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1 million ballots at 10,000 per batch means 100 batches. It seems they will use 400 ballots from each batch as a sample, and if anything is wrong for one of those 400 sample ballots, then the entire batch of 10,000 is sent back. Some nefarious actor could find 100 messed up ballots and include one in each sample of 400, and viola! 100 ballots invalidates 1 million votes. That's quite a system they got there.

Maybe I'm stupid, but why would sending back mean invalid?

It gets sent back, it gets investigated and fixed, and back it goes.

Am I missing something?


Everyone wants a winner on the day, and if the votes are pushed back it goes into 'hanging chad' time, which some appointed judge can just decide if the votes are included / the winner.

I'd wager most of us are OK with it taking a few days. There's a (relative) few weirdos that get upset if they see the numbers change as votes continue to be tallied.

No, the verification they're doing is on the sending side, not receiving. The state sends people ballots, the USPS intercepts them and sends them back to the state if they find an issue.

IF this cycle of delays lasts long enough, then some people never receive a mail-in ballot, or receive it too late


Thanks for the correction! I misread the outbound vs. return mail details. I agree with you about the IF on the cycle of delays.

They only tested 400 out of 10,000, so there’s every chance when it goes back there’ll be another reason to reject it. You’re also assuming that the government’s data is accurate and the rejections are not disingenuous. If the ballots were actually accurate the state now needs to go through the process of proving that particular voter is eligible. Do state elections departments have the time and manpower to do all of that for however many get rejected? The goal is clearly to waste as much time as possible so the ballots don’t arrive on time.

> Three honest possibilities, and I’ll be straight with you about each

This. I don't know if the "honest answer" phrasing is part of the system prompt or alignment, but when people say "honestly" all the time I start wondering how honest they're being.


At this point, I'm starting to wonder if their honesty is even load-bearing at all?


You are absolutely right.


That's it - that's the smoking gun.



Haha, that is like the wall of nonsense text that used to be hidden on link-farm pages for SEO. The "final word" is delusional.


Former French president Jacques Chirac was famous for often adding an adverb like "naturely" to his sentences when he was lying.


Thankfully most people have better reading skills than that.


Wow. That is a worth a glance, folks.


This. My favorite is when I search for products on a website or app and the results appear in batches, with subsequent results interleaving with the previous results. So when you want to select a particular result and start to move your mouse and click, or move your finger and press, you often end up selecting something unintended because a later result pops into the location.


I do this in the gmail mobile app all the time thanks to their ads injecting themselves in between the emails several seconds late. They must love me, their most engaged ad consumer.


Handy tip: If you disable all the tab category things in settings and go down to a single category (Primary), it will stop showing you ads entirely.


<sarc/> A website can track where your mouse pointer is, but surely they wouldn't do this on purpose just to get ad revenue.


a self-closing sarcasm tag with no content? surely the sarcasm tag itself can't be sarcastic? This is too meta.


But LLM's passed the Turing test, so we're done, right? ;-) Seriously, though, I agree with you that people keep moving the ball.


That they don't show how they look when folded is either bizarre, or that the end results are disappointing.


I agree completely! Our Garmin Descent Mk3i dive computer smart watches are the best watches I've ever seen. They just work. You can charge it for an hour or so and it's good for 25 days. I hated having to charge previous watches every day. It has a double-tap light on/off feature with a very bright LED, four light levels, and a red light mode. It automatically starts tracking my dives and is rated to 200 meters. It can also do diver-to-diver messaging, air tank tracking, and group tracking using subwave sonar. And it has all the normal pulse ox, heart rate tracking, step tracking, sleep tracking, and smartwatch stuff. Just don't enable the one touch kill-switch ;-). Apparently it's a feature for military divers to erase their data (but sounds like a marketing gimmick).


The only IP ratings that I trust are on dive computers and dive computer watches (but I've read mixed results about Apple Watch Ultras for diving). The Garmin Descent Mk3i dive computer and smart watch is a solid performer.


Yeah, and drop your iPhone, in a ruggedized case, into 3 inches of bath water for 5 seconds from a height of one foot and then realize apple's IP68 claim is laughable.


I wash my iPhone like every month. As I do with all of my phones for the past decade. Zero issues. I had a problem only once a long time ago, when I was in water with one of my Sony, but they replaced it immediately. No issue with the replacement.


washing is okay but dropping it in a pool destroyed my charging port on iPhone 14... the phone kept working and was rechargeable wirelessly though...


Yes, this happens to people all the time. The seals that keep water out degrade over time. New phones are generally ok, but heat, dirt, detergent/salt in water, etc. wear them down until they are not water resistant anymore.

This is also why almost none of the manufacturers will fix the device under warranty when there is water damage, despite the IP rating.

Even Apple themselvers recommend against submerging and iPhone in water:

To prevent liquid damage, avoid: [...] Intentionally submerging your iPhone in water

https://support.apple.com/en-us/108039

The water resistance in these phones exist so that the phone hopefully survives when they get wet accidentally (heavy rain, pool drop, etc.). Not to shower with the phone, cleaning it by putting it under the tap, or doing underwater photography. Usually, it survives, until the seals fail.


> The water resistance in these phones exist so that the phone hopefully survives when they get wet accidentally

So accidentally dropping the phone in a bath or toilet for a few seconds doesnt count as that?


Most water rated devices will warn against wearing them in the shower/bath because surfactants (soaps) let water penetrate a lot easier.


I thought it was that the jets of water (sprayer) increase pressure and are actually harsher in some ways vs submerging ?

And of course high heat melts the glue (like hot tubs)


It’s more than one thing but the surfactants are pretty bad.


Interesting. I've seen people wash their phones in just simple soap and I've done the same many times. I only use pretty minimalist castille soap though. Figured that would have the least chance of damaging the oleophobic coatings


I take photos underwater (<2m) with my iphones all the time, all the way back to the iphone 6, never had any issues.


My old iPhone 13 I used to take swimming daily in a salt pool, it was still running fine after 2 years of that, although the contacts in the lightning port did eventually corrode (now I can only charge it wirelessly)


I've used my iPhones for underwater photography with just a normal clearcase and never had any issues


Dropped my iPhone in the toilet , never skipped a beat after that.


I felt while running next to the sea and my iPhone bounced on the ground and ended up somewhere in a levee under water. We could call it until the battery ran out of power. So I guess it depends.


Exactly, it depends. I completely believe your experience. My wife's experience was instant bricking and Apple's warranty completely excludes liquid damage. If you have Apple Care+ they'll replace it for a fee.


What? I have never had an issue with this with my iPhone.


Nashville Electric Service rates are 12.0 cents / kWh. Flat rate, no peak or off peak rates for residential.


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