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by daleco 2488 days ago
Yes, it’s not new to manipulate people, the low cost for high efficiency is new. Clinton had almost 3M more votes than Trump. It would be much more expensive to manipulate 3M (1% us population, 1.2% voters), rather than 70k (0.02% pop, 0.028% voters). If winning the election is about properly manipulating 0.04% of the voters, that’s very scary and not working as initially designed.

Edit:math
2 comments
mikekchar 2488 days ago
Really, whether or not it's new or old is a complete red herring. As is whether or not it has historically helped on candidate or another. The issue is whether or not it's a vunlerability.

Complaining that "it's always been that way" is like saying, "We've been pwned that way for a decade. Why should we fix that security hole?"

I find it incredible that people don't look at elections with the same critical eye that they do software security systems. The other cool thing is that all of your candidates for president are chosen by proxy vote! So as long as you can subvert the people who have all the proxy votes, you can choose who can even enter the election! Heck, you can stuff up both sides just for giggles. How much is the POTUS worth? Surely billions.

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dgoldstein0 2488 days ago
in some states electors are legally bound to vote for the popular majority from the state. I thought I had read this was true almost universally though it appears some states don't have this rule.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_electors_in_the_2016...

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caseysoftware 2488 days ago
Yes, billions is right.

That's why I've always found "the Russians stole the election with $100k of Facebook ads!" comical.

Both Facebook and Putin wish they could get that kind of ROI.

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DiogenesKynikos 2488 days ago
Maybe if Clinton had bothered to campaign in the Rust Belt, she would have won. Trump's politics was aimed at industrial workers, and Clinton thought she didn't need them to win. She bet wrong.
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CompanionCuuube 2487 days ago
But maybe it's better that candidates don't need the Rust Belt to win? How many voters are there, compared to places like LA and NYC?
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DiogenesKynikos 2486 days ago
Lots. The Rust Belt is heavily populated. We're talking about tens of millions of people in a region stretching from upstate NY to Illinois.
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