I Think we Should Be Extremely Concerned about the Evil that Brought us Trump: Election Fraud

[Time for change]

Facts about the vulnerability of electronic vote counting in the United States

Fact 1: It is universally agreed that the electronic vote counting system in the United States is very vulnerable to manipulation – i.e. election theft.

Fact 2: All of the electronic vote counting in the United States is done by machines owned by right wing individuals. Ownership of the machines makes election fraud especially easy. Hacking is not necessary. All it takes is for the owners of the machines to program them for the desired results.

Fact 3: Meaningful oversight of our elections is practically non-existent:
 Many jurisdictions produce electronic results that cannot be recounted because there is no paper trail to recount
 Neither the machines nor the results produced by them are ever available for public inspection, based on the principle that they are privately owned. So they cannot be inspected and analyzed for malicious code, despite myriad requests from election integrity organizations that this be done.
 When requests for paper recounts are made, unless the margin of victory is extremely narrow, so many obstructions exist for obtaining a thorough recount that it has never been done in a meaningful way in the United States.

Fact 4: In addition to the above noted facts that explain the potential for election theft, abundant evidence exists from exit polls and many other means that election theft has occurred on a massive basis in the United States since 2004, in elections at the Presidential, Senate, House and gubernatorial levels. The election theft always points in the same direction – favoring the more right-wing candidate.


Interpretation/discussion

Facts 1 through 3 scream out to us for the need to make our elections transparent and over-seeable. Fact number 4 is considered important to election integrity activists only because it seems that the potential for election theft is not enough to motivate most people to demand reform. Since the U.S. population is assured by those in power, most important our national corporate news media, that there has been no evidence of significant election fraud in our country, the motivation for demanding reform is very low. It is generally assumed by the American people that election fraud on a significant scale in the United States is not a plausible threat because their country is a beacon of democracy for the rest of the world. Few are aware that the United States is ranked last among the 47 long established democracies, by the Election Integrity Project founded by the Kennedy School of Government – largely because of its vulnerability to election theft.

The end result is a U.S. government today that can no longer be considered a democracy, is far to the right of the American people, and is woefully unresponsive to their needs or desires. This can only get worse in the absence of a strong effort to correct it.

To give you an idea of how bad it is, a Democratic pollster recently confided that internal polling generally must show a 10-point Democratic lead before a contest is considered even. Professional pollsters use “likely voter” models to adjust for this, so that their polls become more accurate predictors of what will happen on Election Day. The rationale for the “likely voter” models is that the reason that Democrats almost always underperform on Election Day compared to pre-election polls is that Democrats are less likely to vote than Republicans. But statistically, stolen votes have the same effect as voters not showing up to vote. Professional pollsters assume that Democratic underperformance on Election Day compared with polling predictions is due to Democrats not voting, because they do not consider that that underperformance may be due to stolen votes instead.

It must also be noted that Democrats almost always underperform on Election Day compared to exit polls. Nobody can blame this on failure of Democrats to vote, because exit polls are performed only on people who have just voted. So the explanation given to us as to why Democratic candidates almost always underperform relative to exit polls is that exit polls are always biased towards Democrats because Democrats are more likely to participate in exit polls than Republicans. Again, there is a complete unwillingness by our corporate news media to consider or discuss the possibility that Democratic candidate underperformance on Election Day compared to exit polls is due to electronic vote stealing.

Many, including myself, are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that we have experienced massive electronic election theft in our country over the past couple of decades, and that that is the reason that we now have Donald Trump as our President and a lackey Congress to support him. Many others, most notably our corporate news media and our elected representatives in Congress, either disagree with us on that or choose to remain silent about it. But whether you agree or not that we have experienced massive election theft in our country at the highest levels, I hope that at least we can all agree on the dire need for an accountable and fair voting system, and to act upon that to demand that we get one.

There is no issue facing us today that is even comparable in importance. Not Donald Trump, not anything. All other issues are intimately affected by the integrity of our election system. If it’s not adequately addressed we should not expect things to get any better in our country. They can only get worse.

I am publishing an eight-part series, entitled, “Election Fraud in the United States: 2004 to Present” on the World News Trust website, founded by Democratic Underground members in 2002 and operated since then by Democratic Underground member Tace (Francis Goodwin), with the help of various contributors.

Here are links to the first two parts and a listing of the titles to all 8 parts of my series at World News Trust. We hope you will check them out and provide any feedback, positive or negative, especially suggestions for improvement and what else can be done to address the important issue of election integrity in the United States:

Part I: Vulnerability of Electronic Vote Counting in the United States
Part II: Evidence for Election Fraud in Exit Poll Discrepancies from Official Results
Part III: The Validity of Exit Polls for Monitoring Elections
Part IV: Untimely Deaths Associated with the 2004 Presidential Election
Part V: Disallowed and Corrupted Vote Recounts in Presidential Elections
Part VI: Evidence for Election Fraud in Machine “Glitches”
Part VII: Voter Suppression
Part VIII: The Way Forward

https://worldnewstrust.com/election-fraud-in-the-united-states-2004-to-present-part-i-vulnerability-of-electronic-vote-counting-in-u-s-elections-dale-tavris

https://worldnewstrust.com/election-fraud-in-the-united-states-2004-to-present-part-ii-evidence-for-election-fraud-in-exit-poll-discrepancies-from-official-results-dale-tavris

[sandensea]

1. And 2016 only emboldened them.

The GOPee wants nothing less than Saddam Hussein-style "elections" where the result is always a foregone conclusion.

[unblock]

2. The fact that Donnie is acting with complete contempt for the majority is a big clue

[Hekate]

3. I try not to say it too often...

Last edited Sun Jun 24, 2018, 09:43 PM - Edit history (1)

But I am very concerned when I hear people predicting a Blue Wave, even boasting about it. Putin and his army of hackers and trolls and tools are still busy -- and I have a sneaking hunch that there will only be a blue wave if Putin decides it would be hilarious to watch Trump have a screaming temper tantrum.

If we GOTV like crazy we might pull ahead by slim margins, but a "tsunami"? No.

As Stalin said: It doesn't matter who people vote for. It only matters who counts the votes.

Now we can add FaceBook and Cambridge Analytica to the GOP's New Jim Crow voter old-fashioned voter-suppression tactics.

[Cha]

28. I'm cringing, too.. I don't want to jinx it.. but, this was encouraging

that I just read..

Link to tweet

[Hekate]

46. Understood

Btw, check grantcart's research at end of thread. Hmmm.

[Cha]

51. I just replied to it..

[pandr32]

4. K and R for an excellent post

[padfun]

5. I agree

Nothing has been done about any Russian meddling, or any meddling for that matter. The machines are still wide open and need to be cobwebbed.

I have a feeling that massive cheating will happen this time. There are many who cant afford to lose or they end up in prison. This will be a very involved election. Beware.

[Time for change]

10. One would think

that with a long drawn out official investigation into Russian meddling in our election, that at least a small portion of that time would have been devoted to mandating a thorough recount of the vote in key states. But NO.

Jill Stein raised several million dollars for recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

Wisconsin allowed half the state to be recounted by hand, but the other half of the counties (undoubtedly those where the theft took place) exercised their option to have their "recount" performed by the same machines that gave us the official vote.

Michigan started a recount, but halted it quickly upon court order.

Pennsylvania never even allowed one to begin. The courts claimed that PA law doesn't allow a candidate who has no chance of winning the election to request a recount.

[questionseverything]

42. ty for ur op

http://bradblog.com/?p=11955

Bonifaz was joined by many longtime computer science and voting systems experts, such as Douglas Jones of the University Iowa, who warns today: "In a healthy democracy, elections are run with sufficient transparency that partisans of the losing candidate can convince themselves that they lost fair and square. Recounts in close elections are a necessary part of this transparency, particularly when the margin of victory is exceeded by an unusual number of ballots that were cast without reporting any vote in the election." Jones is referring to the 75,000 ballots in MI said to have no vote for President at all, nearly twice as many undervotes as reported in 2012, despite a 10,000 vote margin between Trump and Clinton in MI, where some 5 million votes were cast. That case is headed to MI's Supreme Court, where Stein is demanding two state Justices recuse themselves after being named by Donald Trump as potentially U.S. Supreme Court nominees.

[questionseverything]

43. more info

http://bradblog.com/?p=12386

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%.

"They were ignored by the voting system entirely," says McKim, "and that's what made the miscount - or should have made the miscount obvious to the election officials even before they certified. You could look at those election results that the voting machines spit out on their face and you could see that hundreds of votes were just missing. If you compared the total number of ballots cast to the total number of presidential votes counted, you should have known --- they should have known --- that two percent of the voters didn't go to the polls so that they could cast a blank ballot. The miscounts were obvious at the time of the canvas, and the county officials did nothing about it."

[0rganism]

6. every election this issue is raised

and every election, it is duly ignored in the wake of frequently "surprising" results.
yet somehow we're supposed to pretend we have a chance to get it right this year.

[volstork]

17. It's ignored because

the "surprising" results favor the repukes. Why would they fix something that they broke to their advantage?

[KPN]

25. It's also ignored because we don't do

enough about it. We should have been in the streets en masse in 2000. Why weren’t we?

We need leaders with courage and conviction in every state to rally our democratic voters to flood the streets, the airwaves, the legislatures/legislators with populist revolt. Our system (the branches of govt., the media, the economic powers) is not working to our favor or for democracy’s benefit in this regard. We need to take fraudulent elections on ourselves. That means first educating our Democratic Party voters — why aren’t we doing that as a priority?

[smirkymonkey]

30. I know! What is being done about this? I am so frustrated.

This country honestly cannot endure another Trump victory. It can't.

[pazzyanne]

35. Not sure what the country has done other than make money available to the states.

Here is what has been happening at the state level:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/16/states-move-protect-voting-systems-russia-little-help-congress/338411002/

[smirkymonkey]

36. Thanks for the link! I trust my own state (MA) to do something about it. And most of

the blue states seem determined to keep their elections on the level, but if the red and swing states aren't cooperating, there is the problem. Their needs to be national oversight to ensure that ALL states are taking measures to ensure that elections are fair and unhackable. The republicans won't do this because they have to cheat to win.

[pazzyanne]

37. Sadly agree about the red states.

[mythology]

55. It's ignored because it's nonsense

This is a baseless conspiracy theory and should be dismissed out of hand.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ten-reasons-why-you-should-ignore-exit/

https://www.thenation.com/article/reminder-exit-poll-conspiracy-theories-are-totally-baseless/

[Time for change]

86. Please see my Critique of Nate Silver's baseless statements on exit polls

https://www.democraticunderground.com/12511992709

[unitedwethrive]

7. It is also important to notice that for years repubs have focused on obtaining as many elected or

appointed election official positions as possible. It is these 'bosses' on the ground that can often have final say in an election, decide when to call it official, or approve a recount. They can also be bribed into switching out memory cards, or at least looking the other way. It was surprising to find that several SF Bay Area precincts have appointed county election officials who appear to be repubs (based on public record searches). We are working to get all precincts to have both parties represented equally (and overseeing each other) in all aspects of voting.

[angstlessk]

8. I am sure the 'red wave' of which trump speaks includes putin!

I am VERY scared we will be hacked ONCE AGAIN!

[PufPuf23]

9. Thank you. nt

[c-rational]

11. Good post - thank you. And true to form it is the rethuglicans who cry voter fraud. You know

what the dumpster and cohorts are up to by what they label - dRumph knew it was rigged.

[G_j]

12. K&R

[RandomAccess]

13. GOTV won't work very well if we don't solve this --

or at least dent it really good

And yet people ignore it.

Here's one possible solution and there's no reason EVERYONE can't get on the phone (or fax) and contact their MoC, no matter what party they are:

Remember the Age of Paper Ballots? It's Back - WSJ
https://www.wsj.com/articles/remember-the-age-of-paper-ballots-its-back-1527172511
May 29, 2018 - The Senate Intelligence Committee in a bipartisan report recommended that all states adopt paper ballots or paper backups.


Here ya go:
Call 24/7 202-241-3121
Fax Senator https://faxzero.com/fax_senate.php
Fax Congressional Rep https://faxzero.com/fax_congress.php
TEXT RESIST to 50202
Write https://democracy.io

[notdarkyet]

16. I voted by paper the last few times. Have not trusted Eva since George Bush. We've burn getting

Scr

wed for a long time.

[Time for change]

20. That's a great start!

But remember this. Even where paper ballots are used (such as with lever machines making hole punches or with op-scan cards and machines), the ballots are usually counted by machine, and/or county central tabulators are used to add up the results for all the precincts in the counties.

So it must be a bedrock principle of our election system, in addition to having a paper trail of all the votes that:

2) Either all the votes are counted by hand (by far the best option) or any machine used in the counting of votes must be considered as public property, to be inspected and evaluated by interested parties who are concerned about the legitimacy of the vote, and

3) Full state hand recounts of the vote must be easy to obtain and even mandatory in all cases where controversial results are produced. Public citizens should not be required to raise millions of dollars to have this done, as is presently the case. It should be a government obligation, like public education, Social Security, or anything else that we rely on to be a decent country.

[RandomAccess]

22. Yes and

some provision for automatic random audits in every precinct to determine that the machines are behaving properly.

[Time for change]

80. Absolutely

And we need public observers to make sure that the audits are performed honestly.

[KPN]

21. +1000!

Bottom line: Do Something!

[uponit7771]

34. +1

[Meowmee]

14. Yep

I said this a few times on here on various posts. Unless this is stopped we are doomed eventually.

[FakeNoose]

15. Thanks for this awesome info

I wasn't aware of this report until now. But I plan to read all 8 parts. Thank you

[appalachiablue]

18. K & R Excellent report on a PRIORITY ISSUE, very disturbing esp.

since nothing is being done about it!

[Lonestarblue]

19. I thoroughly agree with your post.

Republicans have been engaging in vote manipulation for a long time. Much has been made of Karl Rove’s REDMAP and the success of Republicans in taking state houses and governorships in time to gerrymander everything after the 2010 census. I have always wondered whether part of their success resulted from vote manipulation.

[DoctorJoJo]

23. Trust Me: The Repukes Stole Ohio and the Election in 2004 ...

.. via polling shenanigans: Long poll lines (up to 8 hours) in Dem districts, electronic poll machine manipulations, and offsite election counting by "private" companies. These cretins have zero shame, unlimited funds, and now Russian partners and social media. It will take a lot of grit by us to overcome all this in coming elections! And we can't be divided by internal squabbles, like Susan Sarandon, Jill Stein, and Nina Turner. We need all hands on deck for the greater good, not pity parties and pseudo purists, or the Trumpsters will prevail. UNITE!!

[Mr.Bill]

24. California law mandates that at least one electronic voting device be available

at every polling place. I would be willing to bet the makers of these machines are the ones who lobbied for that law. In a small county like mine, this is a huge financial burden. Not only for the machines, but training the operators before each election, and paying them on election day for the hours they work.


I worked at the polls here for about six years, as a clerk, then a judge, then an inspector. Now my precinct may have as few as 150-200 voters on election day, since many vote by mail. We are trained to inform each voter that the electronic voting is available. In all the elections I worked I have seen a grand total of three people who used that option.

[Ellipsis]

26. Good to see your post Time for change, as always.

The one thing I would say... machines where brought in to reduce the high expenses ofthe printing of paper ballots and the labor involved to count them. I would be more then happy to pay the printing of my ballot. It would be interesting to see if one established a go fund me or some such thing nationally to promote the printing of paper ballots and volunteers to help count them.

[Time for change]

85. Thank you

I find it difficult to believe that these machines cost less than the cost of printing paper ballots and counting votes by hand. I could be wrong, but I believe that these voting machine companies get paid much more than they're worth, even if they provided honest elections. But anyhow, as you say, even if it does cost more to print and count paper ballots, the price would be well worth it to have a working democracy.

[Perseus]

27. The question I keep asking is

Most of the information in the article is something everyone knows, the question:

WHY ARE DEMOCRATS NOT DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT? If we all know that republicans are cheating, why is it that they continue to be able to do it?

During GW, the owner of "Diebold" machines said in public that he would do everything in his power to help GW win the presidency...How much clear can you get? Why has the democratic party been idle about this issue?

I hope they are doing something and they are just not telling anyone.

Emmanuel Macron, the French, took steps to fool the Russian hackers, they got ready to make sure their elections would not be hacked, they hacked the hackers...why can't we do something like that here?

Why is it that democrats are not demanding paper-ballots, or receipts from the machines to make sure that if there is a dispute that the paper trail can clear things out and uncover any wrongdoing.

Why, why?

[smirkymonkey]

31. Wouldn't we all like to know!

It's so incredibly frustrating. Something absolutely must be done or this nation and probably the entire world will be screwed.

[Time for change]

38. Great question. I have long tried to figure out an answer to it.

The book, "Code Red -- Computerized Elections and the War on Democracy", by Jonathan Simon, proposes 5 answers to that question. I'll summarize them here:

1. There is enormous pressure on the "losing" candidate to concede (the result of our corporate news media).... For many such candidates, challenging an election, no matter how suspect the results, can understandably be seen as an act of political suicide...

2. As for the Democrats successfully elected and serving in office, it would take a rare politician to challenge, or even support a challenge to the legitimacy of the system that brought him or her to power.

3. Democrats depend on and are obsessed with "turnout"... Democratic strategists fear that playing up any concerns about the honesty of elections or vote counting will discourage and lose potential voters...

4. Democrats are firmly entrenched in the corridors of power and would remain so even as a minority party under Karl Rove's projected 40 year Republican dynasty..... Election rigging can transform the American political spectrum, sliding it further and further to the right, without in any way disturbing the two party system and the power it bestows and Democrats and Republicans alike. It is not at all clear that most Democrats would care to jeopardize that arrangement, opening the electoral doors to progressives, mavericks, and third parties. The true victims of election rigging is not the Democratic Party but the American people.

5. Simon's 5th reason has to do with the difficulty that many people from all walks of life have in believing that such things can happen in the United States of America -- a beacon of Democracy to the rest of the world -- a severe kind of psychological denial.

[Meowmee]

97. Because 🍊💩 and his band of crooks and traitors etc

Last edited Fri Jun 29, 2018, 04:54 AM - Edit history (1)

Are in charge I’m not sure what dems are doing if anything. I see many replies here denying votes were changed and that the election was hacked. I have called and emailed my representatives numerous times and stated it in a phone town hall discussion that something needs to be done and I’ve never recieved a response.

[fallout87]

29. Do you have proof of #2?

I'd like to send this to several people. Thanks

[Time for change]

49. By # 2 do you mean my claim that the voting machine companies are owned by right wingers?

Everything i have read on the subject over several years has indicated that to be the case. And I have never seen anything in writing that attempted to refute it.

For the time being, I was able to find two articles that especially point in that direction, but don't prove it.

This first one is old (2003), but the situation hasn't changed significantly since then. It begins "Two of the corporations that provide nearly all the voting machines in the United States -- ES&S and Diebold -- are controlled by Republicans with strong ties to the Bush Administration..."
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/whose-water/whose-voting-machines

And here's a much more recent article that is very long and difficult to read and talks about many different characters in the voting machine business. As best as I can tell, they all appear to be right wingers, but it is not absolutely clear if they all are, since I don't recognize some of the names.
I don't know why, but the link doesn't seem to be working the way I'm copying it, so I'll give you the name of the article: "States have bought voting machines from vendors controlled and funded by the Religious Right, convicted felons, and politicians".

[KT2000]

32. also - watch what he gives away to Putin

before the mid-terms

[Golden Raisin]

54. Or if Putin gives him advance details of how the 2018 Midterms

will be manipulated/hacked.

[BSdetect]

33. As a relatively newcomer to the USA - legal citizen - I find the system of elections appalling.

Don't try to spread this type of "democracy".

[Wednesdays]

77. Too late.

In fact, several decades too late.

[Uncle Joe]

39. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread Time for change

[JoeOtterbein]

40. Important post.

Thanks!

[grantcart]

41. Hmmmm

Things like

It is universally agreed
All of the electronic vote counting in the United States is done by machines owned by right wing individuals.
Meaningful oversight of our elections is practically non-existent

are not facts they are opinions and hyperbolic at that.

So if, as you state, quote election theft has occurred on a massive basis in the United States since 2004, in elections at the Presidential, Senate, House and gubernatorial levels. The election theft always points in the same direction – favoring the more right-wing candidate.
unquote then how do you explain the election and re election of President Obama?

Now, for an actual fact. Elections are managed at the local level with oversight by both Democratic and Republican volunteers working at the precinct level. That operation is supervised by Secretary of State offices that include Democratic office holders and employees that are Democrats.

For example, for their to have been a fraud in this election votes one of the states would have to have been Pennsylvania.

The Secretary of State for Pennsylvania is a bright star in the Democratic Party Pedro Cortes. If you believe the "facts" in the OP then you would have to assume that Secretary of State Cortes is part of the conspiracy (or terribly inept)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Cort%C3%A9s Of course Democratic Governor Tom Wolf would also have to be involved.


1) There is a very simple solution to potential election fraud: have paper ballots back up and maintain a transparent custody of ballots that includes volunteers from both parties.

2) Have a US Attorney General that enforces the laws to make access to ballots more universal and voter friendly



You spent a lot of effort shooting at targets but IMO you were aiming at the wrong target. The real "voter fraud" is not in manipulating votes but in making the act of registering and voting more difficult.

Took a look at your source.

It has been well established that efforts by Putin had a decisive impact on voter outcome and that has been confirmed by all of the intelligence services.

I absolutely scoured your source for negative stories about Russian interference. Couldn't find any.

Here is what I did find:

Video Honoring Snowden:

https://worldnewstrust.biz/Francis-Goodwin/There-s-a-Massive-Illicit-Bust-of-Edward-Snowden-Stuck-to-a-War-Monument-in-Brooklyn

Video from RT explaining how Putin's approach in Syria is better than that of President Obama

https://worldnewstrust.biz/Francis-Goodwin/RT-interviews-Paul-Craig-Roberts

Here is my three point plan to solve election fraud and election interference

1) Paper ballots (can use readers to count as long as you have a paper ballot) under control of local committees with both Republican and Democratic volunteers.

2) Elect a President that appoints an Attorney General that will ensure states make voting universal and access to ballots easy.

3) Expose those that promote the Greenwald/Snowden/Putin efforts to corrupt our election system rather than promoting them and honoring them

[Hekate]

44. This is a really well-researched and well thought out post. I'm glad you took the time...

...to check all the links and verify claims and sources. Doing so has made the OP much more problematic.

[Time for change]

45. I did not claim to present evidence for massive election theft in this post

I do that in the 8 part series that I refer to. The evidence is much too extensive to present in a single post.

As far as explaining why Obama was able to win despite massive election fraud, there may be a few reasons. But the bottom line is that exit polls demonstrated a large red shift (i.e. exit polls predicted much better performance for Obama than the official vote count showed) in his two elections, comparable to what we saw in 2004 and greater than what we saw in 2016. Obama probably would have won by huge landslide margins if not for election fraud. Currently the capacity to steal elections in the U.S. is not infinite. They cannot take a landslide and make it into a win for the preferred candidate.

Your points 1 and 2 for improving solving the problem are good but they are not sufficient. See my post # 20, above. Having paper ballots is necessary but not sufficient, because they are usually counted by machines, and then when the results are highly suspicious it has proven impossible to get a meaningful recount (Part 6 of my series deals with the problem of getting meaningful recount).

I thoroughly disagree with your point # 3, in equating Greenwald and Snowden with Putin. I have great admiration for Greenwald and Snowden.

[Hekate]

47. In reference to your last sentence: your admiration for Greenwald and Snowden is amazing...

...given that they have both been discredited quite comprehensively.

Why Obama won -- I don't think there was the same degree of interference, voters were fed up with Dubya, the GOTV effort was massive, and he was a fantastically attractive candidate.

Why Hillary won -- and by the numbers, more of us wanted her to be president than Trump, and voted that way -- There was an amazing amount of sophisticated interference via FaceBook and Twitter combined with old-fashioned Jim Crow voter-suppression techniques dressed up in new clothes.

[grantcart]

58. we are not going to have a discussion because you don't know what a fact is

You can call orange jello a fruit but that is, in fact, not a fact.

Here are some of the statements that you call facts which are not facts:

Fact 2: All of the electronic vote counting in the United States is done by machines owned by right wing individuals.
Fact 3: Meaningful oversight of our elections is practically non-existent:
Neither the machines nor the results produced by them are ever available for public inspection,
When requests for paper recounts are made, unless the margin of victory is extremely narrow, so many obstructions exist for obtaining a thorough recount that it has never been done in a meaningful way in the United States.

In addition to the above noted facts that explain the potential for election theft, abundant evidence exists from exit polls and many other means that election theft has occurred on a massive basis in the United States since 2004, in elections at the Presidential, Senate, House and gubernatorial levels. The election theft always points in the same direction – favoring the more right-wing candidate.


here are some real facts, I know because I was involved in election supervision (a long time ago, but I know the people that volunteer for that work). I know for a fact that most of the people who are involved in voting supervision are motivated more about civic duty than partisan politics (and that is a fact that I can prove).

So you are alleging a massive conspiracy to create fraud since 2004. That means two things:

a) The elections of 2008 and 2012 were not legitimate. You then offer up gibberish that they couldn't move such a huge landslide. What garbage, the election of 2008 and 2012 were well within the margin of error of all mainline voting.

So how does your "facts" explain that massive voting fraud appeared before and after but they stopped for 8 years.

b) The massive fraud that you describe would have to involve hundreds of people. Including Democrats.

A fact would be to name 3 people that have specific evidence against them that fraud occurred.


No the greater threat to our voting integrity is trying to interrupt the act of voting and flooding voters with fake news.

I wish you would have put your devotion to Snowden in your OP because then people who clicked a rec would have actually taken the time to see how completely void your nicely typed and formatted OP was of actual facts. You can't cite a single action by a single individual in a single jurisdiction, just hundreds of people conspiring, including Democrats for massive vote fraud.

As for Putin's puppet Snowden, he is aliar.

When he made his application at Booz Hamilton he signed an agreement under oath that he was going to keep the material he was going to have access to confidential.

He lied about his resume and he lied about being a "top level" analyst and spy.

He did despise Obama but he absolutely lied about liking Obama "before the election" because he was already supporting Libertarian woo woo in discussion groups before that. He hates Democrats just as much as he hates Republicans, and if you are a Democrat that includes you.

Snowden was also offended by a possible ban on assault weapons, writing "Me and all my lunatic, gun-toting NRA compatriots would be on the steps of Congress before the C-Span feed finished".[31] Snowden disliked Obama's economic policies, was against Social Security, and favored Ron Paul's call for a return to the gold standard

So you admire the guy who has so much in common, especially in undermining Social Security and against a possible ban on assault weapons.

So when it comes to Trump he says

"We should not fear a Donald Trump, rather we should build it ourselves."

Why should Snowden fear Trump. He is a star member of the Trump/Putin team. So that is also something you admire, right?

Most but not all of DU does not respect Snowden or Greenwald. I never equated Snowden with Putin. Snowden and Wikileaks have been used effectively as pawns by Putin.

If you have actual facts you didn't bother to put them into the OP. It is just low quality woo woo in a nice presentation. I know that there are not only Democrats but Republicans who put their interest in a fair election result and that is a fact that i can prove.

Answer this question. If voter fraud occurred in 2016 it most likely occurred in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Were the Democratic Governor and Democratic Secretary of State aware of the fraud, involved with the fraud, or just incompetent as those that committed the fraud did it right under their noses?

Answer it,

[Time for change]

67. I'll repeat it again

The great bulk of my arguments for election fraud are in the 8 part series that I referred to, not in this OP.

Obama won in 2008 and 2012 because he had too big a lead to steal. Exit polls suggested that millions of votes were stolen from him, but he won anyhow. I already told you that, don't ask me again.

I do not claim to know who the specific people are who who are responsible for election fraud in the United States. I certainly suspect that the voting machine companies are heavily involved. And certainly Karl Rove has been involved, and Kenneth Blackwell in 2004. The evidence I discuss in my series involves evidence for fraud, but does generally not implicate specific people.

[grantcart]

72. ridiculous assertion, do you even bother to check the numbers for the postulates you make?

I think not

Obama won in 2008 and 2012 because he had too big a lead to steal. Exit polls suggested that millions of votes were stolen from him, but he won anyhow. I already told you that, don't ask me again.

President Obama did not under perform on the polls in 2012, which would have been the result if there was widespread fraud, he over performed.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/11/12/it_wasnt_the_polls_that_missed_it_was_the_pundits_132333.html

Four years ago, the final RCP National Average gave President Obama a 0.7-point lead; he won by 3.9 points, for an error of 3.2 points.

So the averaging of hundreds of polls shows that Obama is leading at 1% and he wins by 4%. The allegation that you make is that the huge discrepancy between polling results and actual votes proves that there is vote fraud.

The fact is that there is NO EVIDENCE FROM POLLING that there was any election fraud in changing votes.

Exit polls are not scientific polls and they have a much larger margin of error than regular polling

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ten-reasons-why-you-should-ignore-exit/

Exit polls have a much larger intrinsic margin for error than regular polls. This is because of what are known as cluster sampling techniques. Exit polls are not conducted at all precincts, but only at some fraction thereof. Although these precincts are selected at random and are supposed to be reflective of their states as a whole, this introduces another opportunity for error to occur (say, for instance, that a particular precinct has been canvassed especially heavily by one of the campaigns). This makes the margins for error somewhere between 50-90% higher than they would be for comparable telephone surveys.

There is a social factor that make exit polls less reliable and that is because it is conducted in the open in people's neighborhoods. People who are proud of their vote are more likely to respond to a request for an exit vote and there is a long history of this higher response among Democratic voters. In 2000 exit polls showed Gore winning Alabama when he didn't even win his home state of Tennessee.

Variation between exit polls and actual votes is not an indication of voter fraud and this is proven by the fact that scientific polls are regularly consistent with actual results, virtually always within the margin of error, as they were in 2012 and 2016.

Rather than obfuscating why don't you be specific, name a single state in 2016 where the final election number was the result of election fraud.

One state.

[Cha]

50. The OP's source doesn't look trustworthy with all that praising of putin

and honoring snowden. Thank you for researching that, grant.

We do know President Obama had legitimate Elections.

President Obama and Eric Holder have been working on Fairness in Redistricting..

Eric Holder: We're going to Republican states and we're bringing Obama with us

snip//

Holder said the 2018 elections are vital to that effort.

"These are in some ways the first critical steps for putting in place people who will take power back from politicians and give it to the people," he said. “There’s a system now where politicians are picking their voters as opposed to citizens choosing who their representatives are going to be. And it’s a fundamental affront to our system of Democracy.”

Holder said redistricting is an issue he and Obama have talked about for months and even before Holder left the Justice Department in 2015.

The group will target states, including Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio. Several other states, including Pennsylvania and Texas, are on its watch list.

More..
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/02/07/eric-holder-were-going-republican-states-and-were-bringing-obama-us/315007002/

I like your 3 point plan for Election integrity..

1) Paper ballots (can use readers to count as long as you have a paper ballot) under control of local committees with both Republican and Democratic volunteers.

2) Elect a President that appoints an Attorney General that will ensure states make voting universal and access to ballots easy.

3) Expose those that promote the Greenwald/Snowden/Putin efforts to corrupt our election system rather than promoting them and honoring them

GOTV!

[questionseverything]

90. obama's team made a point to count the vote ahead of time

they had the man power and knew the precincts well

remember rove's on air melt down in '12?

he clearly had a plan to switch some results but was foiled because we knew what votes that were already in and what was still out

[Grammy23]

48. As long as the elections are tilted to the right so

that Republican “win” most of the races, expect it to remain in place.

As long as the Republicans control all of the means to investigate and fix the system we have now, don’t expect them to do the right things to make it fair and reflective of the voters’ choice again.

Time is ticking by and November is not that far away. We can knock on every door from sea to shining sea, but if the current flaws/frauds are left in place, the get out the vote efforts will be in vain.

Someone explain how the system can be fixed if it currently favors the Republicans and they have no incentive to fix it. (Other than it is the right thing to do. But since did THAT matter to them??)

[AlexSFCA]

52. exactly; not sure what can be done about it

“Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." - Stalin

[lunamagica]

53. K&R for visibility.

[dflprincess]

56. We should have been concerned about it in 2000 (and many of us were)

the Democratic leadership rolling over and pretending nothing was wrong is what helped to bring us Trump.

[Golden Raisin]

57. Without diminishing other urgent national problems and issues

I feel Election Integrity is the Number One crisis/priority of and for our Democracy. Whether it's Russian or homegrown Republican meddling, gerrymandering, Diebold devilry, social media bots, cyber manipulation, voter apathy, etc. or any combination thereof I am very cautious and have serious doubts about the highly anticipated Blue Wave for 2018. I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

[PatrickforO]

59. We have to take care of this.

We've got to start with an absolute blue landslide in November. Then began making changes.

Then, an international tribunal for these weasels who have committed crimes against humanity.

[Bradshaw3]

60. Then why have the 2017 elections tilted Democratic?

Why didn't they change the results in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Oklahoma, etc., where Democrats won in red districts?

[Time for change]

61. Currently the capacity for vote theft is not infinite

And it's not uniform either.

If the voter preference of a candidate exceeds that of another by a large enough margin, vote theft may prove impossible.

And some jurisdictions have better safeguards against election theft than others.

The Republicans sometimes go so far right that they are so unpopular that they need more vote theft than is available to them.

[Bradshaw3]

65. That doesn't really explain the nationwide wins by Democrats

These were touted as bellweather elections, especially Alabama, Pennsylvania and Virginia so they were important. Did they all have safeguards that prevented theft?

As to big margins, Doug Jones' win certainly was close, so that wasn't a large margin in a red state, when the senate is very, very close in terms of control so that was important.

As to the last point, I can see that.

[Time for change]

82. Our political climate has been shifted so far right that it is very difficult to tell what elections

were close prior to any tampering that may have taken place. You say that Doug Jones' win certainly was close. But do we really know that? As I noted in the OP, professional pollsters routinely adjust Democrat share of the vote downwards to taken into account their belief that Democrats are less likely to vote. But are Democrats really so much less likely to vote, or does it just appear that way because fraudulent official election results show that they under-perform relative to their poll numbers? I believe strongly that it's the latter.

Just maybe.... even a solid majority of Alabamans would rather have as their Senator a man who prosecuted racist child murderers than a sexual predator who as a judge wouldn't even obey the law that he was sworn to uphold. When you think about it, what reason is there to believe that such a race would be at all close in a political climate where you didn't have to move way to the right to endear yourself to those responsible for counting our votes? And by the same reasoning, what reason is there to believe that Americans could elect a man like Donald Trump in the absence of massive vote tampering?

[Bradshaw3]

83. You've made a lot of allegations

and stated your beliefs about voting theft. But I haven't seen any real proof.

[Time for change]

84. This OP is an introduction to the series I'm doing at WNT

The evidence for election fraud is way too extensive to cover in a single post. I posted links to the first two articles of my series in the OP.

None of what I'm posting constitutes proof, and I haven't used that word here or in my series at WNT. I refer to it as evidence, not proof. But the evidence is so extensive and consistent that I believe beyond a reasonable doubt that we have seen massive election theft in this country, at least since 2004.

If you have the patience to read my series, and I hope you do, please do so, and then let me know if you believe that the evidence is convincing or not.

[questionseverything]

89. i think the reason dems do so well in the current special elections

is the entire country is watching the numbers...it is much harder to do when all 50 states are voting at the same time

[grantcart]

68. You continue to avoid the fundamental premise.

You allege that the huge discrepancy between polls and results show that there is massive voter fraud

And to the question why did President Obama get elected you offer the idea that his margin was too great to overcome.

None of the known facts support your fantastical claims

1) The polls were showing that President Obama was leading by .7 and won by 3.9

So not only was this a very narrow race, it was a race where the actual results were more for the Democrat than the Republican. Your theory is that not only does the fraud go against the Democrats but it always does.

2) In 2016 Hillary Clinton lead in the polls by 3.3 percent and she won by 2.1 percent. If there was massive fraud in election vote counts, as you allege, why didn't they move a couple of percent so that Trump won the popular vote too.

The fact is that the polls didn't fail in either year, and do not support any allegations of massive cross state voter fraud.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/11/12/it_wasnt_the_polls_that_missed_it_was_the_pundits_132333.html

In fact, despite the hue and cry, the national polls were actually a touch better in 2016 than in 2012. Four years ago, the final RCP National Average gave President Obama a 0.7-point lead; he won by 3.9 points, for an error of 3.2 points. The final RCP Four-Way National Poll Average showed Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote by 3.3 points. She will probably win the popular vote by a point or so (grantcart note: she won the popular vote by 2.1%), which would equate to an error of around two points.(was actually off by 1.1%)

What about the swing state polls? Again, a close look shows that the 2016 polls performed just as well as they did in 2012 – no better and no worse. You can see this by calculating the “mean absolute error,” which measures how far away the polls were from the actual result, regardless of in which direction they were wrong.

. . .

What occurred wasn’t a failure of the polls. As with Brexit, it was a failure of punditry. Pundits saw Clinton with a 1.9 percent lead in Pennsylvania and assumed she would win. The correct interpretation was that, if Clinton’s actual vote share were just one point lower and Trump’s just one point higher, Trump would be tied or even a bit ahead.

The real problem was not some fantastic change in votes but Putin/wiki collusion with Trump and some states efforts to restrict access to voting. Since you are a big supporter of the Snowden faction I can understand why you did not address that and promote a theory that is not supported by facts.

[Time for change]

71. I'm talking about exit polls

Do you understand the difference between an exit poll and a pre-election poll? Exit polls are more accurate, among other reasons, because they interview people who have actually voted rather than people who might or might not vote.

[grantcart]

73. lol, you obviously never studied political science

Exit polls are much less accurate than scientific polls as has been proven over and over again.

In response 72 I already posted nate silver's explanation of why that is the case but let's just recap your assertion.


1) There is massive voter fraud
2) It wasn't able to effect the 2012 election because President Obama's margin was so huge that they couldn't move enough votes
3) Except the scientific polls showed that President Obama had a .7 lead and he won by 3.9 so not only wasn't a landslide but the "massive fraud" actually increased President Obama's numbers.

Now for the explanation of why the scientific polls are much more reliable than exit polls.

Scientific polls balance out the population that respond by age, religion, party affiliation etc.

Then it is done over and over again. So a combined poll of polls (there are several good ones) eliminate all of the biases and come out with a random sampling that reflects the actual numbers of people voting.

Exit polls are not "more accurate, interview people who have actually voted" because they don't interview people who have actually voted.

They ask people in a few locations during the early part of the day (they are over by the afternoon) who are proud of their vote who they voted for.

Because the polling is done in the neighborhood in front of the voting station it has been well established that more people who are proud of their vote respond to exit pollsters .

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ten-reasons-why-you-should-ignore-exit/

The unreliability of exit polls as a stand alone poll is not a controversial subject in political science.

The value of exit polls is when you compare the response you get in a particular precinct compared to that same precinct in an earlier election. If, for example, you have exit polls from the same precinct over the last 3 presidential elections that would give you a basis for comparison of voter turnout.

Again the proof of this is that the scientific polls, especially when they have been done hundreds of times, like in a Presidential election do project results that are within the margin of error.

There is of course two other proofs:

1) The fact that you can't use any method to actually identify where this fraud is occurring

2) If this fraud is occurring then why aren't the candidates, like Secretary Clinton, who have their own internal numbers and have observers at every poll and so on, why aren't they appealing the results? Your premise is that year after year the Democrats get cheated and then do nothing about it.

If all you have riding is your high opinion on exit polls then you have no facts at all that confirm your premise and a mountain of scientific polls by both Democratic and Republican pollsters that prove the opposite.

[Time for change]

79. Repeating corportate media's dismissal of the value of exit polls

Last edited Mon Jun 25, 2018, 12:13 PM - Edit history (1)

is something I would expect from you. I am well aware of our corporate news media's stated opinion of exit polls.

I've discussed and critiqued Nate Silver's written opinion of exit polls previously:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/12511992709

I discuss the value of exit polls in more detail in Part III of my series at World News Trust.

I used statistics on a daily basis for 40 years during my career as an epidemiologist.

Nate is far too intelligent to believe the nonsense he writes about why we should ignore exit polls. I assume that great pressure was put on him to write something like that.

You appear to be very much against the idea of real election integrity, and I would like you to explain why. You throw out a half baked "plan" that you say will "solve" the problem, but your "plan" says nothing about the need to do hand counted recounts in states where election results are controversial. As I said before, the part of your plan that says we should use paper ballots is a great start. But the use of paper ballots is almost worthless if they are counted only by unverifiable machines and no valid hand counted recounts are done. Do you understand that very basic principle?

That is the bottom line of my post here and my series of articles at WNT. But you are intent on muddying that issue by throwing out all sorts of irrelevant garbage, such as bringing Putin and other into the discussion. I said nothing about Putin in my OP, and I have never written anything about Putin, and yet you try to discredit me by claiming I'm pro-Putin because I'm posting articles at a website where you found an article that agreed with a single idea of his. That is beyond stupid.

Let's stick to the most basic issue. Are you for or against the use of hand counted paper ballots for all of our elections, either initially or done as recounts when election results are controversial? If you can't address why you are against that I don't wish to discuss anything else with you.

[grantcart]

63. Great Questions

Here are a few more

Why did we win 2008 and 2012 exactly within the margin of error of the mainline polls
If 2016 was fraudulent then you would expect PA to be ground central for fraud. Is the OP accusing Democrats of committing election fraud.

He talks about facts but in reality there are none.

Who did what where? Name a specific place where votes were diverted from one candidate to the other.

Now interestingly the OP does not mention Russian interference in information to the electorate as part of election interference.

Is it because he is a strong supporter of Snowden? (see 41 and 44)

Why does the site that he link to publish videos that are from RT and that are favourable to Putin and against Obama?

look up thread where he states " I did not claim to present evidence for massive election theft in this post"

[Bradshaw3]

66. I think there are issues regarding our voting methods

I would just like to see independent, peer reviewed science take a stab. And yes we need to do more, but I'm not sure how much hair-on-fire accusations help; in fact it coud hurt as people may think their vote isn't going to count so why vote.

[Time for change]

70. Scientific study on election fraud

google "Fingerprints of election theft: Were competitive contests targeted" by "Jonathan Simon" "bruce o'dell" "dale tavris" "josh middledorf". I can't provide a link, but you will get a pdf article if you google the above

[Bradshaw3]

74. While interesting, that is not an independent, peer-reviewed study

It's also 11 years old.

[Time for change]

78. On what basis do you say it's not independent or peer reviewed?

[Bradshaw3]

81. On what basis do you say it is?

The authors have a point of view, which is fine and may have some merit but that's not a scientific approach, especially since the reliability of exit polls have come into question and from what I could tell that is the whole basis of their thesis. And what peer review publication did it appear in? You can't just do a study, throw it out there and claim it has some kind of scientific merit.

The actual question to be answered are those: where is the independent study I asked to see and what publication? These are not hard questions to answer, if they can be be answered.

[Time for change]

87. It was accepted for publication and published in a journal

In my experience of 40 years publishing medical articles in medical journals, it is standard procedure to peer review them before publishing them.

I know all of the authors of this scientific study, and I am one of them. We are all independent. We received no money whatsoever for conducting this study and having it published. We report to no higher authority that tells us what to do. That makes us independent.

All scientific articles have a point of view. You have to be brain dead not to have a point of view. That doesn't bar you from being independent.

[Bradshaw3]

88. I understand the peer review process

Of course the paper has a thesis, they all do. Independent is anothe matter.

I didn't see what journal it was published in. Is it a political science journal?

[questionseverything]

91. here are a couple of studies

http://bradblog.com/Docs/Democracy_Lost_Update1_EJUSA_080216.pdf

http://bradblog.com/?p=11050


I would like to address your last point....


coud hurt as people may think their vote isn't going to count so why vote...

overwhelming numbers can over come a rig because if they have to flip numbers too far we see things like a negative 16,000 for gore in Volusia

or something like this...

http://bradblog.com/?p=7875

[Bradshaw3]

92. Those aren't peer-reviewed studies

Here is a journal that You could use if you are able to find independent, peer-reviewed studies backing your thesis:
https://ajps.org/

I've already posted this in this thread, but an independent, peer-reviewed study is one where the reviewers don't have an agenda other than checking the metholodologies, analyses, etc. to see if thesis and conclusions are borne out by the evidence presented in the paper. While authors obviously have a thesis they can't simply look for data that supports that thesis and ignore countervaling evidence. They have to account for it. Many research lines aren't proven out or simply prove the thesis wrong and the researcher either builds on that, starts over with another perspective or a completely new line.

The claims of extensive, long-lasting voter fraud may be true. It would be persuasive if a truly independent pol sci reseacher did a mult-year study looking at the claims that are made here and was able to corroborate them. But nothing presented here has verified these claimns from a scientific point of view.

[RhodeIslandOne]

93. Have those results really changed anything?

They've been small victories that may be over inflating our confidence in a wave come November.

Rigging a presidential election due to the electoral college is also less obvious. A few hundred to a thousand votes added or lost spread across multiple small counties, cities and towns turns a state from blue to red, and you've reshaped the country.

[Bradshaw3]

94. They could very well be important

If the Dems take the senate by one vote then yes that election in Alabama mattered a helluva lot. Funny how some try to downplay the wins when people got excited as they were taking place.

Once again, rigging could have very well taken place but the claims here need more proof than what I've seen.

[RhodeIslandOne]

96. I was more relieved than happy

We are clinging to the union.

[TheFrenchRazor]

95. Putin wants to make Trump sweat? seriously, just because elections are hackable doesn't mean

that every single election will be hacked. it does take a certain amount of resources and determination; it's not going to happen every single time.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

62. RIGHT....ON!!

[Blue Owl]

64. K & R

[lpbk2713]

69. Election officials will swear their systems are ironclad.

That's what the manufacturers tell them so it must be true.

[Gothmog]

99. Each party has the right to observe the testing and clearing of these machines

This is from the Texas Election Code https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/EL/htm/EL.129.htm

Sec. 129.051. PRE-ELECTION SECURITY PROCEDURE. (a) The general custodian of election records shall create and maintain an inventory of all electronic information storage media.
(b) The general custodian of election records shall develop a procedure for tracking the custody of each electronic information storage medium from its storage location, through election coding and the election process, to its final post-election disposition and return to storage. The chain of custody must require two or more individuals to perform a check and verification check whenever a transfer of custody occurs.
(c) The general custodian of election records shall establish a secured location for storing electronic information storage media when not in use, coding a medium for an election, transferring and installing the medium into voting system equipment, and storing voting system equipment after election parameters are loaded.
(d) An election information storage medium shall be kept in the presence of an election official or in a secured location once the medium has been coded for an election.
(e) The general custodian of election records shall create a procedure for tracking the custody of voting system equipment once election parameters are loaded.
(f) The general custodian of election records shall create a recovery plan to be followed if a breach in security procedures is indicated. This plan must include immediately notifying the secretary of state.
(g) The general custodian of election records shall conduct a criminal background check for relevant election officials, staff, and temporary workers upon hiring.
Amended by:
Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 682 (H.B. 2524), Sec. 2, eff. September 1, 2009.

Sec. 129.052. TRANSPORT OF VOTING SYSTEM EQUIPMENT. (a) The general custodian of election records shall adopt procedures for securely storing and transporting voting system equipment. The procedures shall include provisions for locations outside the direct control of the general custodian of election records, including overnight storage at a polling location. Procedures relating to the chain of custody must require two or more individuals to perform a check and verification check whenever a transfer of custody occurs.
(b) The general custodian of election records shall create a recovery plan to be followed if a breach in security procedures is indicated. This plan must include immediately notifying the secretary of state.
(c) The general custodian of election records shall provide a training plan for relevant election officials, staff, and temporary workers that addresses the procedures authorized under this section.
Amended by:
Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 682 (H.B. 2524), Sec. 2, eff. September 1, 2009.

Sec. 129.053. ACCESS TO VOTING SYSTEM EQUIPMENT. The general custodian of election records shall secure access control keys or passwords to voting system equipment. Use of access control keys or passwords must be witnessed by one or more individuals authorized to use that information. The use of an access control key or password must be documented and witnessed in a log dedicated for that purpose that is retained until the political subdivision disposes of the equipment.
Amended by:
Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 682 (H.B. 2524), Sec. 2, eff. September 1, 2009.

Sec. 129.054. NETWORK CONNECTIONS AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY. (a) A voting system may not be connected to any external communications network, including the Internet.
(b) A voting system may not have the capability of permitting wireless communication unless the system uses line-of-sight infrared technology that shields the transmitter and receiver from external infrared transmissions and the system can only accept transmissions generated by the system.
Amended by:
Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 682 (H.B. 2524), Sec. 2, eff. September 1, 2009.

Sec. 129.055. EQUIPMENT AND SOFTWARE. The sole purpose of voting system equipment is the conduct of an election, and only software certified by the secretary of state and necessary for an election may be loaded on the equipment.
Amended by:
Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 682 (H.B. 2524), Sec. 2, eff. September 1, 2009.

Sec. 129.056. PLAN FOR MACHINE FAILURE. The general custodian of election records shall create a contingency plan for addressing direct recording electronic voting machine failure. This plan must include the timely notification of the secretary of state.
Amended by:
Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 682 (H.B. 2524), Sec. 2, eff. September 1, 2009.

Sec. 129.057. USE OF MACHINE IN EARLY VOTING. A direct recording electronic voting machine deployed for early voting may not be deployed on election day.
Amended by:
Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 682 (H.B. 2524), Sec. 2, eff. September 1, 2009.

I have served as an election judge numerous times. I have participated in the procedures used to test machines and maintain the chain of custody of these machines. I have made a number of trips to deliver the Judge Booth Controller to the election office and the first thing they check is the seal on the JBC.

[Sancho]

75. The GOP has hacked DREs for years.

I saw a machine flip votes in 2004 (Fl). This is one of the biggest reasons that we have any repubs winning.

[TheFrenchRazor]

76. a lot of dems are in denial about this, and obviously repugs don't care. they'll fight tooth and nai

and nail to prevent any changes to the present system. it's a catch-22, because you need a legitimate election mechanism in order to enact the changes that would secure and legitimize our current GOP-rigged election systems.

[Gothmog]

98. There are procedures in place in the real world to protect these machines

I sit through the testing of machines in my county. Before being sealed each machine is tested and a zero tape is prepared that show no votes are recorded.

Here are some procedures that are in place from the Texas Election Code

Sec. 129.021. ACCEPTANCE TESTING. Immediately after receiving a voting system from a vendor, the general custodian of election records shall:
(1) verify that the system delivered is certified by the secretary of state;
(2) perform a hardware diagnostic test on the system as provided by Section 129.022(b);
(3) perform a public test of logic and accuracy on the system as provided by Section 129.023; and
(4) perform any additional test that the secretary of state may prescribe.
Amended by:
Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 682 (H.B. 2524), Sec. 2, eff. September 1, 2009.

Sec. 129.022. HARDWARE DIAGNOSTIC TEST. (a) The general custodian of election records shall conduct a successful hardware diagnostic test before a voting system is used in an election.
(b) The hardware diagnostic test must ensure that each part of the system functions properly as prescribed by the secretary of state.
Amended by:
Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 682 (H.B. 2524), Sec. 2, eff. September 1, 2009.

Sec. 129.023. PUBLIC TEST OF LOGIC AND ACCURACY. (a) The general custodian of election records shall create a testing board consisting of at least two persons. The general custodian of election records shall make every reasonable effort to ensure that the testing board consists of at least one person from each political party that holds a primary election.
(b) Not later than 48 hours before voting begins on a voting system, the general custodian of election records shall conduct a logic and accuracy test. Public notice of the test must be published at least 48 hours before the test begins, and the test must be open to the public.
(b-1) If the test is being conducted for a primary election, the general custodian of election records shall notify the county chair of the test at least 48 hours before the date of the test. The county chair shall confirm receipt of the notice.
text of subsection effective until September 01, 2020
(c) The general custodian of election records shall adopt procedures for testing that:
(1) direct the testing board to cast votes;
(2) verify that each contest position, as well as each precinct and ballot style, on the ballot can be voted and is accurately counted;
(3) include overvotes and undervotes for each race, if applicable to the system being tested;
(4) include straight-party votes and crossover votes;
(5) include write-in votes, when applicable to the election;
(6) include provisional votes, if applicable to the system being tested;
(7) calculate the expected results from the test ballots;
(8) ensure that each voting machine has any public counter reset to zero and presented to the testing board for verification before testing;
(9) require that, for each feature of the system that allows disabled voters to cast a ballot, at least one vote be cast and verified by a two-person testing board team using that feature; and
(10) require that, when all votes are cast, the general custodian of election records and the testing board observe the tabulation of all ballots and compare the actual results to the expected results.
text of subsection effective on September 01, 2020
(c) The general custodian of election records shall adopt procedures for testing that:
(1) direct the testing board to cast votes;
(2) verify that each contest position, as well as each precinct and ballot style, on the ballot can be voted and is accurately counted;
(3) include overvotes and undervotes for each race, if applicable to the system being tested;
(4) include write-in votes, when applicable to the election;
(5) include provisional votes, if applicable to the system being tested;
(6) calculate the expected results from the test ballots;
(7) ensure that each voting machine has any public counter reset to zero and presented to the testing board for verification before testing;
(8) require that, for each feature of the system that allows disabled voters to cast a ballot, at least one vote be cast and verified by a two-person testing board team using that feature; and
(9) require that, when all votes are cast, the general custodian of election records and the testing board observe the tabulation of all ballots and compare the actual results to the expected results.
(d) A test is successful if the actual results are identical to the expected results.
(e) To provide a full and accurate account of the condition of a given voting machine, the testing board and the general custodian of election records shall:
(1) sign a written statement attesting to:
(A) the qualification of each direct recording electronic voting machine that was successfully tested;
(B) any problems discovered; and
(C) the cause of any problem if it can be identified; and
(2) provide any other documentation as necessary.
(f) On completing the testing:
(1) the testing board shall witness and document all steps taken to reset, seal, and secure any equipment or test materials, as appropriate; and
(2) the general custodian for election records shall preserve a copy of the system's software at a secure location that is outside the administrator's and programming entity's control until at least 22 months after election day.
Amended by:
Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 682 (H.B. 2524), Sec. 2, eff. September 1, 2009.
Acts 2011, 82nd Leg., R.S., Ch. 1164 (H.B. 2817), Sec. 27, eff. September 1, 2011.
Acts 2017, 85th Leg., R.S., Ch. 404 (H.B. 25), Sec. 7, eff. September 1, 2020.
Acts 2017, 85th Leg., R.S., Ch. 828 (H.B. 1735), Sec. 21, eff. September 1, 2017.

Sec. 129.024. SECURITY OF TEST MATERIALS. (a) On completing each test, the general custodian of election records shall place the test materials in a container provided for that purpose and seal the container in a manner that prevents opening without breaking the seal. The general custodian of election records and at least two members of the testing board shall sign the seal.
(b) The test materials shall remain sealed for the period for preserving the precinct election records.
(c) The container may not be unsealed unless the contents are necessary to conduct a test under this subchapter or a criminal investigation, election contest, or other official proceeding under this code. If the container is unsealed, the authority in charge of the proceeding shall reseal the contents when not in use.
Amended by:
Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 682 (H.B. 2524), Sec. 2, eff. September 1, 2009.

None of these machines are hooked to the internet. Each voting machine communicates to a Judge Booth Controller that records the vote. The JBC has a seal that is visible to all voters when they vote. After voting, the JBC's are transported to the county election office and the seals are only broken at the headquarters. Each party has the right to have representatives there to observe.

I serve as an election judge once a cycle to observe the process and I get to sit in on the election law class attended by all electoin judges. There are procedures to protect the vote in place.