Electronic voting

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

I think that I can explain why people don't want electronic voting
though they happily rely on numerous other electronic services.

When I use our safe identity login, I can see the result immediately:
The page I wanted to see opens.

When I use mobile pay, I can get som stuff from a person who happily
hands it over when he sees the electronic proof of transfer.

When I open my driver's license on my mobile, I can show it to the
police, and they will let me drive on.

But if I vote electronically, I have no way of knowing if it works, and
nobody can trace my vote and check it. Maybe there was a glitch so it
didn't get registered, maybe the glitch sent it to the wrong party,
maybe it triggered two votes instead of one. I don't know.

When I vote on paper, I know that the ballot was put into the box (I did
that myself). I know that all the ballots are poured out, stacked in
nice piles and counted carefully at least twice, and I know that several
people are present and do nothing but oversea that everything is done
correctly. In principle I could get access to all the ballots and count
them myself.

Therefore I trust paper more than computers. It may play a role that we
in Denmark have had several horrendous IT scandals with extremely
expensive programs that have been discarded as useless.

--
Bertel

[Peter T. Daniels]

That's why all modern electronic voting machines print a paper
version of the ballot when it is cast.

(NJ, however, has not entered the 21st century in that respect.)

[Tony Cooper]

Your premise is that paper ballots are a secure form of voting.

In the US, the premise of the election-deniers is that paper ballots
were not secure because of "ballot stuffing": the addition of paper
ballots that were not filled out by legitimate voters.

The election-deniers also claimed that the mechanical voting machines
were tampered with to add votes for one candiate or delete votes for
another candidate or change votes from one candidate to another.

There has not been any credible evidence that any remotely-significent
amount of voting fraud occurred. That has not stopped some people
from believing that it did occur. People believe what they want to
believe.

I don't think we are at a point where electronic voting is a viable
option. I do think that either paper ballots or mechanical voting
machines are a secure enough method.

In case you are not aware of how voting is done in the US - paper
ballots or mechanical voting machines - it is a local option by state
or by county within the state. Further, the days and hours voting is
allowed, and the requirements for mail-in paper ballots, is also a
local option by state or county within the state.

--

Tony Cooper - Orlando Florida

I read and post to this group as a form of entertainment.

[Tak To]

Not in your municipality perhaps, but in my town, the machine
prints out a paper copy of the ballot into a plexiglass enclosure
and when you touch the button to cast formally, the paper copy
is dropped into a bin below.

--
Tak
----------------------------------------------------------------+-----
Tak To ta...@alum.mit.eduxx
--------------------------------------------------------------------^^
[taode takto ~{LU5B~}] NB: trim the xx to get my real email addr

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 25.11.2022 kl. 17.15 skrev Tony Cooper:

> Your premise is that paper ballots are a secure form of voting.

True.

> In the US, the premise of the election-deniers is that paper ballots
> were not secure because of "ballot stuffing": the addition of paper
> ballots that were not filled out by legitimate voters.

We also have people in Denmark believing strange things, but basically
we still are a country with a high degree of trust in the government and
in each other. I am not aware of anyone thinking that our elections have
been tampered with.

--
Bertel

[Peter T. Daniels]

Middlesex?

You seem to actually have some political diversity down there.
At least some of you just sent a republican to Congress.
The vaunted Hudson County Machine don't need no stinkin'
paper backup.

[Tak To]

Union; District 7

> You seem to actually have some political diversity down there.
> At least some of you just sent a republican to Congress.
> The vaunted Hudson County Machine don't need no stinkin'
> paper backup.

Complacency, never a good thing.

[Peter Moylan]

On 26/11/22 01:51, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:

> Therefore I trust paper more than computers. It may play a role that
> we in Denmark have had several horrendous IT scandals with extremely
> expensive programs that have been discarded as useless.

Our government paid $21 million for a phone app called COVIDsafe that
was supposed to detect when you had passed close to someone who was
infected with covid-19. Apparently it detected two cases before it was
decommissioned two years later.

As I recall it, one problem was that the contract went to a company that
was a supporter of the ruling party, rather than to a company with a
good track record. Unfortunately I can no longer discover what that
company was, and no doubt the records of political donations have also
been deleted.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

[Peter Moylan]

Are the counts on the paper copies routinely compared with the counts
reported by the software?

(It would be elementary to design the software to make them different.)

[Mark Brader]

Bertel Lund Hansen:

>> Therefore I trust paper more than computers. It may play a role that
>> we in Denmark have had several horrendous IT scandals with extremely
>> expensive programs that have been discarded as useless.

Peter Moylan:
> Our government paid $21 million for...

At this point, not having noticed that the poster was Peter, I assumed
this was going to be about the Canadian civil-service payroll system
named Phoenix.

But, on looking it up, I see that the total cost of *that* mess has
now gone two orders of magnitude above the above number.

By the way, this was not the fault of any one party. It was Harper's
Conservative government that ordered the system originally, and Trudeau's
Liberals that decided that keeping it was the right move.

> ...a phone app called COVIDsafe that was supposed to detect when

> you had passed close to someone who was infected with covid-19.

Ah. I heard about something like that not working here too.
--
Mark Brader "He'll spend at least part of his life
Toronto in prison, or parliament, or both."
m...@vex.net --Peter Moylan

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 26.11.2022 kl. 03.54 skrev Peter Moylan:

> Our government paid $21 million for a phone app called COVIDsafe that
> was supposed to detect when you had passed close to someone who was
> infected with covid-19. Apparently it detected two cases before it was
> decommissioned two years later.

With "horrendous" I mean scandals in the region of 250 million euros.

Our 'system' (government or health care) also promoted such an app. It
requires you to have BluTooth activated, and that is the reason that I
didn't download it. I have no idea how well it worked, and I don't
think there has been a proper follow-up on the results. It hasn't been
mentioned in a long time.

--
Bertel

[Peter T. Daniels]

I've done the dropbox thing ever since the Gov "deemed" by
Executive Order that every voter requested an absentee
ballot. More convenience than trusting the weather to cooperate!

It was Mercer County, where the state capital is, where all the
scanners simply didn't work. Maybe Hudson's push-button
boards really are better.

[Quinn C]

* Bertel Lund Hansen:

> But if I vote electronically, I have no way of knowing if it works, and
> nobody can trace my vote and check it. Maybe there was a glitch so it
> didn't get registered, maybe the glitch sent it to the wrong party,
> maybe it triggered two votes instead of one. I don't know.

Using encryption, there are ways of doing it so it's tamper-safe,
traceable and you can check your own vote, but the fact that most people
won't understand how it works may be good enough reason to prefer a more
transparent system.

--
... English-speaking people have managed to get along a good many
centuries with the present supply of pronouns; ... It is so old and
venerable an argument ... it's equivalent was used when gas, railways
and steamboats were proposed. -- Findlay (OH) Jeffersonian (1875)

[Sam Plusnet]

That process of 'giving a contract to your friends, without going
through any type of due process or competitive tender' happened in
several countries during covid.
It falls under the heading of "Don't let a good crisis go to waste."

--
Sam Plusnet

[Snidely]

After serious thinking Bertel Lund Hansen wrote :

Well, Orange County, California, has it both ways. The latest
iteration has a paper ballot that you mark with a blue or black pen,
and then it is fed through a scanner (IDNK if it is a full scanner, or
optimized for mark reading) and then the count is stored internally and
the ballot in a ballot box.

The previous system used a tablet and you voted with buttons, but the
recount copy was a paper tape which you got to review before it was
locked up. (It slid into a window between printhead and takeup reel,
pausing at each windowfull until you pressed OK (or "accept").) You
also got a reciept that may have had a hash code of your vote. I
think I have a reciept hiding in some box somewhere.

When I was in grade school or junior high, the electronic voting
machines used in Clackamas County, Oregon were the size of a couple of
the 1401 cabinets recently dscussed, or a pair of vending machines, and
had oodles of lever switches. They may have had some Babbage-ish
innards as well. I understand that they were a pain to prepare.

/dps

--
Rule #0: Don't be on fire.
In case of fire, exit the building before tweeting about it.
(Sighting reported by Adam F)

[Snidely]

Thus spake Bertel Lund Hansen:

You just need a charismatic leader to assert that massive fraud is
endemic in the system.

And some locales have a tradition of "political machines" promising to
deliver votes. Chicago, with Daleys and their predecessors, has a
well-known reputation, but isn't unique.

/dps

--
"Inviting people to laugh with you while you are laughing at yourself
is a good thing to do, You may be a fool but you're the fool in
charge." -- Carl Reiner

[Arindam Banerjee]

On Saturday, 26 November 2022 at 01:51:50 UTC+11, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> I think that I can explain why people don't want electronic voting
> though they happily rely on numerous other electronic services.
>
> When I use our safe identity login, I can see the result immediately:
> The page I wanted to see opens.
>
> When I use mobile pay, I can get som stuff from a person who happily
> hands it over when he sees the electronic proof of transfer.
>
> When I open my driver's license on my mobile, I can show it to the
> police, and they will let me drive on.
>
> But if I vote electronically, I have no way of knowing if it works, and
> nobody can trace my vote and check it. Maybe there was a glitch so it
> didn't get registered, maybe the glitch sent it to the wrong party,
> maybe it triggered two votes instead of one. I don't know.

Silly.

>
> When I vote on paper, I know that the ballot was put into the box (I did
> that myself). I know that all the ballots are poured out, stacked in
> nice piles and counted carefully at least twice, and I know that several
> people are present and do nothing but oversea that everything is done
> correctly. In principle I could get access to all the ballots and count
> them myself.
>
> Therefore I trust paper more than computers. It may play a role that we
> in Denmark have had several horrendous IT scandals with extremely
> expensive programs that have been discarded as useless.

Honesty is enforced by good software and sound hardware.
Technology reduces the scope for corruption and increases efficiency enormously.
But stone age mentality has ruled for tens of thousands of years.
>
> --
> Bertel

[Jerry Friedman]

On Saturday, November 26, 2022 at 5:37:50 PM UTC-7, snide...@gmail.com wrote:

[hard and soft ballots]

> Well, Orange County, California, has it both ways. The latest
> iteration has a paper ballot that you mark with a blue or black pen,
> and then it is fed through a scanner (IDNK if it is a full scanner, or
> optimized for mark reading) and then the count is stored internally and
> the ballot in a ballot box.

...

Much like Rio Arriba County, New Mexico. My complaint, since I believe
that as a citizen I have to have one, is that elderly and disabled people
probably have a hard time filling the ovals in properly. Also it probably
triggers traumatic memories of school in some.

--
Jerry Friedman did not write this post with a #2 pencil.

[Jonathan Harston]

On Friday, November 25, 2022 at 2:51:50 PM UTC, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> It may play a role that we
> in Denmark have had several horrendous IT scandals with extremely
> expensive programs that have been discarded as useless.

UK says: Hold my beer.

[lar3ryca]

On 2022-11-25 21:58, Mark Brader wrote:
> Bertel Lund Hansen:
>>> Therefore I trust paper more than computers. It may play a role that
>>> we in Denmark have had several horrendous IT scandals with extremely
>>> expensive programs that have been discarded as useless.
>
> Peter Moylan:
>> Our government paid $21 million for...
>
> At this point, not having noticed that the poster was Peter, I assumed
> this was going to be about the Canadian civil-service payroll system
> named Phoenix.
>
> But, on looking it up, I see that the total cost of *that* mess has
> now gone two orders of magnitude above the above number.
>
> By the way, this was not the fault of any one party. It was Harper's
> Conservative government that ordered the system originally, and Trudeau's
> Liberals that decided that keeping it was the right move.
>
>> ...a phone app called COVIDsafe that was supposed to detect when
>> you had passed close to someone who was infected with covid-19.
>
> Ah. I heard about something like that not working here too.

Right, and another app, costing the taxpayers over 50 million bucks, was
the ArriveCan app. A bit pricey for something that not only didn't do
what it was supposed to fo, but did exactly the opposite.

--
Canada. Leading the world in being north of the USA.

[Tony Cooper]

That echos a complaint I heard after the recent election. In this
county, we use paper ballots with bubbles that have to be filled in.
A neighbor who has a severe hand tremor was concerned that her ballot
would be rejected because of her messy bubbles.

She could have asked a poll watcher to assist her, but it would
embarass her to ask.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 27.11.2022 kl. 01.42 skrev Snidely:

> You just need a charismatic leader to assert that massive fraud is
> endemic in the system.

That wouldn't do the trick. The thought wouldn't catch on in the majority.

--
Bertel

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 27.11.2022 kl. 05.52 skrev lar3ryca:

> Right, and another app, costing the taxpayers over 50 million bucks, was
> the ArriveCan app. A bit pricey for something that not only didn't do
> what it was supposed to fo, but did exactly the opposite.

What was it supposed to do?

--
Bertel

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 27.11.2022 kl. 06.03 skrev Tony Cooper:

> She could have asked a poll watcher to assist her, but it would
> embarass her to ask.

I regularly get a paper from the organisation that helps blind people.
In the last issue there was a woman who told that there were three
people and a dog in the booth when she voted: herself, the helper and a
person overseeing that no cheating was done plus her help-dog. She would
like to have electronic voting so she could be alone in the booth.

--
Bertel

[occam]

What happens if you try and *repeat* the electronic vote via your mobile?

You should get a "you have already voted" rejection of your second
attempt. Surely this is as good confirmation of your vote having been
registered (and counted).

(In an earlier post you assured us that Danish mobiles are 'registered'
to individuals. We have a similar system of ID in Lux. Although we do
not use it for electronic voting, whenever you try and sign a document
with the phone, you get sent a <txt msg> to confirm it was you. You have
to enter a code to finalise the transaction.)

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 27.11.2022 kl. 13.09 skrev occam:

> What happens if you try and *repeat* the electronic vote via your mobile?

We don't have electronic elections in Denmark. A confirmation would not
satisfy me (as an ordinary citizan - I as a nerd might be). It still
doesn't prove that it was counted for the correct party.

> (In an earlier post you assured us that Danish mobiles are 'registered'
> to individuals. We have a similar system of ID in Lux. Although we do
> not use it for electronic voting, whenever you try and sign a document
> with the phone, you get sent a <txt msg> to confirm it was you. You have
> to enter a code to finalise the transaction.)

I order the security webpage (or it is shown automatically by the
webpage I am visiting) and enter my username. Then I open my mobile,
activate MitID (my-id), key in my opening code (which is only possible
if a transaction is underway) and get a page explaining which
transaction is active. Then I pull the dot from left to right. The
mobile then shows a message that everything is alright. That's all.

--
Bertel

[occam]

On 27/11/2022 13:46, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> Den 27.11.2022 kl. 13.09 skrev occam:
>
>> What happens if you try and *repeat* the electronic vote via your mobile?
>
> We don't have electronic elections in Denmark. A confirmation would not
> satisfy me (as an ordinary citizan - I as a nerd might be). It still
> doesn't prove that it was counted for the correct party.
>
>> (In an earlier post you assured us that Danish mobiles are 'registered'
>> to individuals. We have a similar system of ID in Lux. Although we do
>> not use it for electronic voting, whenever you try and sign a document
>> with the phone, you get sent a <txt msg> to confirm it was you. You have
>> to enter a code to finalise the transaction.)
>
> I order the security webpage (or it is shown automatically by the
> webpage I am visiting) and enter my username. Then I open my mobile,
> activate MitID (my-id),

I used to use something called NEM ID to login to my bank account in
Copenhagen. Do you know that non-Danish citizens cannot have MitID,
even if from the EU?

[Jerry Friedman]

On Sunday, November 27, 2022 at 12:18:32 AM UTC-7, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> Den 27.11.2022 kl. 06.03 skrev Tony Cooper:
>
> > She could have asked a poll watcher to assist her, but it would
> > embarass her to ask.

> I regularly get a paper

Maybe "newsletter".

> from the organisation that helps blind people.
> In the last issue there was a woman who told that there were three
> people and a dog in the booth when she voted: herself, the helper and a
> person overseeing that no cheating was done plus her help-dog.

AmE "service dog", or specifically for a blind person, "guide dog" or
"seeing-eye dog" (deprecated, I think). I don't know whether that's the
same in other varieties of English.

> She would
> like to have electronic voting so she could be alone in the booth.

I don't blame her, but how would she vote electronically, with Braille?
Or with speech synthesis? That would be less private than having two
people in there, though also less crowded.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 27.11.2022 kl. 17.25 skrev Jerry Friedman:

> I don't blame her, but how would she vote electronically, with Braille?
> Or with speech synthesis? That would be less private than having two
> people in there, though also less crowded.

She didn't say. I suppose that Braille would be too expensive and
complicate the process for the staff. A computer with voice and
earphones could work.

--
Bertel

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 27.11.2022 kl. 16.36 skrev occam:

> I used to use something called NEM ID to login to my bank account in
> Copenhagen.

Yes, it still exists, and old webpages may still allow it, but it is
being faded out.

> Do you know that non-Danish citizens cannot have MitID, even if from the EU?

No, I didn't know that. How do you then login to your bank?

--
Bertel

[Tony Cooper]

In the US, one establishes a User Name and Password. Entering those
two elements, I access my bank account and can make online payments.

I think some banks have an additional security step, but I don't know
what is required.

[occam]

On 27/11/2022 17:53, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> Den 27.11.2022 kl. 16.36 skrev occam:
>
>> I used to use something called NEM ID to login to my bank account in
>> Copenhagen.
>
> Yes, it still exists, and old webpages may still allow it, but it is
> being faded out.

As far as I know, the deadline has passed.

>
>> Do you know that non-Danish citizens cannot have MitID, even if from
>> the EU?
>
> No, I didn't know that. How do you then login to your bank?
>

I don't. I had to close my account and move (metaphorically) out of
Denmark, for lack of a Danish citizenship.

[Ken Blake]

On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 18:39:12 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman
<jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On Saturday, November 26, 2022 at 5:37:50 PM UTC-7, snide...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>[hard and soft ballots]
>
>> Well, Orange County, California, has it both ways. The latest
>> iteration has a paper ballot that you mark with a blue or black pen,
>> and then it is fed through a scanner (IDNK if it is a full scanner, or
>> optimized for mark reading) and then the count is stored internally and
>> the ballot in a ballot box.
>...
>
>Much like Rio Arriba County, New Mexico. My complaint, since I believe
>that as a citizen I have to have one, is that elderly and disabled people
>probably have a hard time filling the ovals in properly.

I think it's an excellent system, but there should be an alternative
that can be requested by those who can't do it properly.

> Also it probably
>triggers traumatic memories of school in some.

? Not me. I never saw anything like that when I was in school.

[Jerry Friedman]

On Sunday, November 27, 2022 at 10:19:37 AM UTC-7, Ken Blake wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 18:39:12 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman
> <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >On Saturday, November 26, 2022 at 5:37:50 PM UTC-7, snide...@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> >[hard and soft ballots]
> >
> >> Well, Orange County, California, has it both ways. The latest
> >> iteration has a paper ballot that you mark with a blue or black pen,
> >> and then it is fed through a scanner (IDNK if it is a full scanner, or
> >> optimized for mark reading) and then the count is stored internally and
> >> the ballot in a ballot box.
> >...
> >
> >Much like Rio Arriba County, New Mexico. My complaint, since I believe
> >that as a citizen I have to have one, is that elderly and disabled people
> >probably have a hard time filling the ovals in properly.

> I think it's an excellent system, but there should be an alternative
> that can be requested by those who can't do it properly.

Yes, and now that you mention it, there may be one in my county, for all
I know.

> > Also it probably
> >triggers traumatic memories of school in some.

> ? Not me. I never saw anything like that when I was in school.

Multiple-choice tests that you answer by filling in ovals have been one of the
least pleasant and most widespread parts of American school for half a
century or so. Your son would know.

--
Jerry Friedman

[lar3ryca]

It was supposed to contain all the pertinent information for helping to
streamline processing for Canadians returning to Canada. It would
contain passport and vaccine status, and more.

All it did was cause problems and delays, and actually resulted in
penalties for people who could not provide the required information.

<https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/arrivecan-app-troubles-causing-consternation-at-border-1.5696143>

<https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/arrivecan-app-frustrates-users-experts-even-after-glitch-fix-1.6001889>

I can only imagine that cronies of our Prime Minister benefited from
that $54 million cost.

An employee of a Toronto-based company, Lazer Technologies, duplicated
the relatively simple app in two days.

--
One of the "A"s in "Aaron" is silent, but we will never know which one.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2022-11-27 17:19:30 +0000, Ken Blake said:

> On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 18:39:12 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman
> <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> On Saturday, November 26, 2022 at 5:37:50 PM UTC-7, snide...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>> [hard and soft ballots]
>>
>>> Well, Orange County, California, has it both ways. The latest>>
>>> iteration has a paper ballot that you mark with a blue or black pen,>>
>>> and then it is fed through a scanner (IDNK if it is a full scanner,
>>> or>> optimized for mark reading) and then the count is stored
>>> internally and>> the ballot in a ballot box.>...
>>
>> Much like Rio Arriba County, New Mexico. My complaint, since I believe
>> that as a citizen I have to have one, is that elderly and disabled people
>> probably have a hard time filling the ovals in properly.
>
> I think it's an excellent system, but there should be an alternative
> that can be requested by those who can't do it properly.

In France you don't write anything. There is set of papers with the
candidates' names and you take some with you into the "isoloir", where
you put one in a little envelope that they give you and throw the rest
into a garbage chute. You're not supposed to take just one, as that
tells anyone who is watching how you are voting. Most people take three
or four in the first round, and of those that survive (usually two, but
can be three) in the second round. In the first round of the
presidential election I took ones from the extreme left (Fabien Roussel
(Communist)) to the extreme right (Marine Le Pen -- I couldn't bring
myself to go one step further right, to that nasty little man Eric
Zemmour) and a couple of others. I don't think anyone was watching, but
if they had been I doubt whether they would have deduced which was the
chosen one. It's a system that wastes a tremendous amount of paper, but
on the other hand it presents no problem for people with tremors.

>
>> Also it probably
>> triggers traumatic memories of school in some.
>
>
> ? Not me. I never saw anything like that when I was in school.

--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 36+ years; mainly
in England until 1987.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 27.11.2022 kl. 18.16 skrev occam:

> I don't. I had to close my account and move (metaphorically) out of
> Denmark, for lack of a Danish citizenship.

For a supposedly friendly country we have an amazing lot of rules to
keep out foreigners. Only Ukranians are received with open arms.

--
Bertel

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Yes. That approach doesn't always yield the results desired. In the
1960s there were a lot of claims in the UK that immigration increased
the crime rate. (Probably that happens in every country with a lot of
immigrants.) Anyway, someone made a careful analysis of the facts. It
turned out that with one exception all of the immigrant groups in the
UK at that time had _lower_ crime rates than those for the country as a
whole. The exception was the Hungarians who had been received with open
arms after 1956. I've a feeling that I've read similar things about the
Cuban "freedom fighters" received with open arms in the USA.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 27.11.2022 kl. 22.48 skrev Athel Cornish-Bowden:

> Yes. That approach doesn't always yield the results desired. In the
> 1960s there were a lot of claims in the UK that immigration increased
> the crime rate. (Probably that happens in every country with a lot of
> immigrants.) Anyway, someone made a careful analysis of the facts. It
> turned out that with one exception all of the immigrant groups in the UK
> at that time had _lower_ crime rates than those for the country as a
> whole. The exception was the Hungarians who had been received with open
> arms after 1956.

Just to understand: Do you mean that the crime rate among Hungarians was
higher?

We also had Hungarians coming in 1956. In fact when I was a small boy,
our neighbours were Hungarians. The wife would look after me and my
sister when our parents went out. The husband was a famous football
player and later coach that brought one local club from the bottom to
the top (in Denmark). They were very nice people.

Wikipedia only has a Danish article, but if you roll down to the list of
achievements, I think you will understand most of it. "Mesterskab"
(directly 'mastership ') means "championship".

https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9za_Toldi

--
Bertel

[Snidely]

Bertel Lund Hansen speculated:

Ah, but charisma! It be very powerful.

/dps

--
The presence of this syntax results from the fact that SQLite is really
a Tcl extension that has escaped into the wild.
<http://www.sqlite.org/lang_expr.html>

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 28.11.2022 kl. 00.01 skrev Snidely:

>>> You just need a charismatic leader to assert that massive fraud is
>>> endemic in the system.
>>
>> That wouldn't do the trick. The thought wouldn't catch on in the
>> majority.
>
> Ah, but charisma! It be very powerful.

Enough of all the theory. Come to Denmark and do a Trump. Then we'll see
if it works.

--
Bertel

[Snidely]

Bertel Lund Hansen formulated the question :

Hey, if I had charisma, I wouldn't be sitting at my computer.

/dps

--
Maybe C282Y is simply one of the hangers-on, a groupie following a
future guitar god of the human genome: an allele with undiscovered
virtuosity, currently soloing in obscurity in Mom's garage.
Bradley Wertheim, theAtlantic.com, Jan 10 2013

[Peter Moylan]

On 28/11/22 10:01, Snidely wrote:
> Bertel Lund Hansen speculated:
>> Den 27.11.2022 kl. 01.42 skrev Snidely:
>>
>>> You just need a charismatic leader to assert that massive fraud
>>> is endemic in the system.
>>
>> That wouldn't do the trick. The thought wouldn't catch on in the
>> majority.
>
> Ah, but charisma! It be very powerful.

It's not sufficient, though. People like Hitler and Trump got into power
by manipulating the discontent that already existed in the population.
You first need a dysfunctional country before a populist can get into power.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

[Peter Moylan]

On 28/11/22 04:59, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>
> In France you don't write anything. There is set of papers with the
> candidates' names and you take some with you into the "isoloir",
> where you put one in a little envelope that they give you and throw
> the rest into a garbage chute. You're not supposed to take just one,
> as that tells anyone who is watching how you are voting. Most people
> take three or four in the first round, and of those that survive
> (usually two, but can be three) in the second round. In the first
> round of the presidential election I took ones from the extreme left
> (Fabien Roussel (Communist)) to the extreme right (Marine Le Pen -- I
> couldn't bring myself to go one step further right, to that nasty
> little man Eric Zemmour) and a couple of others. I don't think anyone
> was watching, but if they had been I doubt whether they would have
> deduced which was the chosen one. It's a system that wastes a
> tremendous amount of paper, but on the other hand it presents no
> problem for people with tremors.

We don't have that system, but we still have a lot of paper-wasting
because of how-to-vote handouts that are given by party volunteers to
voters as they approach the polling place. I don't take any of them,
explaining if necessary that I've already decided how to vote, but many
people take them from every party.

A few elections ago, the Green party got a lot of good publicity by
offering to take back the how-to-vote papers as people left the polling
place, for re-use. I think they even accepted the ones from other
parties, and sorted them.

[Peter Moylan]

I have some things stored on my phone: my driver's licence, my covid
vaccination certificate, my senior's card. I haven't activated a lot of
other things. For example, I can't pay at the supermarket with my phone,
although many young people do. Part of my reason for this is that a lot
of phones get stolen.

I do on-line banking with my phone, but I can't log on to that without
having a fingerprint checked.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2022-11-27 22:03:26 +0000, Bertel Lund Hansen said:

> Den 27.11.2022 kl. 22.48 skrev Athel Cornish-Bowden:
>
>> Yes. That approach doesn't always yield the results desired. In the
>> 1960s there were a lot of claims in the UK that immigration increased
>> the crime rate. (Probably that happens in every country with a lot of
>> immigrants.) Anyway, someone made a careful analysis of the facts. It
>> turned out that with one exception all of the immigrant groups in the
>> UK at that time had _lower_ crime rates than those for the country as a
>> whole. The exception was the Hungarians who had been received with open
>> arms after 1956.
>
> Just to understand: Do you mean that the crime rate among Hungarians
> was higher?

Yes

>
> We also had Hungarians coming in 1956. In fact when I was a small boy,
> our neighbours were Hungarians. The wife would look after me and my
> sister when our parents went out. The husband was a famous football
> player and later coach that brought one local club from the bottom to
> the top (in Denmark). They were very nice people.
>
> Wikipedia only has a Danish article, but if you roll down to the list
> of achievements, I think you will understand most of it. "Mesterskab"
> (directly 'mastership ') means "championship".
>
> https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9za_Toldi


--

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 22:52:37 -0600
lar3ryca <la...@invalid.ca> wrote:

[Wasted money, Covid "apps"]

>
> Right, and another app, costing the taxpayers over 50 million bucks, was
> the ArriveCan app. A bit pricey for something that not only didn't do
> what it was supposed to fo, but did exactly the opposite.
>

> --
> Canada. Leading the world in being north of the USA.
>

I feel sure someone will point out that there are selected places where
the opposite is true. Mark?

Spoilers












Around Detroit, Buffalo and some odd places in the woods in Maine.
(checks - and some titsy bits of New Hampshire; and twiddly bits of
Minnesota and maybe some islands off Vancouver)



--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2022-11-28 11:33:05 +0000, Kerr-Mudd, John said:

> On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 22:52:37 -0600
> lar3ryca <la...@invalid.ca> wrote:
>
> [Wasted money, Covid "apps"]
>>
>> Right, and another app, costing the taxpayers over 50 million bucks, was
>> the ArriveCan app. A bit pricey for something that not only didn't do
>> what it was supposed to fo, but did exactly the opposite.
>>
>> --
>> Canada. Leading the world in being north of the USA.
>>
>
> I feel sure someone will point out that there are selected places where
> the opposite is true. Mark?
>
> Spoilers
>
> [ … ]
>

> Around Detroit,

Not "around Detroit", but the centre of Detroit.

> Buffalo and some odd places in the woods in Maine.
> (checks - and some titsy bits of New Hampshire; and twiddly bits of
> Minnesota and maybe some islands off Vancouver)


--

[Quinn C]

* Kerr-Mudd, John:

> On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 22:52:37 -0600
> lar3ryca <la...@invalid.ca> wrote:
>
> [Wasted money, Covid "apps"]
>>
>> Right, and another app, costing the taxpayers over 50 million bucks, was
>> the ArriveCan app. A bit pricey for something that not only didn't do
>> what it was supposed to fo, but did exactly the opposite.
>>
>> --
>> Canada. Leading the world in being north of the USA.
>>
>
> I feel sure someone will point out that there are selected places where
> the opposite is true. Mark?

There's just been an inquiry into the invocation of the Emergency Act by
the prime minister in connection with the trucker convoy. In this
context, the Ambassador Bridge was mentioned. That's a prime example - a
bridge with the US at its northern and Canada at its southern end.

> Spoilers

















> Around Detroit, Buffalo and some odd places in the woods in Maine.
> (checks - and some titsy bits of New Hampshire; and twiddly bits of
> Minnesota and maybe some islands off Vancouver)


--

Sure, everybody has the right to speak their opinion; but not
the right to identify this opinion as truth, and erect pyres
for dissenters.
-- Hedwig Dohm (1903), my translation

[Jerry Friedman]

On Monday, November 28, 2022 at 4:52:51 AM UTC-7, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 22:52:37 -0600
> lar3ryca <la...@invalid.ca> wrote:
>
> [Wasted money, Covid "apps"]
> >
> > Right, and another app, costing the taxpayers over 50 million bucks, was
> > the ArriveCan app. A bit pricey for something that not only didn't do
> > what it was supposed to fo, but did exactly the opposite.
> >
> > --
> > Canada. Leading the world in being north of the USA.
> >
>
> I feel sure someone will point out that there are selected places where
> the opposite is true. Mark?

...

Well, the statement is true--Canada leads the world in that way. Greenland
or Denmark (depending on how you count) is a very distant second and Russia
is a very distant third. There are other distant contenders if we're counting
U.S. territories that aren't part of the fifty states.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Mark Brader]

"Larry":

>>> Canada. Leading the world in being north of the USA.

"John":

>> I feel sure someone will point out that there are selected places where
>> the opposite is true. Mark?

Huh?

Jerry Friedman:

> Well, the statement is true--Canada leads the world in that way.

Exactly.

A large majority of national borders in the world have twists in them.
So what?
--
Mark Brader | I like when things catch fire and explode,
Toronto | which means I do not have your best interests in mind.
m...@vex.net | --Randall Munroe

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 28.11.2022 kl. 18.31 skrev Jerry Friedman:

> Well, the statement is true--Canada leads the world in that way. Greenland
> or Denmark (depending on how you count) is a very distant second and Russia
> is a very distant third. There are other distant contenders if we're counting
> U.S. territories that aren't part of the fifty states.

Judging from Google Earth, Greenland comes first, then Canada and
Russia. Norway comes fourth.

--
Bertel

[Hibou]

That sounds plausible. It's not enough to rely on Danes being more
sensible than other populations. People are people.

[occam]

Here in Lux I was informed (during an induction course) that all voters
are issued with a practice ('mock') voting ballot in advance, via the
post. This helps navigate the rather complex voting structure and the
multiplicity of candidates (don't ask). The desired aim is not to hang
around inside the voting booth unnecessarily, thus causing longer
queues. "Quick in, and quick out" is the strategy. It also makes the
collection of publicity materials outside the polling stations
unnecessary, as, presumably you have done your homework before getting
to the polling booth.

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On Mon, 28 Nov 2022 20:17:35 +0000
m...@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote:

> "Larry":
> >>> Canada. Leading the world in being north of the USA.
>
> "John":
> >> I feel sure someone will point out that there are selected places where
> >> the opposite is true. Mark?
>
> Huh?
>

Sorry, I thought you might have looked into what bits of Canada are south
of the US.

> Jerry Friedman:
> > Well, the statement is true--Canada leads the world in that way.
>
> Exactly.
>
> A large majority of national borders in the world have twists in them.
> So what?
>

I don't have a point. It just seemed like a quiz-type question you'd know
more about.

[Jerry Friedman]

Those lead the world in being north, but Canada leads the world in being
north of the U.S., in the sense that if you go north from most of the U.S,
you get to Canada and no other country.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Tony Cooper]

The Seminole County Election Board (in Florida) provides all
registered voters with a sample ballot listing all offices and
candidates well ahead of the election.

My wife and I use ours as a list of the candidates we know nothing
about and need to do some research on them. While we are, of course,
familiar with the major candidates, there are many local offices where
we've never heard of any of the candidates.

We pre-mark our sample ballots and take them with us when we vote.

--

Tony Cooper - Orlando Florida

I read and post to this group as a form of entertainment.

[Ken Blake]

On Tue, 29 Nov 2022 06:34:24 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman
<jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On Monday, November 28, 2022 at 11:13:10 PM UTC-7, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>> Den 28.11.2022 kl. 18.31 skrev Jerry Friedman:
>>
>> > Well, the statement is true--Canada leads the world in that way. Greenland
>> > or Denmark (depending on how you count) is a very distant second and Russia
>> > is a very distant third. There are other distant contenders if we're counting
>> > U.S. territories that aren't part of the fifty states.
>
>> Judging from Google Earth, Greenland comes first, then Canada and
>> Russia. Norway comes fourth.
>
>Those lead the world in being north, but Canada leads the world in being
>north of the U.S.,

Yes, but...

> in the sense that if you go north from most of the U.S,
>you get to Canada and no other country.

...keep going in that direction after you get to Canada, and you'll
come to Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Peru, etc. (and depending on where
in the US you started.

[Jerry Friedman]

True, but at a certain well-known point you'd be going south.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Richard Heathfield]

No, that requires you to incorporate some south into your
direction; if you keep going north, you'll end up at the North
Pole, where you'll jam until global warming drops you in it.

--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

[Ken Blake]

On Tue, 29 Nov 2022 08:20:27 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman

Yes, despite the fact that you hadn't changed your direction.

I anticipated that you or sometime else would reply saying that, so I
deleted the message I wrote instead of sending it. At least I thought
I deleted it.

[lar3ryca]

I have worked in polling stations for municipal, provincial, and federal
elections (Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada), and in all cases, one of the
duties was to remove all campaign materials (signs and banners, for
example) within a certain distance of the polling station.

We were also forbidden to wear clothing with any text or pictures, or of
any colour, identifiable as representing any of the parties.

--
The past tense of William Shakespeare is "WouldIwas Shookspeared".

[Sam Plusnet]

"We've reached the North Pole. Which way should we head from here?"

"Let me think about it for a minute."

--
Sam Plusnet

[Sam Plusnet]

On 29-Nov-22 16:57, lar3ryca wrote:

> I have worked in polling stations for municipal, provincial, and federal
> elections (Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada), and in all cases, one of the
> duties was to remove all campaign materials (signs and banners, for
> example) within a certain distance of the polling station.

Does that include signs on people's property, or in a window of their
house[1]?

That sounds like a recipe for a punch-up with some ardent party supporter.

[1] Here (UK), I have only ever seen signs on poles in fields, never in
a garden.
People sometimes display a party poster in their front window.

--
Sam Plusnet

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 29.11.2022 kl. 17.57 skrev lar3ryca:

> I have worked in polling stations for municipal, provincial, and federal
> elections (Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada), and in all cases, one of the
> duties was to remove all campaign materials (signs and banners, for
> example) within a certain distance of the polling station.
>
> We were also forbidden to wear clothing with any text or pictures, or of
> any colour, identifiable as representing any of the parties.

We have similar rules in Denmark. It the law hasn't been changed, it's
also illegal to display a ballot paper before the election is over. We
don't get those until we queue up at the voting site.

--
Bertel

[lar3ryca]

On 2022-11-29 14:02, Sam Plusnet wrote:
> On 29-Nov-22 16:57, lar3ryca wrote:
>
>> I have worked in polling stations for municipal, provincial, and
>> federal elections (Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada), and in all cases,
>> one of the duties was to remove all campaign materials (signs and
>> banners, for example) within a certain distance of the polling station.
>
> Does that include signs on people's property, or in a window of their
> house[1]?

Yes.

> That sounds like a recipe for a punch-up with some ardent party supporter.

The punch-up _could_ happen, I suppose, but it would not be with the
poll worker, but rather with the police that the poll worker summoned in
the case of refusal to comply.

> [1] Here (UK), I have only ever seen signs on poles in fields, never in
> a garden.

I have never seen a campaign sign in a garden either, but I suspect that
this would not be true if I spoke your brand of English. We would never
put a campaign sign in the back yard.

> People sometimes display a party poster in their front window.

Yes, that happens here too, and it is perfectly legal except within a
certain distance of a polling station, and then, only on election day
after the station opens.

--
Blame Saint Andreas -- it's all his fault.

[Peter Moylan]

In our case the "certain distance" is only 6 metres, so few houses or
yards would be affected. The typical polling booth is in a school, so in
most cases the party volunteers stand at the school gates handing out
how-to-vote leaflets. There are some situations where they would be
forced to stand further away.

[Tak To]

On 11/25/2022 9:56 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 26/11/22 06:17, Tak To wrote:
>> On 11/25/2022 10:10 AM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> On Friday, November 25, 2022 at 9:51:50 AM UTC-5, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think that I can explain why people don't want electronic voting
>>>> though they happily rely on numerous other electronic services.
>>>>
>>>> When I use our safe identity login, I can see the result immediately:
>>>> The page I wanted to see opens.
>>>>
>>>> When I use mobile pay, I can get som stuff from a person who happily
>>>> hands it over when he sees the electronic proof of transfer.
>>>>
>>>> When I open my driver's license on my mobile, I can show it to the
>>>> police, and they will let me drive on.
>>>>
>>>> But if I vote electronically, I have no way of knowing if it works, and
>>>> nobody can trace my vote and check it. Maybe there was a glitch so it
>>>> didn't get registered, maybe the glitch sent it to the wrong party,
>>>> maybe it triggered two votes instead of one. I don't know.
>>>>
>>>> When I vote on paper, I know that the ballot was put into the box (I did
>>>> that myself). I know that all the ballots are poured out, stacked in
>>>> nice piles and counted carefully at least twice, and I know that several
>>>> people are present and do nothing but oversea that everything is done
>>>> correctly. In principle I could get access to all the ballots and count
>>>> them myself.
>>>>
>>>> Therefore I trust paper more than computers. It may play a role that we
>>>> in Denmark have had several horrendous IT scandals with extremely
>>>> expensive programs that have been discarded as useless.
>>>
>>> That's why all modern electronic voting machines print a paper
>>> version of the ballot when it is cast.
>>>
>>> (NJ, however, has not entered the 21st century in that respect.)
>>
>> Not in your municipality perhaps, but in my town, the machine
>> prints out a paper copy of the ballot into a plexiglass enclosure
>> and when you touch the button to cast formally, the paper copy
>> is dropped into a bin below.
>
> Are the counts on the paper copies routinely compared with the counts
> reported by the software?

No.

New Jersey uses electronic voting but does not mandate paper audit
trails. I have always wondered, should a recount be needed, how
the recount would proceed without a paper trail.

Note: New Jersey does not have automatic recount thresholds, but
almost anyone can ask for a recount.

> (It would be elementary to design the software to make them different.)

Of course, but what would be the motive?

As a software designer, I have always advocated having open
source code as a key stone of ensuring integrity and security.
However, people outside of the practice don't seem to
realize the ultimate futility of verifying software by
black box methods.

--
Tak
----------------------------------------------------------------+-----
Tak To ta...@alum.mit.eduxx
--------------------------------------------------------------------^^
[taode takto ~{LU5B~}] NB: trim the xx to get my real email addr

[Tak To]

On 11/26/2022 10:23 AM, Quinn C wrote:
> * Bertel Lund Hansen:

>
>> But if I vote electronically, I have no way of knowing if it works, and
>> nobody can trace my vote and check it. Maybe there was a glitch so it
>> didn't get registered, maybe the glitch sent it to the wrong party,
>> maybe it triggered two votes instead of one. I don't know.
>

> Using encryption, there are ways of doing it so it's tamper-safe,
> traceable and you can check your own vote, but the fact that most people
> won't understand how it works may be good enough reason to prefer a more
> transparent system.

Verifying that the system has recorded your vote correctly
is not the same as verifying that the count is correct.

[Tak To]

On 11/27/2022 12:03 AM, Tony Cooper wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 18:39:12 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman
> <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> On Saturday, November 26, 2022 at 5:37:50 PM UTC-7, snide...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>> [hard and soft ballots]
>>
>>> Well, Orange County, California, has it both ways. The latest
>>> iteration has a paper ballot that you mark with a blue or black pen,
>>> and then it is fed through a scanner (IDNK if it is a full scanner, or
>>> optimized for mark reading) and then the count is stored internally and
>>> the ballot in a ballot box.
>> ...
>>
>> Much like Rio Arriba County, New Mexico. My complaint, since I believe
>> that as a citizen I have to have one, is that elderly and disabled people
>> probably have a hard time filling the ovals in properly. Also it probably
>> triggers traumatic memories of school in some.
>
> That echos a complaint I heard after the recent election. In this
> county, we use paper ballots with bubbles that have to be filled in.
> A neighbor who has a severe hand tremor was concerned that her ballot
> would be rejected because of her messy bubbles.
>
> She could have asked a poll watcher to assist her, but it would
> embarass her to ask.

In my town voting machine has a huge touch screen (about 3' x 2') on
which the "ballot" is displayed, and one votes by touching the relevant
places.

A paper sample ballot with the exact layout and information is mailed
to every voter (other than those who have requested mail-in ballots)
about two week before the election day. The sample ballot itself is
also rather large -- about 24" x 12".

[Tony Cooper]

The distance requirement is typically 150 feet (45.7 meters) in
Florida. Most of our polling places are in churches, so the campaign
workers usually stand at the entrance to the parking lot. Libraries
are also used as polling places, but they - too - have a parking lot
in front.

They don't hand out leaflets, but they do carry signs and wave at
people.

I have never quite understood why. I can't imagine anyone driving to
their polling place, seeing some campaign worker holding up a sign or
waving, and think "Oh, I'll vote for that person".

As explained before, we use churches because they have a social hall
large enough to accomodate the voting booths, parking facilities, and
they are not used for their regular function on Tuesdays. The church
is rented for the day by the county Election Board.

[Peter Moylan]

I've been pondering on why the Australian limit can be so short, and I
think I can now see the logic. Obviously you don't want party workers
looking over your shoulder while you vote, or even staring through the
door, but apart from that it's sufficient to keep them clear of the
room/hall where the voting is happening. The only way they could
interfere is by shouting out or using a megaphone, but that's disallowed
by a separate law. It doesn't really matter if they're moderately close.

Of course it does mean that people arriving to vote are subjected to
things like visible campaign posters as they approach the place, but
that would happen even with a 150-foot limit. Besides, they've been
getting the advertising for the past couple of weeks via TV, newspapers,
letter box drops, etc.

[Snidely]

Thus spake Kerr-Mudd, John:

It had to be more subtle than that by the time I was seeing summer
doldrums questions.

/dps

--
"Inviting people to laugh with you while you are laughing at yourself
is a good thing to do, You may be a fool but you're the fool in
charge." -- Carl Reiner

[Snidely]

Sam Plusnet suggested that ...

Lat us not think too lon.

/dps

--
The presence of this syntax results from the fact that SQLite is really
a Tcl extension that has escaped into the wild.
<http://www.sqlite.org/lang_expr.html>

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Tuesday, November 29, 2022 at 11:20:38 PM UTC-5, Tak To wrote:

> In my town voting machine has a huge touch screen (about 3' x 2') on
> which the "ballot" is displayed, and one votes by touching the relevant
> places.

Hudson County uses a large panel with a button by each candidate.
You press the button, a green light comes on; you can unpress it
until you do the final "record the vote" button.

> A paper sample ballot with the exact layout and information is mailed
> to every voter (other than those who have requested mail-in ballots)
> about two week before the election day. The sample ballot itself is
> also rather large -- about 24" x 12".

Our sample ballot is printed in red, on a folded sheet of paper big
enough to duplicate the array that will be seen in the voting booth.
(It wasn't much, if at all, bigger than legal paper (8 1/2 x 14) this
last time, because we only had Congressman and the three county
officials.)

But it arrives about a week before the election, and the absentee
ballot had arrived weeks earlier (and had already been put in the
dropbox). I called the Board of Elections to note that they were
wasting the county's money by sending it to everyone who's
already received their actual ballot, and she said it was a state
requirement.

So either Union or Hudson has it wrong!

[Tak To]

What does "comes first" mean in this case?

Note that Jerry's "leads the world" refers to the following
statement in lar3yca's post
"Canada. Leading the world in being north of the USA."

I don't think there is any longitude at which some part of
Norway is north of some part of the US.

[Richard Heathfield]

On 01/12/2022 8:31 pm, Tak To wrote:
> On 11/29/2022 1:13 AM, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>> Den 28.11.2022 kl. 18.31 skrev Jerry Friedman:
>>
>>> Well, the statement is true--Canada leads the world in that way. Greenland
>>> or Denmark (depending on how you count) is a very distant second and Russia
>>> is a very distant third. There are other distant contenders if we're counting
>>> U.S. territories that aren't part of the fifty states.
>>
>> Judging from Google Earth, Greenland comes first, then Canada and
>> Russia. Norway comes fourth.
>
> What does "comes first" mean in this case?
>
> Note that Jerry's "leads the world" refers to the following
> statement in lar3yca's post
> "Canada. Leading the world in being north of the USA."
>
> I don't think there is any longitude at which some part of
> Norway is north of some part of the US.

Looking at it another way, the whole of Norway is further north
than the whole of the 48 contiguous states and the whole of
Hawaii. The only part of the USA further north than Norway is a
500 square mile patch at the very top end of Alaska.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 01.12.2022 kl. 21.31 skrev Tak To:

>> Judging from Google Earth, Greenland comes first, then Canada and
>> Russia. Norway comes fourth.
>
> What does "comes first" mean in this case?

Greenland has a point closer to the north pole than any other country.

--
Bertel

[Jerry Friedman]

The question is what "north of the USA" means, in English usage. Larry
obviously and humorously [*] meant it to be due north, not farther north.

[*] Zeugma? Maybe not?

--
Jerry Friedman

[lar3ryca]

On 2022-12-01 14:57, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> On 01/12/2022 8:31 pm, Tak To wrote:
>> On 11/29/2022 1:13 AM, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>>> Den 28.11.2022 kl. 18.31 skrev Jerry Friedman:
>>>
>>>> Well, the statement is true--Canada leads the world in that way.
>>>> Greenland
>>>> or Denmark (depending on how you count) is a very distant second and
>>>> Russia
>>>> is a very distant third.  There are other distant contenders if
>>>> we're counting
>>>> U.S. territories that aren't part of the fifty states.
>>>
>>> Judging from Google Earth, Greenland comes first, then Canada and
>>> Russia. Norway comes fourth.
>>
>> What does "comes first" mean in this case?
>>
>> Note that Jerry's "leads the world" refers to the following
>> statement in lar3yca's post
>>    "Canada. Leading the world in being north of the USA."
>>
>> I don't think there is any longitude at which some part of
>> Norway is north of some part of the US.
>
> Looking at it another way, the whole of Norway is further north than the
> whole of the 48 contiguous states and the whole of Hawaii. The only part
> of the USA further north than Norway is a 500 square mile patch at the
> very top end of Alaska.

'further north != 'north of'.

--
I am the Ghost of Christmas Future Imperfect Conditional.
I bring news of what would have been going to happen if
you were not to have been going to change your ways.

[Peter Moylan]

And Greenland leads the world in being north-north-east of the USA.

[lar3ryca]

On 2022-12-01 18:27, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 02/12/22 08:07, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>> Den 01.12.2022 kl. 21.31 skrev Tak To:
>>
>>>> Judging from Google Earth, Greenland comes first, then Canada and
>>>> Russia. Norway comes fourth.
>>>
>>> What does "comes first" mean in this case?
>>
>> Greenland has a point closer to the north pole than any other country.
>
> And Greenland leads the world in being north-north-east of the USA.

True.

--
my haiku rocks
it has four, eleven, and five syllables
that's right, isn't it?

[Richard Heathfield]

Indeed. The difference is at the crux of this sub-thread's
confusion (be it deliberate or otherwise). "Norway comes fourth"
could not reasonably have come from the "lies due north of" camp;
as far as I'm aware, there is no part of Norway that lies due
north of any part of the USA, so how could it possibly come fourth?

[bil...@shaw.ca]

On Thursday, December 1, 2022 at 12:57:57 PM UTC-8, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> On 01/12/2022 8:31 pm, Tak To wrote:
> > On 11/29/2022 1:13 AM, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> >> Den 28.11.2022 kl. 18.31 skrev Jerry Friedman:
> >>
> >>> Well, the statement is true--Canada leads the world in that way. Greenland
> >>> or Denmark (depending on how you count) is a very distant second and Russia
> >>> is a very distant third. There are other distant contenders if we're counting
> >>> U.S. territories that aren't part of the fifty states.
> >>
> >> Judging from Google Earth, Greenland comes first, then Canada and
> >> Russia. Norway comes fourth.
> >
> > What does "comes first" mean in this case?
> >
> > Note that Jerry's "leads the world" refers to the following
> > statement in lar3yca's post
> > "Canada. Leading the world in being north of the USA."
> >
> > I don't think there is any longitude at which some part of
> > Norway is north of some part of the US.

> Looking at it another way, the whole of Norway is further north
> than the whole of the 48 contiguous states and the whole of
> Hawaii. The only part of the USA further north than Norway is a
> 500 square mile patch at the very top end of Alaska.

That patch ought to towed into gentler climes near Hawaii. Imagine the
resort developments.

bill

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 02.12.2022 kl. 06.04 skrev Richard Heathfield:

> have come from the "lies due north of" camp; as far as I'm aware, there
> is no part of Norway that lies due north of any part of the USA, so how
> could it possibly come fourth?

Svalbard is a group of islands that belong to Norway.

--
Bertel

[Richard Heathfield]

So? Svalbard stretches from 10.64E to 33.5E. For it to be "due
north" of the USA, you'd have to find a patch of USA that lies
between those longitudes.

[bil...@shaw.ca]

On Saturday, November 26, 2022 at 11:13:56 PM UTC-8, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> Den 27.11.2022 kl. 01.42 skrev Snidely:
>
> > You just need a charismatic leader to assert that massive fraud is
> > endemic in the system.

> That wouldn't do the trick. The thought wouldn't catch on in the majority.
>
Not in Denmark, perhaps. In the U.S., that kind of thinking is very popular of late.

bill

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 02.12.2022 kl. 08.45 skrev bil...@shaw.ca:

>>> You just need a charismatic leader to assert that massive fraud is
>>> endemic in the system.
>
>> That wouldn't do the trick. The thought wouldn't catch on in the majority.
>>
> Not in Denmark, perhaps. In the U.S., that kind of thinking is very popular of late.

That hasn't gone unnoticed here.

--
Bertel

[Ken Blake]

Norway comes forth as being north of Denmark.

[Jerry Friedman]

How did Scotland get into this?

Trivia question: What countries have coasts with no land between them
and the North Pole? I certainly couldn't tell without looking at a map.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

If we dispose of the obvious ones, USA, Canada, Denmark, Norway,
Russia, what's left? Not Finland, because although it looks as if it
has a north coast, it hasn't. Probably the UK, but I'm not sure. In
addition, I think there is a much more distant one that may squeeze
through the Bering Strait, but I'd need a btter map to be sure.


--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 36+ years; mainly
in England until 1987.

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

Not any more, It got annexed by ^w^w ceded to the Russians in WWII.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Peace_Treaty

> addition, I think there is a much more distant one that may squeeze
> through the Bering Strait, but I'd need a btter map to be sure.

It looks as if some Aleutian islands block such a move.
>
I cheated; Ireland I think can get a line between Scotland and Iceland.
Not obvious answers but I think there are coastal spots in the
Netherlands, Belgium and northern France, where a direct North line avoids
any land. Remarkably, I think some coast of the disputed ex-Spanish Sahara
gets a clear longitude between Iceland and Greenland.


--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

^w^w^w Ireland and Iceland.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

I hope Jerry will us, as he apparently knows.

[charles]

In article <juun2r...@mid.individual.net>,

Iceland?

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England - sent from my RISC OS 4té
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

[Silvano]

Athel Cornish-Bowden hat am 02.12.2022 um 17:22 geschrieben:

What about Iceland?
And if you count the UK, my globe tells me you should also count the
most western coast of the Netherlands, Belgium and perhaps even France,
next to the Belgian border. Strange, but

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2022-12-02 17:45:34 +0000, Silvano said:

> Athel Cornish-Bowden hat am 02.12.2022 um 17:22 geschrieben:
>> On 2022-12-02 14:51:13 +0000, Jerry Friedman said:
>
>>> Trivia question: What countries have coasts with no land between them
>>> and the North Pole? I certainly couldn't tell without looking at a map.
>>
>> If we dispose of the obvious ones, USA, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia,
>> what's left? Not Finland, because although it looks as if it has a north
>> coast, it hasn't. Probably the UK, but I'm not sure. In addition, I
>> think there is a much more distant one that may squeeze through the
>> Bering Strait, but I'd need a btter map to be sure.
>
> What about Iceland?

Of course. There is a simple explanation: I forgot about Iceland.

> And if you count the UK, my globe tells me you should also count the
> most western coast of the Netherlands, Belgium and perhaps even France,
> next to the Belgian border. Strange, but

[Jerry Friedman]

On Friday, December 2, 2022 at 9:55:19 AM UTC-7, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
> On Fri, 2 Dec 2022 17:22:49 +0100
> Athel Cornish-Bowden <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> wrote:
>
> > On 2022-12-02 14:51:13 +0000, Jerry Friedman said:

...

> > > Trivia question: What countries have coasts with no land between them
> > > and the North Pole? I certainly couldn't tell without looking at a map.
> >
> > If we dispose of the obvious ones, USA, Canada, Denmark, Norway,
> > Russia, what's left? Not Finland, because although it looks as if it
> > has a north coast, it hasn't. Probably the UK, but I'm not sure. In

> Not any more, It got annexed by ^w^w ceded to the Russians in WWII.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Peace_Treaty

> > addition, I think there is a much more distant one that may squeeze
> > through the Bering Strait, but I'd need a btter map to be sure.

> It looks as if some Aleutian islands block such a move.

Them and St. Lawrence Island. (I once had a student from there.)

> I cheated; Ireland I think can get a line between Scotland and Iceland.

I agree except that I think Iceland is entirely cut off by Greenland.

Easternmost point of Greenland: 11 10' W (Nordostrundingen)

Easternmost point of Iceland: 13 14' W (Hvalbakur)

(Wikip)

> Not obvious answers but I think there are coastal spots in the
> Netherlands, Belgium and northern France, where a direct North line avoids
> any land. Remarkably, I think some coast of the disputed ex-Spanish Sahara

> gets a clear longitude between I[r]eland and Greenland.

I agree again, except that I think it's more Morocco than tdeSS.

Westernmost point of Morocco: 13 29' W (west of Tah)

(Google Maps)

So my answers are Russia, the U.S., Canada, Greenland, Ireland, Morocco, the
Faroes, the UK (just Scotland and England), France, Belgium, the Netherlands,
Norway. One could argue about where the Greenland and the Faroes should
be counted as Denmark.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Peter T. Daniels]

("Western Sahara")

> Westernmost point of Morocco: 13 29' W (west of Tah)
> (Google Maps)
>
> So my answers are Russia, the U.S., Canada, Greenland, Ireland, Morocco, the
> Faroes, the UK (just Scotland and England), France, Belgium, the Netherlands,
> Norway. One could argue about where the Greenland and the Faroes should
> be counted as Denmark.

So Mr. Mercator has at least one bit of usefulness about him.

[lar3ryca]

Google Earth shows me that there is no way through the Bering strait.

As close as I can tell, the only way through from north of the
Aleutians, is between the west coast of King Island (about 168° 06' 07W)
and the east coast of St. Lawrence Island (168° 41' 20"W).

The next landmass south in that latitude range is Umnak Island (one of
the Aleutians), which spans that entire range and more.

--
Identifying a UFO turns it into an FO. After it lands it becomes an O.