From ground news summary:

• Brazilian police arrested a man and a teenager on May 3, 2025, foiling a bomb plot targeting Lady Gaga’s concert in Rio de Janeiro.
• Authorities uncovered the plot after identifying an online group spreading hate speech, radicalizing teenagers, and encouraging self-harm.
• Authorities conducted raids at nine sites across multiple Brazilian states such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, confiscating electronic equipment and other items connected to the planned bombing.
• Around 2.1 million people attended the free concert on Copacabana Beach, which aimed to boost the local economy and drew 500,000 tourists.
• The arrests prevented a potentially large-scale attack involving improvised explosives, highlighting authorities’ efforts against extremist online networks.

What the ground news summary did not describe that most publications seem to list are:

• The Brazilian federal police was already investigating other groups like this
• Authorities suspect the group was targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
• The arrested teenager was in possession of child sexual abuse material, and was charged on that.
• Another member of the group (not sure if he was charged) had religious motivations.

Yeah, the admin team of .ca is great. They are organized, open to input and always take the initiative (.ca toughened up on disinformation this election cycle).

Yeah, but our …

It was not supposed to be a negative critic of our instance/admins, on the contrary.

I was replying to the message who said this kind of trolling would be removed and banned right away in any instance, which is not true, I was even surprised that hexbear banned the troll just for that post…

But I just looked, the xiaohongshu2 was not banned for the post, xiaohongshu2 was banned for impersonating another user in bad faith. Hexbears took the post quite well, and the text is still there for people to read.

Some countries allow you to vote in primaries if you will be at voting age by the time of the main elections. It also helps when they have consistent voting days, and alternate elections every 2 years (federal/province for example).

If the provinces and cities also lower the voting age, they will be able to vote much sooner than 18/21.

Nils, if you cannot explain how this voting-age change …

I guess my first paragraph could be a bit more detailed, so all could understand.
It is hard to imagine you ignored it just to throw a tantrum.
So let me go more in depth, and please let me know if you need further assistance.

Context,

The news in Canada reported that young males might vote conservative, from polls, to schools simulations where the conservatives formed a minority government. I imagine this was part of the reason our friend was afraid of young voters - ironically, just as the right-wing voters, victim of their own unfounded fears.

People that took the time to open past the headlines would see a few things, the percentage of males voting conservative is still minimal compared to the total of other parties, and less than other age group. Young women avoid conservatives more than any other group.

The simulations involved kids as young as elementary, depending on the province here in Canada, they might be as young as 5 years old. And even there, the conservatives got only 36% of the votes across all age groups from elementary to high school.

Last, election turnover is very low with the younger audiences.

There are a bunch of “ifs” and stars to align. It is a fraction (16 and 17 years old), of a fraction (males), of a fraction (that lean conservatives) of a fraction (that would go vote), that you and our friend do not want to have the right to vote. And because of that, everyone else from the 16 and 17 years old age group would not be allowed as well.

It is funny that people like you want to limit other group rights because of what a small fraction of the constituents might do, and call it for the good of “progressive initiatives”.

Suppressing voters is not Progressive. As far as I can compare around, places where people have more rights and power, (more democracy) are more progressive.

Lowering the voting age is usually a Progressive instance, in most cases brought up by progressive parties, just look around the globe. Here we have the examples of FairVote and Sunshine.

Progressive does not mean “things I don’t like must go”.

Well, to be fair, I wrote this for others. By the way that you behave, it does not seem like you are interested in understanding, and just went crazy with slogans. I am not sure if you are a troll or a toddler throwing a tantrum.

I find it hilarious users claim progressiveness, while curbing people’s rights.*

American ICE is coming to deport you

Sadly, we already have other groups coming here to kidnap or murder inhabitants, and I am not sure if I will be alive long enough to give ICE a chance to get rid of me.

* You see how I repeat that a few times in the text, I noticed some people like slogans. So I will put in bold here.

Curbing people’s rights is not progressive

Young males voters are swaying…

No rights for a whole group because you do not agree with the political leaning of ~1/4 of them (poor young folks that vote centre and left). Add to this that younger men have a lower turnout voting, than any other age group.

A while we are at it

Young drivers are notoriously bad at driving,

With this logic, I imagine you also want to remove the license from people +50yo. Maybe their voter card as well.
Given their turnout and right-wing tendencies. Also, how bad they drive, given the number of accidents.

Hey, I all for a walkable city, possibly you are right with this license takeover.

but not for North Americans

Oh, yes, we are different because we live on this arbitrary piece of land.
Other countries have internet (better than here) and right-wing pundits as well.

I don’t think irrational fear of what others might do should be the gatekeeper of their rights.

I also do not agree with them paying taxes with no representation.

It’s THEIR future that we vote for

Given that you want to reduce the rights of a group that are active members of the society, can join the workforce and pay taxes, and studied for most of their lives. Just because you do not agree with what a fraction might do. I don’t think you have their best interest in mind.

There are a few .world doing that non ironically. In .ca they always create their own communities. And they usually stay around unless they break the instance rules too many times.

As far as I know, they only get downvotes, nothing more.

That rain smell, I remember being happy when my mom allowed me to play in the rain.

Thanks, great read.

Here we are still having problems to get the referendum going. Because the major parties were alternating for a while, so they always vote against it. It will be difficult to screw them both with disproportionate seats. This recent election, benefited them both.

Is this really your experience with +16 years old? If so, you should get your province to invest more in education.

They(16yo) can drive, they can enlist.

In most provinces, they are choosing their career, trade, university, and with fresh knowledge of history and geopolitics they get from schools.

And there is no magical switch that flips when you turn 18. The sooner they start thinking about their future, the better.

Many countries already allowed 16 years old people to vote, for more than 20 years, and they did not become a misogynist hell-hole.

local candidate

I used to think like that, until I realized that I never met the past 3 representatives from my riding. They sent representatives to knock on my door during the campaign saying yes to any issue I brought up, they never hold town halls, and only returned generic messages when we tried to contact them - when they answer.

The person elected this time does not live in my riding.

All of them voted with the party, and never proposed anything useful.

That was one of the questions I had for the candidates knocking this time, would you vote against the party if their decision would harm “us”(the riding)?

Today, I rather vote for anyone (or party/independent list) in Canada that would relate to my expectations. I do not care where they live, only that they do a good job.

1. Wash your face or any area you want to shave with gentle soap.
2. Use a gentle shaving cream, no scent, no alcohol. If possible, spread it with a shaving brush gently.
3. Shave in the direction of the hair, e.g. your moustache you probably go from nose to lips.
   a. Change your blades often, with a safety razor you most likely want a new blade after each shave. Blades get dull, pull the hair and clog the pores, they will accumulate bacteria over time, causing infections, disposing them after each shave will reduce the chances of those happening.
   b. Try to get good at passing the blade only once, avoid repeating on the same spots multiple times. If struggling, you might want to consider one of those razors that adjust to your face as you move, or an electric trimmer - avoid the ones that pull the hair before cutting.
4. Wash your face again, if possible, use a soap with ceramides and niacinamide (they will help with your skin recovery).
5. Tap your face gently with a clean towel, do not rub it, don’t go hard. Leave some moisture.
6. Use moisturizer (ceramides and niacinamide is a plus)
7. SPF

A lot of the things that happen to your skin can be caused by bacteria, clogged pores by dead skin, dirty, hair, fabric… Those steps will help you minimize the chances and help your skin recover faster after shaving.

If possible, you should visit a dermatologist for a deeper understanding of your skin, and the care you need.

Also, on a special occasion, treat yourself to one of those old school barbers, with hot/cold towels and all the pampers.

Not sure in your riding, but usually, they have different roles and experience level.

One important task is to keep everyone in check. If you reduce that number, the risks of different problems increases. Most recently this

There is a lot of propaganda around the world to discredit elections (usually by authoritarian regimes), so I do not think anyone will take the risk of reducing the number of poll workers.

Elections Canada describes all the roles and processes, from hiring, training, what to do before, during and after the voting day if you are interested in details. https://www.elections.ca/home.aspx

Sadly, we are a bit behind in technology and the costs can persist with electronic voting.

With in-person voting, either we do like Belgium with printing votes (I read people calling it “expensive pen”), or with air-gapped dedicated computers like in South America (the only thing that leaves is one of the storages and a printed sheet with the result of that location). There are the initial investment and we will still need the election workers.

On the other hand, with internet/remote voting, the initial investment in tech, security, and change management will be huge in our current state. You can reduce the numbers of workers with that, but now you will need more expensive people at every step to ensure a fair election.

Countries that uses any kind of electronic voting claim that it improved their elections considerably, including costs, but the upfront cost and the change in culture can scary some people.

(edit: fix typo)

About the electronic vote, I found this when I was trying to find the source code of some of those voting machines. It is a Brazillian explaining in english the process of voting.
https://rl.bloat.cat/r/linux/comments/jth7tj/voting_machines_in_brazil_use_linux_uenux_and/gc7yqic

u/Marcos-Am Nov 14 '20

Some things for the parrots that are only able to repeat what Tom Scott said in his videos.

First, all the voting happens on a 10-hour period. Normally 8 hours but this year will be extended due to Covid.

On our election there is no easy way to do it. We vote on the public schools and each machine is on a separate classroom, about 20 machines per school where I live, each school is about a km of one another, these machines have their own battery and are not hooked to each other. Each one of those machines have a table with a number of rows equal that of all people that are expected to vote in that classroom, each vote is then written in a random row so you cannot trace it back to a vote order. Hacking machines singular machines is possible, but to make significant difference on the voting day you would need to focus on the biggest electoral colleges, in hundreds of schools in a limited period. After the election closes 17 PM GMT -3, all the voting machines have their “memory card” transported to the local electoral tribunal where they are transmitted through and intranet wired to the Superior Electoral Tribunal on Brasilia to count, as far I could understand they count locally as well to double check.

Now, the easiest place to rig votes in bulk is on the electoral tribunals, were you get a lot of party people and police monitoring the count.

Also, I believe no votes are accepted before the end of the voting period, but other person will need to attest this information, maybe you rataktaktaruken.

While all the steps of the voting process have visible insecurities, the scale of the election, the timeframe in which it occurs, and the compartmentalization of incoming votes bring higher reliability to the process.

This information’s can be found here and here part of it was from personal experience as well.

(There are plenty of videos around showing how to vote, how the machine works, the “hackaton” that happens before every election to crack the machines, …)

It seems that this is a regular election in Belgium

https://www.democraticaudit.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/euro-ballot-paper-belgium.jpg

The news might be best, I am not sure if they keep their database updated. I was checking some studios websites, and they seem very dated, some do not offer HTTPS.

This might help with your list. https://canadiangamedevs.com/

From what I read, it appears that the problem is:

imagine how many more people would vote if you could just open your phone and do it”

It seems that a lot of decisions in Canada about voting, who can vote, where they can vote, riding size and shape, … are to get the right outcome from elections.

Maybe after PR passes those will change, but who knows.

I deeply disagree. Except for the trust issue.

First, PR is definitely more important at the moment. I will explain why disagree with the other points.

Addressing first the videos I finally had time to watch.

By the dates of those videos, there were plenty of examples of countries using electronic voting for at least 15 years. That person could easily use proper data to make their arguments, but they chose to engage in fearmongering, appeal to emotion, those videos are full of red flags highlighted in the Canadian campaign against disinformation. https://www.canada.ca/en/campaign/online-disinformation.html

For example, the example of USB being available for people had to be addresses in many of those countries, right-wing populists associated with Russia were using to create chaos during elections. https://www.tre-ap.jus.br/comunicacao/noticias/2022/Maio/e-fato-urnas-eletronicas-tem-portas-usb-mas-so-funcionam-dispositivos-especificos-da-justica-eleitoral (not sure how to share a deepl translation link)

With electronic systems, we’d need to trust not just the code (which most citizens can’t verify), but also the entire chain of custody of both hardware and software.

In some of the examples I saw, the code is open source, or at least auditable, so is the hardware. And the entire chain of custody is recorded, and escorted.

They are even more transparent than paper voting.

Computer scientists and security experts have consistently warned about these vulnerabilities.

Not really, the video you shared I already mentioned above.

Countries leading in technology are already using some sort of electronic vote. Estonia is the leader in cybersecurity in Europe, most countries go there to learn and improve their systems.

https://ccdcoe.org/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHiq5UfxePA

Security experts and computer scientists learn, tests and probe for vulnerabilities so they can prevent problems when implementing systems that will help people.

Not to foment fear and panic, and discourage people from voting.

Electronic systems create “single points of failure” that paper ballots distributed across thousands of polling stations don’t have.

Not really sure what you mean for single points of failure. Electronic voting varies from country to country, from having to visit electronic urns to voting on your phone.

There was a case in Belgium when there was a software error in their electronic urn that gave more points to one candidate. But because of the way that data is stored, and the security chain around it, it was easy to pinpoint the issue and fix the tally.

On the other hand, countries with electronic vote reported a decrease in corruption of the chain of custody, reduction in costs of compared with other voting ways. And of course, the reason I asked if it was part of the FairVote, increases of voters, increase in accessibility, and decrease in invalid votes (people commit fewer mistakes when voting).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_by_country#Estonia (edit: I put the link for Estonia, but I meant the entire article, it shows the decisions of each country and why they are using or not electronic voting).

Sadly, I can only find contents in English from Estonia and the European Union.

But on youtube, you can auto-generate the subtitles, then change it to auto-translate. It might have some funny moments, like when the person pointed to a printer, and it translated it as “teacher”. But it helps to understand.

This video shows instead an electronic urn, and how they set up it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wrMLzqgKEI This video shows is from their Elections organization explaining the security chain and audits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IOtrQhpKBE

The trust issue you’ve highlighted is crucial.

If the people do not trust or understand, it might make things hard. And it is even harder when they cannot trust their elected officials.

In my case, and probably where I am biased, I do not trust authoritarian regimes, and they are the ones trying to make people distrust elections, and technologies that can reduce corruption.

I think I get what you are saying.

I worked for a company that would generate electronic trails for every transaction, and we would know right away if a byte was wrong, with many details. It reduced corruption and complexity of the operation. While the information was there for anyone to understand, a lot of people just prefer to “trust the process”.

When I was reading of the many ways of electronic voting, from internet voting to air gap electronic ballots, it was not different. They increased the participation of the public by simplifying the vote process, benefiting the least educated voters. They reduced the number of invalid votes (ballot not filled properly, damaged, … ), reduced the time to vote, and reduced the number of votes lost.

In some countries, the electronic vote is similar to the paper. People go to a place, vote in an air gap computer they call electronic urn, everything follows the same process you mentioned, but instead of a box full of paper, it is this super secure urn.

It might be difficult to trust the process when people do not trust the decision makers.

Thank you so much, those information and links are great.

Focusing on PR makes sense, a lot of those countries already had some sort of PR going on when they implemented electronic ballot or internet voting, it also facilitated referendums a lot. The same goes with the voting age, some implemented as soon as they became a democracy, others took a bit longer.

I will look into getting involved and volunteering. Thank you.