How the fuck is the election infrastructure even allowed to be privately owned?? I know the US is a capitalist country but fuck me, there have to be limits. For the democracy the US seems to enjoy forcibly spreading around the world to work, elections MUST be independent and verifiable. The fact anyone thinks it's OK that this infrastructure can be bought and sold is just mind-boggling.
this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2025
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Capitalism does not require democracy. In fact democracy stands in the way of the incentives people who own significant capital have. Soooo, if democracy stands in the way of profit growth... it might have to go. 🥹 It happens gradually. We say there's got to be a limit. They say OK and negotiate where the limit is. Sometime later they ask to renegotiate the limit a bit in their favour. We say, not a big deal, fine. Rinse and repeat until the limit has changed enough for them not to have to ask. They just try doing it without us noticing. Then at some point we start noticing. By then our democratic power is eroded to the point where shifting the limit in our favour is extremely difficult.
It's a dystopia.
Voting systems should be owned by the public and open source. This shit shouldn't even be possible but the US and this current regime especially actually fucken hate freedom and love corporate dick. Fuck this country.
There’s no reason for them to be digital at all. The UK has secure elections with hand-counting paper ballots.
As skeptical as I am about all of this, the new owner does supposedly want to move to 100% paper ballot. Is this just something he says to buy favor though? Idk.
the new owner does supposedly want to move to 100% paper ballot
The first letter in GOP stands for "gaslighting".
I'm aware of the lies. I said as much in my comment. Still, they say they want paper ballots, and I support that move. It shouldn't have been sold to this person, but if they actually do follow through and at least have paper copies of all ballots on their machines that would be a nice benefit, but doesn't outweigh the negatives. However, that'll probably be in a move to remove mail-in voting, or other things that enable minotirty groups to vote more easily.
I thought about this for a second, and I don't actually think being open source would do any good. It's not like we can compile and run our own voting booths. There's no way to know what's actually running in the machine at your polling place.
And voting machines are publicly owned, but perhaps you meant designed and manufactured by the government?
What? Its for authenticity and verification purposes not to pull your own down, compile, and run it. Voting Machines are not publicly owned. Specifically, they are owned by public companies and corporations who run them. Like Dominion just got bought out to be Liberty Vote.
Pretty sure they're typically publicly owned. Maybe some places lease them. Couldn't find a national survey, but here's at least one example of a county that bought some machines and a service contract.
Maybe a car fleet is a good example. Ford designs and builds the cars. Counties buy them, and often buy service and maintenance contracts to keep them running. The counties still own the cars.
I suppose counties could receive the source code, have it audited, and then compile and load it themselves.
When I went looking instead of thinking I just know this is what I found:
https://www.eac.gov/faq/may-state-or-county-rent-or-lease-out-its-voting-systems
Your car example is on the nose and expectedly I am wrong. I'm just wondering what we need companies like Liberty Vote for now. Why have the middle man in the machine?
The machines would be audited so we would know what's actually running on the machines...
Not the designed and manufactured by this current government tho.... Fucking corrupt as fuck
Fuck this country.
Counterpoint: the US is a fixer-upper democracy worth restoring… then consensually fucking for the enjoyment of all those involved.
Yup. This is America's future right here.
"Concerns"? How is this not a five alarm emergency?
Because our media is complicit
Guys, I'm beginning to question the rationale behind outsourcing all our election infrastructure to for-profit industry.
Might have been a big mistake.
Genuine question for the business people here. Would it have been possible to say no to this sale? If I remember correctly, publicly traded companies have to do certain things for their shareholders but I would assume you could essentially say no of you had reservations about the sale for ethical/financial reasons right?
I am not sure if Dominion is publicly traded but I have to wonder about this sale given the lawsuits they went through and won as well as the pending ones.
The FCC and FTC have blocked acquisitions before.
But they're not exactly bipartisan right now afaik
I know it wasn't public the last time I checked.
So it was just looking for a payout or to avoid governmental pressure got it.
It's an opportunity to get rid of voting machines
"Former"