Charles P Pierce - If the Russians Got into Voting Machines, I Fear for the Republic

[n2doc]

Closer and closer and…

From NBC News:

In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Jeanette Manfra, the head of cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, said she couldn't talk about classified information publicly, but in 2016, "We saw a targeting of 21 states and an exceptionally small number of them were actually successfully penetrated." Jeh Johnson, who was DHS secretary during the Russian intrusions, said, "2016 was a wake-up call and now it's incumbent upon states and the Feds to do something about it before our democracy is attacked again."

We are inching ever closer to the revelation that the actual vote totals were hacked—some very smart people are already there, by the way—and, once that happens, I don’t know where we go from there. The Republican Party already has shown it will tolerate all manner of jacking around with the franchise in pursuit of power and its benefits for the Republican donor class. But, simply, I don’t know if either party truly has the sand to face up to the possibility that a president* was installed under those circumstances.

Talk about a story nobody wants to hear. Imagine if the margin of victory in, say, Wisconsin, was a result of votes “cast” in some cubicle farm in Minsk.

more

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a16758812/russia-hack-voting-machines-2016/

[lark]

1. I'd bet I can name the states hacked successfully:

Wisconsin - it's been proven there were more votes for repugs in 9 districts than there were registered voters
MI - huge disparity in votes for president vs. votes period
FL -suspicious number of missing presidential votes, total vote count way down in blue Broward and Hialeah counties
PA - again missing presidential votes from urban counties

Drumpfs margin of winning was very small in each of these states with 2 of them being exactly 1.7%, coincidence, think not.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

2. States too

that haven't gone Red in YEARS!

[lark]

3. Exactly why they were flipped.

Otherwise drumpf loses because no sane person votes for him. Unfortunately, we have 34 million insane assholes or Russia was more active than has been acknowledged.

[MFM008]

5. Especially

Since polls had her so far ahead.
Just a few hundred votes here and there....
And bingo.

[chuckstevens]

23. WI. How the hell did Ron Johnson beat Russ Feingold?

[Amaryllis]

39. Exactly. I was asking that on election night. Except I knew the answer. Knew it as soon as

it came out that they'd hacked the databases. They don't do it just to prove they can and stop there.

[lark]

76. Russia stole it for him,

same as they did with drumpf and lots of other repugs.

[trueblue2007]

67. we need to VOTE BY MAIL .... like we do in OREGON. it is great

and no cheating that i have heard about.

[MFM008]

4. They did

This whole election should be invalidated.
I know it won't but it should be.

[YessirAtsaFact]

6. All paper ballots in 2018

We won’t know the results for a day or two, but the election results won’t be hacked.

[LiberalLovinLug]

9. I just do not get Democrats in Washington sometimes

They should be on TV every day from now until the mid terms demanding this! It would be a stretch for any Rethug to claim partisanship on it, because theoretically, it only would assure a proper vote count for each side.

And this has been going on for the last 3 elections at minimum. Yet crickets from Dems. Its like they WANT to lose. Truly baffling.


Also, that is a myth about paper ballots taking days. We have a very large country here in Canada as well. You just hire enough temporary workers for the day. You have a bigger population to work with but that means you also have a larger pool of workers to draw from. It can be done.

Anyways, with our paper balloting, results are in the same evening. No longer than it takes in the US.

[YessirAtsaFact]

13. Your country has the counting methods set up

We would be starting from scratch and have to deal with two groups who absolutely don’t trust each other.

It’s possible to do the precinct by precinct counting the same evening, but double checking and getting the votes totaled may be the next day.

[LiberalLovinLug]

16. Its really not that difficult

But there are logistical problems sure. But its not as if you haven't had it that way before. You did once have paper ballots.

The groups that don't trust each other...that's why every polling station there are volunteer reps from each party that oversees the vote counting at the close of that polling station.

The problem I see though is that here, for Provincial elections they are naturally overseen by the Province (State). But for federal elections they are coordinated and standardized by a federal department, which I'm sure helps make it all go smoother. There you insist on each State doing it their own way, no matter what the complications that ensues (hanging chads).

[Hermit-The-Prog]

73. verified

It's easy to verify a paper ballot count.

Have a bunch of people around a table, each counts independently but in full, public view. Reps of each candidate stand around looking over their shoulders. General public looks on. Election officials then certify the results when all agree.

We have traded a secret but individually verifiable ballot with publicly verifiable count for a ballot which the individual cannot verify and a count that the public cannot verify.

For all you know, when you push that button, you just opened a garage door down the street.

[Hekate]

50. Canada has the same population as California. Also, we throw everything on one ballot...

...from dogcatcher to POTUS. California throws in its infamous "Propositions," which involve a paragraph on the ballot (plus pages of reading beforehand). I don't know if you do that.

However, from what I remember from my reading about 15 years ago, Canada hand-counts in small batches, i.e. precincts, the results of which are certified and sent on.

I thought then, and think now, that we can certainly do that. And to survive, I think we must.

[LiberalLovinLug]

77. Ah yes, the benefits of "direct democracy"

Its true. Sometimes we add an issue, on a Provincial vote, like a referendum on PR voting for instance we did once here in BC. And there are more issues to vote for in municipal elections. Like major infrastructure decisions. But I don't recall ever having an extra issue on a federal voting polling card. Federal voting should be restricted to federal issues. Same with Provincial(State) and municipal. Not only because all those extra decisions makes it more intimidating for casual voters, but that can be used to draw out one issue voters in order to win. Like adding a useless choice on preserving traditional marriage or preserving the rights of Christian businesses to deny the rights of others for their own beliefs etc...

Direct democracy is great in theory, but sometimes, for most issues, it works better to just let the ones you voted in for four years do their jobs and you can always vote them out next time if you don't like it.

[Hekate]

78. California's ballot Propositions have led to some really, really stupid decisions

Don't even get me started.

[usaf-vet]

10. Exactly!!!

Exactly!!!

[Glorfindel]

29. Absolutely. The first few times I voted, we used paper ballots here in Georgia

No problems. It really felt as if you were doing something for the country, as opposed to mucking about on some machine.

[longship]

41. Michigan has paper ballots statewide.

Did not help us here. I suspect that Drumpf won here because the rural areas, like where I live, were hugely for Drumpf. That, and voter suppression in Dem areas.

Paper ballots only make it more difficult to hack an election. There are many more ways to hack an election than changing ballots.

[Ligyron]

47. Then, if necessary assign a Federal agent to each precinct.

PITA, but it would be better than what we are (not) doing now

[longship]

62. We have precinct observers in nearly every precinct.

Volunteers, all trained in basic election law. They observe and report.

Only dictatorships have federal agents at the polling places, and it's certainly not to secure the right to vote.

My best to you.

[questionseverything]

63. it has to be paper ballots counted by hand with a tight chain of custody

in michigan the scanners reported more votes than voters in 150 precincts

by law those precincts couldn't be recounted

if the entire thing isn't transparent it is not really democratic

[Hoyt]

52. And then we will have lost ballot boxes, stuffed ballots, hanging chads, etc.

Losers are like athletes, loses were always rigged/stolen. We didn’t get out the vote like white wing racists, Comey, Clinton was wounded in primaries, some didn’t vote ot voted 3rd party or for trump in some protest, we didn’t react to Comey, swiftboating, or even Ruskie lies..

[YessirAtsaFact]

54. Please spare me the macho speech about losers, etc We dont have to accept cheating

The media is starting to say 2016 may have been hacked by the Russians.

It would be stupid not to take precautions for the 2018 elections

If I’m concerned about hacking, I can elect to vote on paper and reduce the chances of hackers changing votes.

Given the situation I’ll take my chances with paper

[Hoyt]

56. Hacking didnt cost us the election. Never suggested not taking precautions. Spare me

the excuses and conspiracy junk that aren’t going to win us elections.

Getting out the vote like in Alabama and Maryland works. Claiming vote count MAY have been hacked, doesn’t work.

[YessirAtsaFact]

58. Agree on GOTV. Disagree on hacking

Earlier thread is about. PhD economist who researched discrepancies between exit polls and actual vote counts in 28 states in 2016.

26 out of 28 showed actual votes for republicans were greater by a statistically significant margin.

Extremely unlikely it was chance, 26 out of 28 times.

[Hoyt]

59. Maybe some folks didnt want to admit voting for trump.

Lots of PhDs out there looking for publicity too. Fact is, when we vote we win. If there was ever an election that could have been hacked or otherwise stolen because so many couldn’t stand the thought, it was Obama. Yet we voted in droves.

[TheFrenchRazor]

65. the "shy conservative voter" theory started in 2000. coincidence? probably not. nt

[questionseverything]

66. obama was smart enough and had the army of volunteers to count the precincts himself

that's why rove had his melt down in '12

obama and team knew what had come in and what was left

[octoberlib]

7. Well, they're definitely not telling us everything.

[TygrBright]

8. "Volga Bagmen". Bingo. n/t

[Ellipsis]

11. I hear there are a lot of badger fans in Minsk.

[mcar]

12. ...

[edhopper]

14. So I will say it again

TRUMP FUCKING LOST!!!

Enough why Hillary couldn't overcome voter suppression, the media, Comey and this to get enough votes to overcome Trump.
She fucking did and they stole it.

And enough of why we need to understand why Trump was successful in 2016. HE FUCKING LOST!! And we don't need to appeal to the people he did. they are a minority and can go screw themselves.

[planetc]

26. And I will agree again ...

Not only did Trump lose, but Clinton Won.

But in the aftermath of the election, instead of considering the possibility that the results were stolen, rigged, and not worth the electricity they're written in, we have endlessly scourged the monstrous Trump Voter! Also, we are haunted by the possibility that Russia hacked the 2016 election, as though nobody else had an interest in throwing it, and nobody else had any computer expertise, and nobody else had any control or influence over the voting process.

It's not just the political parties who don't want to discuss this subject, but the mainstream media as well. They speak in worried tones when mentioning Russian hackers, because Russia is way far away, and a traditional enemy. Looking within our own shores for manipulation is anathema for the MSM, although the endless machinations of voter roll cleansing and stringent voter ID laws can get a little attention every now and again, the possibility that any, or all, of these techniques might have worked is never mentioned.

It therefore falls to us to keep on talking about it.

[Amaryllis]

40. Keith Olberman was the only one who would go there after they stole 2004.

[FiveGoodMen]

31. In any reasonable country, however, he'd have lost by a whole lot more

[edhopper]

34. True

the Trump voters are idiots.

But saying Clinton needed another million or two votes to win makes us a sham democracy.

[FiveGoodMen]

35. My concern, though, is that we talk like we'd be okay if elections were cleaned up

I think we'd still be way too close to the danger zone.

A little shift in public opinion, another 911, just more BS from Fox and the Nazis/white-supremacists/Klan might REALLY win an election.

There's a terrible disease going round the country and almost a third of us have it.

We need to fix that ... somehow.

[edhopper]

44. Agreed

I we do have to make the country realize how destructive the GOP is.

[Ms. Toad]

15. They didn't get into voting machines.

They got into voter registration systems.

They are entirely separate systems.

Not saying it is a good thing, but it is important to be clear about whether it impacts who is permitted to vote v. altering a vote actually cast.

[rainin]

20. The Russians hacked into voter rolls, but I remain convinced that

Republican SOS engaged in targeted hacking of their own. We've known for over a decade that the machines can be tampered with, either on site, or centrally, when they are tabulated. Vote flipping is a thing.

So, Russians didn't have to do this alone. They had help from Republicans every step of the way.

[Ms. Toad]

22. On site, when there is no restriction on ability to access the machines

correct. (This unlike the actual election day scenario - in which machines are in full view of precinct employees from both parties AND (often) election observers of both parties) All of the escapades I have seen that demonstrate voting machine tampering require access that is not available under actual voting conditions.

As to remotely - they are not connected to the internet, so no they cannot be tampered with remotely.

Vote "flipping" is due to poor touchscreen calibration. Same as happens on my GPS or my phone when the touch points are not perfectly aligned with the keyboard display. That's why every voting machine displays votes and requests confirmation. No one should leave the voting booth if the screen displays different selections than they made.

[garybeck]

60. You're missing something important

The voting machines can be hacked through the memory card that is reprogrammed before every election. They can affect the counting process. No one has to touch the machine on election day. it's done before hand. They only have to penetrate the place where the memory cards are programmed. And those companies are absolutely online on the internet. They are programmed in regular pc machines. At Central locations. They could attack there remotely or even just have a person who works at the software company on board.

It is a moot point about whether or not the voting machines are on the Internet or if anyone has access to the voting machines on Election Day. It's all in the memory cards which are removed before election day and reprogrammed at a central location every time

[diva77]

72. This would make an excellent OP in and of itself. Great explanation.

[diva77]

49. No Russians required for this necessarily. The rethug & nonrethug SOS's certified these machines

and were active in enabling rigged "voting" machines to be purchased and deployed.

[sarah FAILIN]

21. For what reason did they do it?

Nobody does anything without a reason and they had one.

The question is how did it help them meet their goal?

[Ms. Toad]

70. I'm sure they are trying to mess with voter registration.

for the same reason that there is a big push for voter ID laws - making it harder for people who are poor, move around more, weren't born in a hospital, are elderly, have darker pigmentation, etc. to vote.

There is just a significant difference between gaining access to the voter registration systems than to voting machines. Every article I've seen is about the former, and all of the "sky is falling" posts I've seen seem convinced it was the latter - in part because the articles are careless about distinguishing the two.

[TheFrenchRazor]

27. you don't know that. don't act like you do. nt

[triron]

30. +1000

[bluestarone]

33. agree

1000000%

[Ms. Toad]

69. With all due respect, you don't have a clue whether I have no experience -

or thousands of hours of intimate experience working with the machines. So don't act like you do.

FWIW, my experience is closer to the latter than the former.

[garybeck]

61. How do you know?

[Ms. Toad]

71. For one, I read reports of election system hacking very carefully,

From the perspective of someone who recognizes the machines and systems they are talking about. All of the recent articles that I've seen are about the voter registration system.

I also have thousands of hours of hands-on experience with voting machines from multiple manufacturers, in multiple jurisdictions, in multiple roles. I've also served as the Democratic observer in two counties through all phases of the voting (early through tabulation) - so I have direct observation of the tabulation, the opportunity for unsupervised access to the machines, etc. I also worked in the boiler room in an important Democratic-leaning county in my home state during the 2012 presidential election. I was assigned the role of trouble-shooter for all reports of voting machine incidents largely because my experience permitted me to solve - or at least categorize as suspicious or not - a lot of problems more quickly than anyone else could even find the problem in a manual.

[diva77]

75. It is impossible to observe what goes on inside a voting machine -- that is why the Germans rejected

computerized voting. The process is not transparent and the software/hardware is proprietary - corporate owned.

[rainin]

17. Somehow, we stopped trusting exit polls in domestic elections

even though we trust them implicitly in foreign elections (so much so that an election result will not be recognized if the spread is too great in a foreign election).

Yet, our exit polls were dismissed as flawed rather than consider the more obvious (albeit unthinkable) possibility that the election was fraudulent.

https://heavy.com/news/2016/11/2016-exit-polls-did-hillaty-clinton-win-presidential-election-voter-fraud-donald-trump-lose-rigged/

We've been ignoring the "Red Shift" for too many election cycles. Even now, we still say "Trump won" even though it is becoming increasingly obvious, it was stolen.

[byronius]

24. Great link.

It's dismaying indeed that a third of Americans are willing to betray the basic creed to win.

We all lose.

[TheFrenchRazor]

28. that started in 2000. i'm shocked. not. nt

[C Moon]

18. 'We are inching ever closer to the revelation that the actual vote totals were hacked...'

We knew it, didn't we?
Watching as the night went on. Seeing prediction after prediction fall in favor of Turnip.
It was so obvious.
But NOTHING has been done to stop it from repeating again.

[rainin]

32. Yep, we knew it. n/t

[uponit7771]

36. +1, they don't even have to hack the totals just hack the voter roles and keep people

... who could most likely be dem voters from voting

What they should be looking at is provisional ballots ... the higher the number the more the voter roll hacking in that are

[Amaryllis]

42. Lots of us suspected it when the news about hacking came out summer of 2016.

I was not in the "Hillary will win" camp. When friends thought it was a given, I said I was not confident at all with all the hacking that' was going on.

[C Moon]

46. Yep. And the same thing is going to happen this November unless something is fixed.

[Kablooie]

19. And specially because Republicans don't want to stop them.

Republicans seem to think Putin is an honorary Republican and will do whatever he can to keep them in power.

[Generic Brad]

38. The ends justify the means to Republicans

Get those trickle down tax cuts. Ban abortion. Throw out the foreigners. Stop gay marriage. Protect the right to have unlimited guns and ammo.



I will be so bold as to allege that Russia had inside help in many districts from willing people who consider themselves purer Americans and more Christian than the rest of us.

[triron]

25. my post from last nite is relevant here

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210203205

[Algernon Moncrieff]

37. Don't fear - fix

People have been calling for a paper trail since 2000.

[Botany]

43. Yup!

In 2000, when the illegitimate involvement of the United States Supreme Court installed Bush, who’d benefitted from a number of low-level scams in Florida, before and after the election, by and large, the country came around to pretending that hadn’t happened at all. I didn’t like how easy it was to forget what happened, and I dread the possibility that something worse happened last November, and I also dread the possibility that, if it is proven to be true, we’ll simply wave it off in time the way we waved off Bush v. Gore. If we do, we’re dead as a self-governing republic. Simple as that.

[Ligyron]

45. Can't rec this enough!

All should read the linked article.

You get a valentine for turning us onto this.

[red dog 1]

48. "it's incumbent upon states & the feds to do something about it before our democracy is attacked

again."??

With the federal government totally in the hands of the Republicans, the "feds" are certainly NOT going "to do something about it."...That's for damn sure!

So I guess it's up to the states "to do something about it before our democracy is attacked again."



K&R, thanks for posting!

[Sophia4]

51. Let's require manual, hand counting of all votes in all elections in our country!

[StevieM]

53. I have long wondered about what happened in Kentucky in 2016. (eom)

[mythology]

55. And yet the counties in Wisconsin that hand recounted counties showed not significant and

no unexplainable differences than machine recounted counties. Kind of hard to fake that.

Michigan uses paper ballots, kind of hard to virtually create those.

Pennsylvania uses a mix of paper and electronic voting. But the vote compared to pre-election polls was within the margin of error.

There is zero evidence of actual vote changing. The national polls were more accurate in 2016 than they were in 2012. Why people choose to believe in these baseless conspiracies is beyond me. It's a baseless conspiracy that if it were true (which it clearly isn't), would basically mean we should give up as if these mythical uber hackers existed, there is nothing we could do to stop it.

[diva77]

57. would appreciate a link to the source of your information n/t

[questionseverything]

64. bradblog says 9-30 % uncounted in some areas

post-election effort was largely stymied by Team Trump and various statutes in each of those states. A statewide tally was allowed to move forward in Wisconsin, however only about half of the state's ballots were hand-counted, as municipalities were allowed to carry out their choice of either manual- or machine-tallied "recounts".

After finding an alarming number of uncounted ballots in Racine County precincts during last year's machine "recount" (see documentary filmmaker Lulu Friesdat's alarming coverage of election officials refusing to hand-tally clearly valid votes there during Stein's attempted "recount&quot the volunteers at WIE filed, and paid for, a public records request to examine the hand-marked paper ballots in a number of those wards.

Recently, they were allowed to review those ballots and, as they feared, many perfectly valid votes had gone uncounted by the optical-scan systems both during the original Election Night tally and the so-called "recount" in counties that used the same faulty computer scanners for the second count, after they had similarly mistallied ballots on Election Night.

I'm joined on today's show by longtime election integrity advocate and WIE's statewide coordinator KAREN McKIM to discuss the group's findings, revealing that the ballot scanning computers used in some 57 municipalities across the state had failed to tally anywhere from 2% to 6% of the ballots with valid Presidential votes in each of the Racine precincts they were allowed to examine a week or so ago. In other WI cities which chose to count by hand during Stein's "recount", McKim tells me, those same scanners had originally missed anywhere from 9% to 30% of valid Presidential votes! All of that in a state which Donald Trump is said to have won last year by less than 1%.
/////////////////////////////////////

can't get the link to post but it is from the 11-28-17 bradblog

[TheFrenchRazor]

68. it is quite likely that hacking would be targeted at precincts w/ no paper trail; and remember,

there was no comprehensive, statewide, all-hand counted recounts done anywhere. so we don't really know whether the state totals were accurate, do we? and using all hand-counted paper ballots everywhere would go a long way towards thwarting hackers. of course, old fashioned ballot box stuffing and other such shenanigans would still be attempted, but it would be a whole lot harder to completely steal an election without leaving a trace.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

74. investigate and re- or de-certify

If the "preponderance of evidence" indicates the results were manipulated, then decertify the results for that precinct. If the change would be enough to change the state-wide result, decertify and hold a new election. If that changes the national results, get Agent Orange and his cohort of crooks out of office (and possibly, into jail).