Not all that long ago, the Dover Dems outrage machine lost its hive mind (for a little bit) over Representative Ladd dismissing about 3500 online testimony oppositions to a Bill before the Education Committee.
I saw it, thought he shouldn’t do that, and then ignored whatever happened after. Thankfully, it wasn’t just the Dover Dems; a lot of people got their dander up, and while I can’t say Rep. Ladd based his decision on what I’m about to tell you, had he not done it, we might not even know (I clearly would not or did not). Maybe you already did.
Anyone from anywhere can spam the online testimony feature of the General Court website, making whatever numbers it produces suspect at best and garbage at worst.
There are no safety features. You can use any name, put in any town you want, and create any email address, as long as it looks like an email address, and GenCourt will record your vote and testimony.
When you’re done, hit the back button and do it again and again. My curious reader discovered that Luke Skywalker and Jiminy Cricket gave their online input on HB283. Among the padded numbers for last Monday’s abortion bill was Mother Theresa.
Here are a few more recorded votes for or against (or whatever) mixed in with what could be actual people.
The number of “cheap fake” votes for or against borrowing a term from KJP is unknowable without a full review or audit of every set of remote testimony records for every bill. But you can bet some people do this as a vocation to try and tip the scales in the direction they – or whoever pays them – favors.
In other words, from 30,000 feet, Rep Ladd did us a solid regardless of his intentions. The remote system is riggable (like student voting in college towns) and can’t be counted on unless or until someone audits it or fixes it.
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We’ve seen similar issues with posted polls in some of our posts on GraniteGrok. Even when you restrict the vote by IP, which prevents anyone else who lives there and isn’t tech savvy from voting as well, there are still workarounds if you are committed to committing fraud. We had a congressional primary poll with hundreds of votes from the same geographic location even though we had restricted it by IP (we looked into it).
Where there is a will, as they say, and if you have the IP, you can do the same thing, assuming you didn’t suspect that Luke Skywalker, Jiminy Cricket, or AAA Thank You for Callin from Brokedown, NH, aren’t actual people casting legitimate support or opposition to a piece of legislation.
This is not an intractable problem. It is one the legislature and IT departments need to address but have not. The reader who made the comments above – and informed me of this weakness today – directed that message to everyone who ought to know … THREE YEARS AGO.
The original notification email is dated Jan 31, 2022. I’m a bit embarrassed we never caught this, and it suggests that a lot of people in a position to do something about it didn’t.
Is it too difficult, or is all online “testimony” dismissed without all the attention Rep Ladd got for what he said? Use it when you want ignore it when you can.
Something like that,
