone want to bet that the culprit here gets a paid vacation while his department investigates and finds no wrongdoing?
We need to redo the police system in the US from the ground up.
A few years back there was a scandal where a whole chain of mental health facilities was doing this. They would buy local mental hospitals, not change the name of disclose that they’d been bought, and start committing everyone, no matter what, for exactly as long as their insurance would cover, then kicking them to the streets.
Took me a bit to dig up the story – it was these guys:
It's not clear if the officer responsible for directing the dog to attack Rose is facing any disciplinary action.
Of course not, any disciplinary action will wait until the department's PR department has established whether or not there is a significant media backlash. Bad publicity (potentially spurring ethical reform) is the only reason a cop ever gets disciplined, after all.
They are also worse than random chance at actually doing the one thing police claim technology can't match: drug and bomb sniffing. Dogs just want to go take a nap or get a treat, and their handlers are cops who just think everything is suspicious so of course they get lots of "hits".
It's essentially the same bullshit that hoodwinked the world with Coco the "signing" guerilla for a couple of decades.
The fact that handlers can fake a "hit" wherever and whenever they want is the entire point, and also the reason they resist moving over to technical solutions. Those technologies also come with logging, which is another point against them as far as cops are concerned.
They’re still around to use as bullshit “probable cause” to hassle and search people’s cars for drugs. Because the war on drugs was a good idea, and dogs have not repeatedly been shown to be complete bullshit. They indicate when their handler wants them to. It’s been proven so many times. Yet, it’s probable cause.
Even if it was a known murderer, there is zero practical reason to engage in a projected car chase.
Not to mention, why do we need armed militia to enforce traffic laws? you know, the thing that usually has a maximum penalty in the hundreds of dollars? These aren't even real crimes! Somehow we figured out that parking meters don't need guns or tasers, but why did we stop there?
Sounds like Jadarrius had a good reason to not stop when the cops tried to flag him down for nothing at all. He knew this was going to be a "driving while black" stop and his life was at high risk.
Involving others so there are witnesses may have saved his life, or at least more serious injuries. The driver is alive, so he at least accomplished that part.
Once they get him stopped, get him out of the vehicle, and have his hands up, he's surrendering. He got multiple conflicting commands....and with the presence of the dog he was rightfully concerned they were going to have it tackle him...that's exactly what happened. So his concern about the dog probably caused him to ignore a command or two, because he was fearing the dog attacking him. Take the dog out of the equation and he probably surrenders peacefully and obeys commands. Conflicting commands and the presence of the dog are absolutely the problems here.
They will be put on paid leave and any lawsuit filed will be thrown out because of qualified immunity...even though the dog never should have come out of the holding vehicle. Could have a case of excessive force, but I doubt it. All of it will be excused as part of the police work, even the mauling.
The scenario you describe, and a limitless spectrum of other possibilities that could exist during any encounter, are the source of so much frustration for me when these events come up.
The person being interacted with could be exceptionally fearful, panicked, on drugs, drunk, having a medical event, deaf, experiencing mental health issues, severely autistic, or just stupid.
YET that person, who could be ANY of those things or more, becomes a justified target for violence the moment they fail to comply with an order that they may not be capable of understanding, or may be too deep into their own circumstances to understand or even process.
Meanwhile, the police they interact with who are (presumably, ostensibly) sober, well trained, mentally well, have backup available, and have a number of different options available to them, will always get a free pass for taking the opportunity to deploy that violence until and unless there's enough public outcry to force some action, and sometimes not even then.
How does that not strike anyone who reads it as an unacceptable framework for policing?
He was missing a mud flap. Certainly pulling guns and releasing dogs was required. Couldn’t they just send his employer a ticket or call that “how’s my driving?” number on the truck?
Paxton’s career will be lost to history because of the gravity of the moments around him being heavier, but he is truly a special kind of monster. May he reap every single ounce of what he sowed.
nbcnews.com
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