Posted on 03/29/2025 6:04:46 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
President Donald Trump’s new executive order on regulating elections is striking for the way it asserts broad powers for the executive branch that go far beyond what’s prescribed in the Constitution or sanctioned by courts. Experts expect the order to face legal challenges for that reason.
This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
But what’s also striking about the order is how it seeks to dictate some arcane details of the way voting systems work in some of America: Specifically, it bans the machine-readable barcodes or QR codes that are sometimes printed on ballots to help speed up vote counting.
Trump framed this move as a return to secure, paper-based voting. But in reality, the vast majority of Americans already use paper-based systems to vote, and barcodes and QR codes are an integral part of some of those systems. Getting rid of them as quickly as Trump envisions could create confusion, hassles, and steep costs for the jurisdictions that use them, which include some of America’s largest cities. It would slow down vote counts, and wouldn’t necessarily improve their accuracy.
So the language of the Trump order naturally raises questions about how barcodes and QR codes are used in our voting systems, and why the administration is directly targeting these codes as an urgent threat to election security and integrity.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
We used to have good elections without barcodes.
Other countries have good elections without barcodes.
It’s not rocket science. And, if it is, ask Elon to help.
Here in NC, that barcode links my Request For Ballot to the actual ballot that I fill out.
Anyone can tell exactly how I voted.
A barcode is really just a font. If you use enough of them in the same format you eventually can learn to read them
IMHO a barcode is essentially a serial number to ensure ballots are unique. Without serial numbers it’s too easy to add fake ballots to the election. Oh, here’s another box of ballots we missed.
No kidding. Having a text printout that you can "check" means absolutely nothing. You can't look at that QR code and know what it really says.
No bar codes. No QR codes. No one can make a mechanical machine that can count votes? Like punch cards? Anything computerized can be made to cheat. And leftists always cheat. I can not believe this administration has STILL not come up with a solution—-they HAD EIGHT YEARS
Alternet is one of those creepy, far-left sites found on the MSN’s homepage with all the other creepy, far-left “news” sites MSN pimps for.
Yes.
They give out skewed bar codes to reject ballots.
A lot of tricks are used.
bkmk
personally I like the purple ink dip as a guard against double dipping at the poles in addition to actually being required to vote in person. remember friends, “IF it’s important to you you will find a way and if not you will find an excuse” applies to voting too.
“serial number to ensure ballots are unique”
Correct. But how do you make ensure government is NOT recording which ballot you received and how you voted?
I asked Grok about unique numbers on ballots. It answered all the systems in place (mainly in states that rely on mailed ballots) have the tracking number on the ENVELOPE, not on the BALLOT itself. That does nothing to prevent a nefarious cheat from inserting 10,000 fraudulent ballots somewhere in the chain of custody.
We used to have good elections without barcodes.
It is a binary-coded bit stream.
When someone gets this weirdly upset over something totally obscure, you know there’s a suspicious hidden motive.
Remember “pulling the lever”?
I never got to actually use those cool machines. I think it was my last mock high school Election Day.
“...it bans the machine-readable barcodes or QR codes that are sometimes printed on ballots to help speed up vote counting.”
I had Grok “DeepThink” look into this. Based on the PUBLIC information it can access, it found only one case of a unique code being printed on the ballot itself and that is in New York State. Grok says the code is not accessible to the voter. I have no idea who that would work. Maybe it’s a stenographic code hidden on the paper?
The article seems to be confusing BALLOT and ENVELOPE.
“ IF it’s important to you you will find a way and if not you will find an excuse” applies to voting too.”
For so many people today, voting is not important. They are completely uninformed or even misinformed and yet still vote. Their vote is based on someone picking up a paper from them or voting by mail after believing the lies from the left such as… Republicans will take away your Social Security… Etc..
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