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Security United States Politics

Clinton Urged To Challenge Election Results Due To Possible Hacking [Update] (cnn.com) 1321

Reader Bruha writes: After examining results in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin computer scientists have discovered Clinton averaged 7% worse in counties with e voting machines vs. counties with only paper or optical scan ballots.From a CNN report:The computer scientists believe they have found evidence that vote totals in the three states could have been manipulated or hacked and presented their findings to top Clinton aides on a call last Thursday. The scientists, among them J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, told the Clinton campaign they believe there is a questionable trend of Clinton performing worse in counties that relied on electronic voting machines compared to paper ballots and optical scanners, according to the source. The group informed John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman, and Marc Elias, the campaign's general counsel, that Clinton received 7% fewer votes in counties that relied on electronic voting machines, which the group said could have been hacked.Halderman wrote more about it on Medium today in an article titled, "Want to Know if the Election was Hacked? Look at the Ballots"

Update: Green party candidate Jill Stein is asking for donations to fund a recount of her own in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which are the states key to Hillary Clinton's surprising loss. Stein says she must raise $2.5 million by Friday 4 pm central time to proceed.

Editor's note: the story has been updated and moved up on the front page.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Clinton Urged To Challenge Election Results Due To Possible Hacking [Update]

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:22AM (#53346299)

    Here we go, time to sit back and watch the show that is titled "America"

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Time to watch both sides put their fingers in their ears and yell "LA LA LA LA I can't hear you! This article means what I want it to mean!"

    • Re:Popcorn time! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @11:01AM (#53346785) Homepage

      It's worth noting that if you actually read the article, he doesn't say that the ballots actually were hacked: in fact, what he says is "Were this year’s deviations from pre-election polls the results of a cyberattack? Probably not. I believe the most likely explanation is that the polls were systematically wrong, rather than that the election was hacked." What he suggests is that it would be valuable to do the testing to verify: to "help allay doubt and give voters justified confidence that the results are accurate."

      From this point of view, it does make sense: "trust but verify". It also makes sense to do something he doesn't suggest, which is to break down some of the electronic voting machines and inspect the code for malware (he only suggests comparing the paper trail to the electronic count, not looking at the machines that don't have a paper trail.)

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @11:25AM (#53347049)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @12:23PM (#53347717) Homepage

          Actually, America's interests would be served by doing a recount of some portio of the ballots to verify accuracy. Quite apart from who won, it's valuable to check, check, and check again to verify if there is an error or tampering.

          But, yes, it may not be in the Democratic Party's best interest. Although to be frank, they are already being labelled "sore losers" despite conceding the election and explicitly instructing their supporters to accept the results, so I doubt it would make any difference in how they are perceived.

      • Re:Popcorn time! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by I'm New Around Here ( 1154723 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @11:29AM (#53347105)

        It also makes sense to do something he doesn't suggest, which is to break down some of the electronic voting machines and inspect the code for malware (he only suggests comparing the paper trail to the electronic count, not looking at the machines that don't have a paper trail.)

        The thing for me is that I voted on a paper ballot, which then went into a machine that counted my votes. I have no idea if that machine "switched" any of my choices, or if it recorded each one accurately. There were reports of that happening at places, so this isn't much different than using individual electronic voting machines.

      • Re:Popcorn time! (Score:5, Informative)

        by msauve ( 701917 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @12:03PM (#53347493)
        If you actually read, and try to track back to the source material, the summary is highly inaccurate. Take this claim:

        After examining results in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin computer scientists have discovered Clinton averaged 7% worse in counties with e voting machines vs. counties with only paper or optical scan ballots.

        Where's that come from? A CNN article [cnn.com] which doesn't provide a citation to anything which supports that claim, not even NYmag [nymag.com], which seems to be the original source for it. That article is more specific, saying

        The academics presented findings showing that in Wisconsin, Clinton received 7 percent fewer votes in counties that relied on electronic-voting machines compared with counties that used optical scanners and paper ballots.

        Going further, the one name given in both articles, J. Alex Halderman, in the post at the other link in the summary, says the article was inaccurate:

        You may have read at NYMag... That article, which includes somebody else's description of my views, incorrectly describes the reasons manually checking ballots is an essential security safeguard (and includes some incorrect numbers, to boot).

        ... and goes on to give reasons for checking ballots, with absolutely no mention of the statistical anomalies claimed.

        Furthermore, examining the above "7%" claim, the Halderman article has a map which shows that all counties in Michigan and Wisconsin use paper ballots. So, there can be no basis for the claim that there's a difference between electronic and paper ballot counties in Wisconsin (or Michigan)!

        And, no info on methodology back up the claim - you can't directly compare two different counties in two different states (or even the same state) and expect them to have equivalent vote proportions. If such comparisons were made, were they against previous votes in the same counties? How are they comparing votes in Pennsylvania counties with electronic voting against Michigan and Wisconsin counties? Or are they just using a difference between polls and actual vote totals? Seems the polls were wrong in lots of places, and to try and base any statistical claims on them seems to be a case of garbage-in-garbage-out.

        Finally, if as stated the concern is with electronic voting machines, why would they call for recounts in Michigan and Wisconsin, which use paper ballots?

        It just defies logic and sense. Is this just fake news which has found its way onto CNN via NYMag?

  • How funny. (Score:4, Funny)

    by sls1j ( 580823 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:23AM (#53346307) Homepage
    The DNC knows there was hacking because they've done it before and did it this election too. What a surprise.
    • Re:How funny. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jhon ( 241832 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:26AM (#53346341) Homepage Journal

      Wasn't there election day reports from Pennsylvania of straight Republican votes magically changing to Democratic votes? With cell phone video of it happening?

      • Re:How funny. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by russotto ( 537200 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:30AM (#53346403) Journal

        Yeah. They looked like pretty typical cases of a broken touch screen to me; the lack of any reports of Democratic votes changing to Republican might be reporting bias.

        If you're going to rig a machine to change a vote, you'd be pretty dumb to make it show it changing.

      • by Mashiki ( 184564 ) <mashiki@NoSPam.gmail.com> on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @11:18AM (#53346983) Homepage

        Wasn't there election day reports from Pennsylvania of straight Republican votes magically changing to Democratic votes? With cell phone video of it happening?

        Texas. [foxnews.com] Video of it here. [truthfeed.com] Another report here [kissfm969.com] And also PA. [nbcnews.com]

    • Re:How funny. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by roccomaglio ( 520780 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @11:12AM (#53346915)
      When Trump made the claim that the election was rigged Politifact ruled it "Pants on Fire", because "Given the decentralized nature of our elections, there would be no single way to throw the results," said Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine. http://www.politifact.com/trut... [politifact.com]
  • So... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mashiki ( 184564 ) <mashiki@NoSPam.gmail.com> on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:24AM (#53346329) Homepage

    Is this part of the fake news? Or is it actually real news? Or is it Clinton being a sore loser. The DNC and Clinton doesn't really have a leg to stand on though, especially after fixing their own primary to make sure she was the candidate.

    • Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sycodon ( 149926 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:27AM (#53346365)

      It's the various academicians that still can't believe Trump won because, "nobody I know voted for Trump".

       

      • Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Oswald McWeany ( 2428506 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:40AM (#53346513)

        It's the various academicians that still can't believe Trump won because, "nobody I know voted for Trump".

        Put me in that corner. I accept the election result, but I'm baffled where all the Trump supporters came from. Most of my friends are die-hard Republicans, but I don't know a single person who (admitted) voting for Trump. I suspect that's because this election wasn't really fought along typical Republican vs Democrat, leftie vs rightie lines.

        This election was more about the educated vs the blue collar workforce. Most people I know are college educated republicans and they claim they voted for Hillary and they hate Trump. I suspect out in the country, and in the less educated parts of town there were a lot of hourly wage democrats who voted for Donald.

        I also think there are a lot of people who are in the "I would never vote for Trump" crowd, because they don't want to be associated with some of his more bizarre stances, who secretly voted for Trump when no one was looking.

        • Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by sycodon ( 149926 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:51AM (#53346665)

          No know plenty of "blue collar" people who are "educated" and visa versa.

          When you try to turn this into a "smart" vs "not smart" you are asking for trouble. It's more likely about people who have been negatively impacted by the last few decades of policy.

          For instance, I'm thinking that there is a good chance that plenty of IT workers who have had to train their foreign replacement voted for Trump.

          • You're the one making this a "smart" vs "not smart" issue, the OP said "blue collar" and [college] educated which is basically a class thing. The latter are doing pretty great, despite the constant bitching about the evil Indians taking dem jerbs.

        • Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Tailhook ( 98486 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @11:04AM (#53346825)

          who secretly voted for Trump when no one was looking

          We're living in the midst of another McCarthy-ist era; people can lose a lot if they're found to support the "wrong" side or have a non-SJW compliant opinion. The left should really look into working around the secret ballot in public elections as they've been trying to do in union elections [wikipedia.org]; that would secure their power forever.

        • Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Mashiki ( 184564 ) <mashiki@NoSPam.gmail.com> on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @11:08AM (#53346877) Homepage

          Most of my friends are die-hard Republicans, but I don't know a single person who (admitted) voting for Trump. I suspect that's because this election wasn't really fought along typical Republican vs Democrat, leftie vs rightie lines.

          And that's exactly what it is. You'll find people from both sides of the isle voted for Trump because of what Hillary stood for. The reality is there was more support for Trump because he wasn't establishment, she was. They feel that the current state of government doesn't represent the people. That's why he had the support. The media is at a loss, and still hasn't learned anything from it though. [observer.com]

          A lot of people like myself, who are or were heavily invested in politics saw this coming. This has been building for ~20 odd years, and it's very close to reaching the full-on shoot politicians in the streets. The Tea Party stuff was a warning sign, just like AfD, FN, and so on are warning signs. The media refused to listen, the politicians refused to listen. In the end Trump is far less extreme then the next candidate would have been. Just like Le Pen is, just like Frauke Petry is.

          I also think there are a lot of people who are in the "I would never vote for Trump" crowd, because they don't want to be associated with some of his more bizarre stances, who secretly voted for Trump when no one was looking.

          It's more likely they don't want to be targeted or attacked. You can seem multiple cases of that all over the US. Unlike the people who claimed "Trump supporters" attacked them. Those people who made the claims are being charged with filing false police reports. Off the top of my head, I can think of fake rape, [q13fox.com] fake assaults, [reddit.com] fake vandalism, fake flyers [nbcchicago.com], fake deportation letters, fake claims of harassment and mugging. [breitbart.com]

        • I'm baffled where all the Trump supporters came from.

          Trump said over and over that the election was rigged - he just never said which way... It broke his way and he's not complaining, so there you go.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by kuzb ( 724081 )
          Have a good look at how Clinton supporters acted during the election. They would come out and physically attack Trump supporters. Is it any surprise that many just didn't bother to scream their affiliations from a rooftop? You probably know plenty of people who voted Trump and they just didn't bother to tell you because they didn't want to deal with the reaction and chastisement.
        • Most of my friends are die-hard Republicans, but I don't know a single person who (admitted) voting for Trump. I suspect that's because this election wasn't really fought along typical Republican vs Democrat, leftie vs rightie lines.

          They voted for Trump. They just don't want to admit it.

        • Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by damn_registrars ( 1103043 ) <damn.registrars@gmail.com> on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @11:49AM (#53347309) Homepage Journal

          This election was more about the educated vs the blue collar workforce.

          I rather doubt it. Trump offered nothing valuable to the blue collar workforce.

          Much more likely is that this was a battle between "Not Trump" and "Not Clinton", it came down to who could get more people to the polls to stop the other party's candidate. At the end of the day, the GOP hatred for Clinton won out over the democrat's concern over Trump.

          Just look at this year's numbers. Between 2012 and 2016, our country's population increased by over 10 million, yet 6 million fewer votes were cast. The bulk of those votes that were cast in 2012 but not in 2016 were people who voted Obama in 2012 and stayed home in 2016. There are very few states where Trump (in 2016) received more votes than Romney (in 2012), but there were many where Clinton (in 2016) received notably fewer than Obama (in 2012).

          Hence the real question is whether the democratic voters sat out because they didn't care (or didn't like Hillary) or sat out because they believed all the polling before election day that said she was going to win easily.

        • Re:So... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by 0100010001010011 ( 652467 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @12:07PM (#53347559)

          but I'm baffled where all the Trump supporters came from.

          There are a few different groups. Lets get the KKK, Nationalists, etc out of the way. Yes they voted for him (Like they would have voted for Clinton) but their numbers are so small they're really not worth discussing on a national scale.

          In the Midwest:

          In large part it's blue collar salt of the earth people in the middle. Come out and visit 'us'. (I didn't vote trump but my state and county did). If you make a joke about flyover country you'll probably get punched the 10th time you say it. Most of the people out here are the nicest people you'll meet. If you ever needed anything (Flat tire, etc) they'll be the first to stop and lend a hand. Everyone has had a job that was affected by NAFTA. (Real or perceived, most people think they were affected by NAFTA)

          50% of household earning less than $35k don't have Internet. Some townships are on Dialup alone. [Despite having our tax money go to help fix that [wordpress.com]]. Our infastructure is literally falling apart around us. We don't have enough population in any single county to warrant people paying attention to us. When it comes to 'social' issues most of us are "I don't see it I don't care". When asked where a transgendered person pees it's probably in the woods like everyone else. But we really, really hate being dictated to about 'how it is' from the coasts.

          Some of us tried the high road, my county went very Bernie in the primaries. Polls had both WI and MI completely wrong. We saw Bernie as the democratic way to 'make america great again' and were told, literally, "You aren't needed in November" despite filling stadiums and waiting in lines to see Sanders.

          Republican votes per county have held flat 2008-2012-2016. Jill stein saw a 'huge' jump between 2012-2016. And Democratic voters more or less just stayed home.

          The second group is a bit more entertaining to watch:

          It's /r/The_Donald [vice.com]. It's the angry, contrarian young male vote. It seems to be a melting pot of RedPill, 4Chan, and a bunch of other places that demographic hangs out, online equivalent of a bag of cats.

          Milo Yiannopoulos seemed to gain a lot of traction and followers out of the GamerGate. They have less in common other than they really really hate the "SJW" type and saw trump as the anti PC candidate. I'm fascinated by people watching so I've dug through some profiles. Most are just 18-25 year old males that feel something about Obama or Clinton gave them the short end of the stick.

          The recruiting techniques are pretty much follow gang recruiting techniques that have been used for centuries and are used now to radicalize people for ISIS. "Did those people wrong you? It's this persons fault. Join us and we'll "fix" it".

          Beyond that there's really nothing that binds them. (Other than some don't know how to create new Reddit Profiles).

          For example one user is a ~20 year old 2nd generation Muslim Indian immigrant [reddit.com]. Follows soccer [reddit.com] and Cricket [reddit.com], loves cats [reddit.com], smokes cannabis [reddit.com] lives in NY, drives around a BMW 435i [i.sli.mg] and used to drive an Audi S5 [reddit.com]. And is all on the trump train ... because.

      • Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Rei ( 128717 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:46AM (#53346613) Homepage

        I'd actually like to see their data before I make up my mind. If it's just a correlation, that could just be a correlation between where voting machines tend to be located in a state and thus what demographics of voters will use them. 7% difference wouldn't be unreasonable in such a case. On the other hand, if they're controlling for that, it is concerning.

      • Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @01:05PM (#53348185) Journal

        It's the various academicians that still can't believe Trump won because, "nobody I know voted for Trump".

        This is a case of:
          - A security researcher using the close election and hand-wringing over possible cheating to try to institutionalize actually CHECKING the paper audit trails against the tabulated results, before discarding the paper.
          - And calling for candidates who lost close elections (on either side) to ask for a recount - because that's the only way to get it to happen in THIS election before the paper ballots ARE discarded, after the deadline which is JUST DAYS AWAY.
          - Then the mainstream media (in "nobody I know voted for Trump" mode because they don't TALK to anybody outside their echo chamber) trying to spin that into "academics say Hillary lost due to vote-rigging".)

        Read TFA: He explicitly says he thinks it's unlikely Hillary lost due to rigging, that the unexpected trump win was due to massively defective polls.

        Disclaimer: I've met Halderman. He's a top-notch computer security researcher (and teacher of such in academia) and a cool head.

    • Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Oswald McWeany ( 2428506 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:33AM (#53346429)

      Hard to call Clinton a sore loser since she hasn't supported any of these hacking theories or challenged the election in any way.

      I don't like Hillary, but I've seen no sign of her being a sore loser. Some of her supporters have perhaps been.

    • Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)

      by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:36AM (#53346449)

      Is this part of the fake news? Or is it actually real news? Or is it Clinton being a sore loser. The DNC and Clinton doesn't really have a leg to stand on though, especially after fixing their own primary to make sure she was the candidate.

      Clinton and the DNC aren't doing this, and reportedly her team was already told about this data and hasn't done anything about it because they didn't think it indicated fraud.

    • Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Goldsmith ( 561202 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @12:02PM (#53347479)

      I think the "fake news" part of this is really under appreciated.

      This is exactly the kind of thing that erodes people's faith in the ability of the news media to report facts, and to report facts without bias.

      It's a pretty big deal to suggest you have evidence the presidential election was stolen. This is not a feel-good fluff piece, it deserves a little editorial attention. A review of the evidence by an expert in election statistics shows that it's really just normal voting patterns. Some people are going to read the article on CNN, read the actual statisticians response elsewhere, and know CNN was putting out click bait, not a real news story. If you're upset that other people putting out fake click bait articles skewed the election, then what CNN is doing here should really piss you off.

      There is no way a responsible journalist publishes this story, or a responsible news organization carries it. It is BS like this that supports the idea that there are different standards for "truth" in the media depending on the politics attached to article.

      I think a different standard applies to Halderman. He's a computer security researcher who is using the election as an example of a vulnerable system. It's great for him to put out his Medium piece, he's not pretending to be anything other than a guy really interested in the mechanisms for verifying information systems, and he right up front is clear that he's not making any claim that the election was actually stolen.

  • Genuine question (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:25AM (#53346337)
    I am not an American, but I was wondering if Clinton Campaign can -- at least hypothetically -- really challenge the results? I mean, is it a thing?
    • by sycodon ( 149926 )

      I don't think there is any real way they can challenge the results.

      If, as they are suggesting, the Trump win came from hacked voting machines, there is no paper trail to check against. Once you click the submit button, the vote is logged. They have no idea who cast it, or what (if it was different) their intention was. It also means that you have no concrete means to be sure that how you voted is what was counted. The reputation of the system is the only thing you can rely on.

      Same thing with paper ballots.

      • by green1 ( 322787 )

        With paper ballots this is easy, you have observers from each party at the polling station. Each voter takes their ballot, marks it, and then places it in a ballot box. The observers make sure the ballot boxes aren't tampered with until they are unsealed after the polls close, and are counted in front of the observers. Once the votes are counted they are placed back in the boxes under the supervision of the observers, and the boxes are sealed and stored for possible later re-counts.

        This leaves each elector

        • There are also hybrid digital-paper methods that would allow for the rapid counting of digital with the auditing that paper provides. Where I vote, we fill in circles on a Scantron form. The form is scanned, the votes added in, and the form itself goes into a locked box. The votes are tallied digitally but if a recount is needed, the original paper forms can be retrieved. I'm not saying that Scantrons are the best system, but they are better than a purely digital touchscreen system.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • You can't (Score:5, Insightful)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:26AM (#53346355) Journal

    Because Diebold et al have steadfastly refused to provide a verifiable paper trail, claiming it's too complicated, or incorporate any kind of audit log, we will never know if the votes which people cast were correctly recorded.

    This applies to anyone during any election these machines have been in place, not only this one.

    • Re:You can't (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:37AM (#53346469)

      The ironic thing is when people ask for paper voting machines, they get told they are fossils. Yes, paper has issues (hanging chads, etc.), but it requires physical access to tamper with. E-voting, once the bits are flipped, there is no way, ever, to know what the total once was.

      Best of all worlds is an E-voting machine that prints out a human readable summary of a ballot, then the ballot is physically dropped into a box. Worked for ages with mechanical voting systems.

  • Doesn't matter (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Interfacer ( 560564 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:28AM (#53346383)

    This is like calling on the electors to not choose Trump, or come up with all sorts of far fetched plans that would somehow put Clinton on the big seat. Look at the county results map. Even if the DNC can somehow find a technicality to avoid a Trump presidency, the result will be more or less a civil war imo. There is no way that the actual people in those red counties are going to let 'the big city folks' put Trump aside.

    I am not a big fan of him either. Nor of Hillary for that matter. But at this point it's gone so far that either he becomes president or you'll have riots from coast to coast.

    • either he becomes president or you'll have riots from coast to coast.

      Don't discount that the controllers aren't hoping for exactly the latter outcome.

    • Re:Doesn't matter (Score:5, Informative)

      by bfpierce ( 4312717 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:38AM (#53346489)

      I've seen this said before where it's 'WOW look at all those red counties' which discredits the fact that a whole ton of those counties are just 'slightly' red.

      The popular vote was split, it's going to look that way in a whole lotta places. Thinking the election was a 'wash of republicanism' is misunderstanding what those result maps actually mean.

    • Re:Doesn't matter (Score:4, Interesting)

      by green1 ( 322787 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @11:13AM (#53346931)

      But at this point it's gone so far that either he becomes president or you'll have riots from coast to coast.

      Riots are possible the other direction too you know.

      In fact, I think the political system in the USA has become so divisive, and so hostile at this point, that civil war is almost inevitable. Probably not in this election cycle, but I don't know how much more of this sort of politics the nation can withstand. Each side of every election tries harder and harder to tell everyone that if you don't vote for their candidate that you are a horrible and unpatriotic American who wants to destroy the country. People are starting to believe it. And when some parts of the population actively despise other parts of the population with the amount of vitriol that the 2 parties want, how long before it boils over?

  • by Sarten-X ( 1102295 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:31AM (#53346411) Homepage

    Having read earlier reports of this analysis, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree.

    From what I read, there was no attempt to find other explanations, like a demographic preference for e-voting over paper, or the local economic costs of maintaining one particular voting mechanism.

    Nope, let's just just straight to assuming hacking.

    • by Fire_Wraith ( 1460385 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:41AM (#53346523)
      Not by the initial group, no, but others such as Nate Silver and Nate Cohn who looked at the data said that the differences could be accounted for by factoring in demographic differences.could likely account for it.

      That said, at some point we're going to need to take measures to make sure that hacking/cheating/rigging doesn't occur, even if only to head off these kinds of accusations. We should not simply blindly trust that an unaudited computer system does what we're told it should. This is something we should put in place for future elections, at the very least, because even if no one actually does try to cheat, it's far too easy to undermine the legitimacy of an election if there's no way to confirm the results are fair. Random audits, such as suggested by Ron Rivest and Phil Stark, would be a good step towards that end:
      http://www.usatoday.com/story/... [usatoday.com]
      • by wired_parrot ( 768394 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @11:26AM (#53347057)

        While true that the differences may be demographic in nature, these claims point to a bigger problem with e-voting machines: there is no paper trail to allow the results to be audited and scrutinized. The integrity of the results cannot be verified. With a paper ballot, a careful manual recount would've been possible, with multiple observers to confirm the count. This is simply not possible with electronic ballots

        Having a cloud of suspicion over the results benefits no one, most of all Trump himself. Any election system that does not have an auditable paper trail will become a breeding ground for conspiracy theories and a focus for electoral challenges. This is bad not just for the losing candidate, but for democracy in general, as it risks deligitimizing the results.

    • To be fair, this is the standard, accepted mechanism for dealing with any emotionally charged issue today. What people FEEL about it is considered more valid than the facts of the matter, to the point that asking for, much less providing and citing facts is considered politically incorrect on one side and unpatriotic/traitorous on the other.

      For example;
      - any reason other than sexism for male/female hiring rates, pay differences, or if there is a wage gap
      - any reason other than

  • by frank_adrian314159 ( 469671 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:39AM (#53346499) Homepage

    Were the stats adjusted for racial and income makeup of the counties examined? Clinton underperformed among poor white voters. The reason for this "discrepency" is probably a correlation between poor counties and use of electronic voting machines. The D's (who I normally vote with) need no excuse for losing other than the shitty campaign their candidate ran. #itshillarysfault.

  • by StandardCell ( 589682 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @10:40AM (#53346509)
    Even if we had a fully open and verifiable hardware and software architecture, it doesn't prevent someone from finding weaknesses. The only solution to this potential subversion of the people's will is to get rid of e-voting entirely and go back to paper ballots.
  • One question (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @11:15AM (#53346945) Journal

    If Donald Trump had gotten 2 million more popular votes than Hillary Clinton and still lost the election, would he and his supporters have accepted it graciously and not claimed fraud?

    Hell, Trump was claiming fraud before the election even took place.

  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @11:16AM (#53346967)
    As someone utterly terrified by a Trump presidency and the damage it's going to do I say she goes for it. The point isn't to win, it's to bog down the Trump administration to limit the damage he can do. The Repubs did it to Obama (though I'd argue Obama was actually trying to Govern where Trump is just the world's largest scam). As the saying goes, this is how the sausage is made.
  • If Politifact rejects claims of rigging [politifact.com], then they just can not be true, can they be?
  • Ummm...yeah (Score:4, Informative)

    by erp_consultant ( 2614861 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @03:03PM (#53349323)

    Isn't this the same group that assured all the voters that the election results could not possibly be manipulated when Trump suggest just that, prior to the election? And the same group that, given Hilary's higher popular vote numbers, are calling for the abolition of the Electoral College?

    I think that Wolf Blitzer and the rest of the CNN crew and still grumpy that Hillary lost. Well get over it Wolfie - you got your ass handed to you. Despite your one sided reporting and thinly veiled rooting for Hillary you lost.

    CNN and MSNBC and others are just pissed off that they have been exposed as surrogates of the Democrat party. I think that a lot of people have long suspected that is the case but now it is in full view. If you want to hear Democrat cheerleaders then go to CNN or MSNBC. If you want to hear Republican cheerleaders then go to FOX. If you want the actual truth, you know that thing that used to be called "news", then you are going to have to go to a variety of web sites and other outlets and try to filter out all the political BS. That's what the world has come to.

"I shall expect a chemical cure for psychopathic behavior by 10 A.M. tomorrow, or I'll have your guts for spaghetti." -- a comic panel by Cotham

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