2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumCould the 2016 Election Be Stolen with Help from Electronic Voting Machines?
Interview with Amy Goodman, Democracy Now (video and transcript)
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/23/could_the_2016_election_be_stolen
Vinca
(50,334 posts)I'm still convinced that was the case in 2004 when Kerry lost.
madokie
(51,076 posts)The people behind the curtain could care less if its a D or an R all they care about is their bottom line and they'll do whatever it takes to make sure the person who will protect them are in place. You can bet on that
ETA: Bernie is after their their ill gotten goods and they know that
brooklynite
(95,012 posts)No political figure involved in electoral politics believes it happens.
Since the voting machine have allegedly been rigged, Republicans have won three times (2004. 2010, 2014) and Democrats have won three times (2006, 2008, 2012). Pretty inefficient programming.
Blue Meany
(1,947 posts)with legal standards. But it has been proven that the systems are hackable, so it seems like a no-brainer that someone, somewhere is going to hack them, especially with the stakes involved. It cannot be proven that this has not happened, and it may well be the most sensible explanation in some cases, as with the Chicago voting machines shifting 18% of Bernie's votes to Hillary (which the auditors conducting and audit of 5% of the ballots covered up by simply changing the numbers, presumably to avoid the obligation to do a full audit of all Chicago ballots).
The real question is why we do not have a system for voting that is as secure, say, as the banking system. It is certainly not for reasons of technology, and if it were, we could simply use paper ballots hand-counted in front of a live video stream.
brooklynite
(95,012 posts)...the analogy would be: banks can be robbed so at some point, someone will rob 10,000 banks simultaneously.
Blue Meany
(1,947 posts)and have a high degree of accuracy. This is not true of our voting systems, however. Why not?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)From the DN interview:
HARVEY WASSERMAN: We watched itI grew up here, Amy. We watched it, totally, right up close and personal. We did the accounting. I work with a political scientist named Bob Fitrakis. Were about to come out with another book, The Strip & Flip of the 2016 Selection. They are stripping the voter rollsand Greg Palast, the great investigative reporter, is doing great on thisremoving African Americans, Hispanics, people who might incline to vote progressive, and theyso thatin 2004, they stripped 300,000 people from the voter rolls here in the urban areas. Bush only won by less than 120 [thousand].
And this year, about 80 percent of the vote nationally will be cast on electronic voting machines. There is no verifiability. In six key swing statesFlorida, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and Arizonayou have Republican governors and Republican secretaries of state, and no method of verifying the electronic vote count. At midnight or whenever it is on election night, those two guys can go in there with an IT person and flip the outcome of an electronically counted vote within about 60 seconds. So all this millions and millions of dollars, people out campaigning and so on, can be negated by an electronic vote flip late at night on election night, and there is no way to verify whats happened.
Jack Bone
(2,023 posts)Wisconsin comes up #1 on my radar...by citing Walker's 3 wins in 5 yrs talking point.... but doesn't offer much delegate wise.
Ohio & FL of course they're on the list...Blue States w/ GOP Govs
PA or NJ would be nice to add to WI...to get more bang for the buck.
Trump's claiming to make NY & CA competitive this cycle, stealing's about the only way.
I'm sure everybody knows that they're try.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)whether it could happen and whether it has happened are two different inquiries
Kittycat
(10,493 posts)The only people that refuse to notice or acknowledge, or those it favors.
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)Until, of course, we get the foreign hackers in the mix.
There is no valid argument against permanently banning them.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)This years election could be the result of who's got the best hackers, Clinton or Trump. I didn't even think about the foreign hackers. HEY, maybe that's why Trump was cozying up to Putin. Now, watch Hil go after the Chinese.
antigop
(12,778 posts)1) You've never written a computer program in your life.
2) You didn't really learn anything from the class.
Lodestar
(2,388 posts)The 2014 midterm election results may have been a complete farce. All it takes is one insider who knows how to flip a switch and the outcome changes. When it comes to voting, should we trust our votes to a computer that doesnt even spit out a receipt for confirmation? Do you trust your voting machine manufacturer?
Private companies like ES&S, Dominion (previously of Diebold or Sequoia), Smartmatic, and Hart Intercivic make most of the electronic voting machines. Three of five board members at Hart Intercivic are board members at HIG Capital, a global private equity firm that made a significant investment in the voting machine company. The Washington Post reported HIG employees as a whole have donated $338,000 to the Romney campaign this year, according to Open Secrets. Hart supplied the electronic voting machines that were used in the 2012 elections in precincts in Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma, Washington, Colorado and many other states.
These connections between candidates and voting machines are too close for my comfort. But it isnt just the cozy relationship that matters. Its important to know who has their hands on the ballots and the votes. In study after study, electronic machines have proven incredibly easy to rig.1,2,3,4,5,6 At Princeton University, researchers found that in less than one minute, a criminal could bypass the lock using a simple tool and replace the memory card with one containing malicious code. Its so easy to open the box that the researchers show how it is done in a video. Any desired algorithm can be used to determine which votes to steal and to which candidate or candidates to transfer the stolen votes.
The abstract of the Princeton study goes on: Malicious software running on a single voting machine can steal votes with very little risk of detection. The malicious software can modify all of the records, audit logs, and counter kept by the voting machine so that even careful forensic examination...will find nothing amiss. One machine can be rigged within less than a minute and then it goes viral. An attacker could infect a large population of machines while only having temporary access to a single machine or memory card. And bear in mind, if you work for the elections office, you dont even need a key.
It really comes down to this: do you trust the people counting your ballot?
cont'd
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judy-frankel/the-black-box-voting-mach_b_8082384.html
Lodestar
(2,388 posts)so that is very telling, is it not? Same reason the Patriot Act
was not dismantled when the Dems had a majority. These
power tools are available to both parties and why would they give
them up? They are all owned by the corporations.
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)Lodestar
(2,388 posts)they will keep an eye on any shifty cyber tricks or challenge any
apparent inconsistencies. Would love to catch the fraudsters red handed.
J_J_
(1,213 posts)After the Jerry Brown endorsement, I am more worried than ever...
Will Jerry Brown help steal election for Clinton because he wants position in Clinton Administration?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512093222