Whether or not he lives in the US, he is right to express some level of interest in our government (and how it is elected). We're the worlds largest economy (or close to it), the world's largest democracy, and generally what happens here has a massive impact on the rest of the world.
And in this case, he's right. We spend an absurd amount of money on political campaigning, but then get lost in the weeds, and/or hand-wavey, when somebody wants to discuss election security. There are legitimate criticisms of how we process elections.
Is cable TV programming political campaigning? How about youtube videos funded by the Kochs or Soros?
"Election security," as in mandate, at the federal level, what the states do? Centralizing power (maximizing the possibility of a single point of failures) makes elections more vulnerable. Voting machines are air-gaped. Our elections were influenced by propaganda on social media, just like the Arab Spring.
Evaluating actual 'cause and effect' is helpful when trying to understand situations.
Is cable TV programming political campaigning? How about youtube videos funded by the Kochs or Soros?
No, that's not campaigning, at least not officially. But, adding those into the mix makes the money spent even more ludicrous.
As for federal mandates, I'm not sure I agree. Right now, states have nearly complete control of the election system, with vastly varying levels of competence. I'm not sure I'd want the federal government mandating which specific machine to use, but I'd love some consistency across states. And also some mandates around vote-by-mail and similar systems.
Air-gapping voting machines only does so much good when nobody outside Diebold knows what the machine does on the inside.
What is your concern with how our country spends its own money? Where do you live, and let's scrutinize that system like you judge ours?
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