November 22, 2016

"Hillary Clinton is being urged by a group of prominent computer scientists and election lawyers to call for a recount in three swing states won by Donald Trump..."

New York Magazine says.
The group, which includes voting-rights attorney John Bonifaz and J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, believes they’ve found persuasive evidence that results in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania may have been manipulated or hacked. The group is so far not speaking on the record about their findings and is focused on lobbying the Clinton team in private....

The Clinton camp is running out of time to challenge the election. According to one of the activists, the deadline in Wisconsin to file for a recount is Friday; in Pennsylvania, it’s Monday; and Michigan is next Wednesday....
What does it mean to say there is "persuasive evidence" that something "may have" happened? The "may have" takes the edge of urgency off "persuasive evidence." I've read the short article at the link and doubt that the idea will tempt Clinton to pursue a challenge.

ADDED: "Shame on Liberal Journalists For Running With Baseless Election ‘Hack’ Story":
There is only one “fact” cited in the original NY Mag piece that would point to hacking, and that was immediately debunked by actual experts (per Nate Silver it doesn’t even “pass the sanity test,” Dave Wasserman calls it “pathetic”). Remarkably, the NYDN piece repeats the sole “evidence” of hacking, and then completely debunks it two paragraphs later....

So Clinton’s vote was down 7% in Wisconsin counties with electronic voting… and counties with electronic voting were also the ones most likely to vote against Clinton. In other words, literally nothing is suspicious about the election results.

134 comments:

Unknown said...

trump did say the election was rigged. maybe he has a point.

Anonymous said...

Putin hacked the electronic voting machines? Who woulda thunk it?

khesanh0802 said...

Want to see a real uprising try to carry this out. I would trust the conclusions of these people about as far as I trust the conclusions of the guy who came up with the hockey stick graph for global warming. As you statisticians out there can probably attest you can reach any conclusion using statistics. As Mark Twain said there are " lies, damn lies and statistics".


Hillary conceded. Her one act of grace in a lifetime of sin.

Will Cate said...

Utter nonsense; it will never happen.

chickelit said...

Can there by any more self-interested group favoring a recount than "election lawyers"?

tcrosse said...

It's like Peter Pan. If all the boys and girls applaud, then Tinkerbell will live.

sean said...

Note also the fake news, that six Trump electors have elected.

sean said...

Sorry, make that "defected."

PB said...

It's just part of the coordinated, funded effort to oppose Trump.

Michael K said...

Why don't the lefties read this description of the new electoral world.?

I know. It doesn't suit your prejudices.

Paul said...

Well Trump can 'rethink' charging Hillary with crimes. And there is no "may have" to her crimes.

Spiros Pappas said...

Paper ballots in urban areas and electronic in rural areas, no discrepancy. Very weak and sad!

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I'm persuaded! Get to it!

Unknown said...

Paul said...
Well Trump can 'rethink' charging Hillary with crimes. And there is no "may have" to her crimes.

11/22/16, 8:53 PM


not very likely he'll do that.

because

rhhardin said...

Recount until you win, is the rule.

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
RMc said...

If Hillary had won and Trump had tried this, the press would crucify him, bury him, then dig him up and crucify him again, just to make sure.

sane_voter said...

Nate Cohn, Nate Silver and Harry Enten have all come out and said they are full of poo. Iowa and Minn moved to Trump as much as WI, MI and PA and they have 100% paper ballots.

I believe all voting should use paper ballots, but this is such sour grapes. Hillary's supporters are behaving worse than anyone expected the Trump supporters would have if he had lost.

Static Ping said...

Seriously? Now they believe in vote fraud?

Honestly, I'd love to be gone with any voting machines that can be hacked. I'd also love to be gone with voting by mail, which is basically begging for large scale fraud, and to get rid of early voting, and and to institute voter ID laws. For some reason the Democrats don't seem to care for any of those for some reason.

sane_voter said...

The harassment of Trump electors needs to be called out as well.

sane_voter said...

Why stop at WI, PA and MI. Go full Gore and try to get FL. It is only 113,000 votes to make up. There are probably that many ballots in the trunks of Broward county election workers

rcocean said...

Wouldn't any recount run into the same Time problem that the 2000 Gore challenge ran into? The Electoral college needs to meet on day X so the POTUS can be inaugurated on Jan 21st. So any recount would have to be ordered now.

What this really shows is that a large part of the Democrat Party are liberal fascists who will do ANYTHING to hold onto power. Rules? We don't care about your stinking rules. Just win baby, just win.

tom swift said...

Of course the election was rigged. We know that because there were Democrats involved.

They just didn't rig it enough.

rcocean said...

"Prominent computer scientists"

I find that super-funny. First, the idea that computer programmers are "scientists" Do they were white lab coats while they type in code?

I mean they couldn't be Left-wingers with major in computer science or biased. After all, its Science!

Oooh, and they are "prominent". Which means the reporter liked them.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Sane voter 9:31 - heh.

Rae said...

They just want to sow doubt about the election, trying to get out the vote in two years. Leftists are nothing if not predictable.

JaimeRoberto said...

The most important part of the article: "the group has not found proof of hacking or manipulation".

gnome said...

I'm a bit inclined to Tom Swift's view. They know they rigged it, they're having trouble working out why they didn't win. The great Democrat strongholds know that subtlety is for wimps.

Rae said...

The Dems don't want an actual audit. They would lose 10 million + fraudulent votes in their favor.

Thuglawlibrarian said...

Well, we've seen anger, and denial, this must be the bargaining?

Ken B said...

Nate Silver is dismissing the "study". And Michigan has all paper ballots.

Greg Hlatky said...

Questions no one asked: "Secretary Clinton, will you accept the results of this election?"

Remember when not forthrightly answering this question in the affirmative was the greatest threat to democracy ever?

Lewis Wetzel said...

Someone should 'splain to the libs that if you think that if the other guy gets elected instead of your guy, the dark night of fascism will descend on the nation, you don't believe in small-r republicanism. You don't believe in democracy if you only accept as legitimate elections where your guy wins.
In the case of global warming, many on the left believe that if the GOP gains power all life on earth will be extinguished.
Bernie Sanders said "Today, the scientific community is virtually unanimous: climate change is real, it is caused by human activity, and we have a moral responsibility to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy and leave this planet a habitable planet for our children and our grandchildren."
You can't believe that and call yourself a democrat. The will of the people is second to the survival of the race, isn't it?

tcrosse said...

Well, the Dems got plenty of votes. They just weren't distributed properly.

Mike Sylwester said...

This is what happens when Scientific Progressives are allowed to become computer scientists and election lawyers.

David Begley said...

She conceded. This fantasy is irrelevant.

What loons. Get over it. Move on.

Zach said...

What a terrible idea.

Has everyone forgotten about the idea that a gracious loser is well positioned to win next time?

Obviously, Hillary has had her last chance. She's coughed up two unlosable elections, and if she's smart she won't grasp at straws like this. But other Democrats are going to be on the ballot in two short years. The best play is to settle down, find some new blood in the leadership, and try to benefit from the inevitable Trump missteps. Freaking out and trying to get a do-over for an election that has already happened is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Zach said...

What would your legal strategy even be in this case? What ballots do you want the court to count?

"While it’s important to note the group has not found proof of hacking or manipulation, they are arguing to the campaign that the suspicious pattern merits an independent review..."

This is just pathetic, but it's not even the worst part. Forget about no evidence of wrongdoing, there are no ballots to be counted! All votes registered by the machines have been counted correctly.

You can't win an election unless by actual count you have received more votes than your opponent. Expectation values don't enter into it. No court is going to give you the presidency for imaginary ballots you think you should have received.

Rosalyn C. said...

I'm still seeing comments posted on Facebook by "progressive" friends who are arguing that Trump is going to be terrible, fully confident they can't possibly be wrong or need to wait until he is inaugurated to pass judgement on what a terrible president he is. They are stuck in the same arguments we were having before the election, insulting me, and convinced that the fake news and slander against Trump was real.

I wonder how they will process President Trump as a successful leader? Could be a lot of mental breakdowns, I can't imagine.

BN said...

"prominent computer scientists and election lawyers..."

I think I see the problem here.

mishu said...

"Prominent computer scientists"

"Top men"

Geez. New York Magazine really knows how to troll for kiosk sales. There must be big bucks lefty agitprop. I would like to get in on it but I have a conscience.

BN said...

I must say, I am enjoying watching everyone react stereotypically according to their voting preference. Obama wins, the Repubs howl, and vice a versus.

Trump really is Obama's mirror image. Grope and Change!

Sally327 said...

It reminds me of that scene at the end of the movie Trading Places when Don Ameche starts screaming "Turn those machines back on!"

BN said...

I was looking for one of those beautiful photographs the perfesser posts from time to time calling for free-for-all comments, but alas... no.

So i have to say it here, i guess (and I'm serious):

What exactly is the difference between a memory and a fantasy?

And what is the difference between a soul and a ghost?

I have always wondered about these. It's driving me crazy.

I'm not getting better. Can y'all help?

gadfly said...

R.J. Chatt said...
I'm still seeing comments posted on Facebook by "progressive" friends who are arguing that Trump is going to be terrible, fully confident they can't possibly be wrong or need to wait until he is inaugurated to pass judgement on what a terrible president he is. They are stuck in the same arguments we were having before the election, insulting me, and convinced that the fake news and slander against Trump was real.

Trump's well published history over the past 30 years provides adequate evidence to believe what tomorrow will bring. His long history of abusing his acquaintances (he has no friends), employees vendors, investors, bureaucrats, reporters, politicians, tenants, family and women run deep throughout his life, so there is little chance that all of the news falls into the "fake news" category. You can work through the history and come to a reasoned conclusion, but if you don't really want to know about Trump truth, you can continue your emotional connection to the carny barker.

Bay Area Guy said...

Tough for some folks to handle losing......

Etienne said...

BN said...Can y'all help?

Sure. $600 an hour with a four hour minimum. I guarantee my work, and only sterile equipment will be used. Most of my patients recover in less than a month.

dwick said...

BN said @ 11/22/16, 10:41 PM...
I must say, I am enjoying watching everyone react stereotypically according to their voting preference. Obama wins, the Repubs howl, and vice a versus.


Please post some links to stories about Republicans calling for vote recounts, posting nearly incomprehensible emotional meltdown/tantrum selfies, needing grief counselor-manned 'safe spaces' replete with play-doh and hot chocolate, and protesting/rioting in the streets over Obama's 2008 and 2012 elections.


We'll wait...

(BTW, I think you meant 'vice versa' at the end there)

Original Mike said...

"It's not over until we win."

mccullough said...

I haven't heard the term computer scientist since the 80s.

Dude1394 said...

Damn they are pathetic.

eric said...

Id welcome an election audit.

Why dont we ever do election audits? Especially if a third party is willing to pay.

Something tells me the Democrats wouldn't welcome such a thing.

fivewheels said...

To paraphrase a nice tweet from Ashe Schow: I love the idea that Russia hacked the election results but didn't bother to make Trump win the popular vote while they were at it.

Anonymous said...

It would be unwise at this point on a maybe to un-concede 2 weeks after conceding based on some professors making a wild-ass statistics claim. That's kind of like saying the election should be contested because the election results didn't match the pre-election polls.

If there is hard evidence, then present it and make the case. Any media story that has to hedge with "maybe" "may have" or any other sort of conditional is basically saying that it's just speculative agenda journalism and not news.

Lewis Wetzel said...

"Computer scientists"? This is science worship. If these guys are really "computer scientists", they are researchers who do math. Jesus, I wish the mainstream press would stop treating people with PhD's like they are gods. They are academics. It is their job, just like R&B's job is walking dogs and properly disposing of their poop.
The idea that someone with a PhD after their name has more insight on what it means to be human than the gal who hands you you order at the fast food drive through is ridiculous.
I do technical work at a research facility. The scientists like to hire grad students because they work cheap. We hired one guy -- Swiss, I think -- to do some specialized work. After a few weeks he stopped showing up. It took my employers days to find out where he actually lived. The people they sent to check on him discovered his body. He had killed himself. No one cared. They didn't even know how to contact his family. Poor bastard.
We had an engineer who went nuts. I talked to him a few times. He sent me a link to a crazy history website. One of those "The people who make castor oil are the secret masters of the universe!" type of web sites.
This guy went nuts at a meeting, started talking to people in words that were hard to understand but were vaguely threatening. They made him resign. By the time he went home and reconsidered, maybe a quarter hour, they had already deleted his email account. He wanted to send an email retracting his resignation, but couldn't. So he drove back to work, but now he was a non-employee trying to get into the building. You can imagine what happened next.
Imagine the crew that works at your local McDonalds. Now put a PhD after all of their names. This is what science is like.

wwww said...


No, Halderman is for real. widely read security expert. name got my attention.

May be nothing there. counting would resolve.

but Halderman isn't some random PhD student, or even some self-proclaimed expert. he's who you read re: computer security.

strongly doubt politicians will challenge. risk too big to their reputation Gore soreloserman. Even if 30% chance russians hacked, politicians won't challenge.

Achilles said...

R.J. Chatt said...

I wonder how they will process President Trump as a successful leader? Could be a lot of mental breakdowns, I can't imagine.

Despite consistent and numerous examples of government/socialist failure they still believe. They believe.

Progressivism is a religion. Just look at Global Warming/lack thereof. They still believe.

Achilles said...

gadfly said...

Trump's well published history over the past 30 years provides adequate evidence to believe what tomorrow will bring. His long history of abusing his acquaintances (he has no friends), employees vendors, investors, bureaucrats, reporters, politicians, tenants, family and women run deep throughout his life, so there is little chance that all of the news falls into the "fake news" category. You can work through the history and come to a reasoned conclusion, but if you don't really want to know about Trump truth, you can continue your emotional connection to the carny barker.

A hillary supporter posted this.

This is beyond parody. You people are disgusting.

Achilles said...

wwww said...

strongly doubt politicians will challenge. risk too big to their reputation Gore soreloserman. Even if 30% chance russians hacked, politicians won't challenge.

They believe.

Yancey Ward said...

I would be stunned if the Clinton campaign asked for even one state recount based on this "evidence". However, this election was full of surprises, so what do I really know about what they would do?

Achilles said...

believes they’ve found persuasive evidence that results in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania may have been manipulated or hacked.

They have no proof. But we have proof that millions of illegals voted. Lets Audit the results in Florida, Nevada, California, New York and Illinois as well. Virginia would be a hoot after Mcauliffe illegally autopenned 60000 felons their voting privileges back.

Or not.

We know you fuckheads tried to cheat. You never stop. Please keep pushing. You are turning the squishy middle against you.

Yancey Ward said...

Oh, and the little tidbit about six electors saying they wouldn't vote for Trump is either a flat out lie, or laughably mistaking the six former Bernie Sanders supporters who are Clinton electors, and they have been trying to convince Trump electors to be faithless. What they have said is that they might not vote for Clinton as a way to publicly damage the Electoral College.

It is things like this why some media faced a "fucking firing squad" the other day.

gadfly said...

So now we know why Trump has backed off from his threat to name a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary and Jeffrey Epstein's other "friend" from Chappaqua.

Walter S. said...

This article should be an example the next time we discuss "fake news."

Rick said...

They're creating a nugget for election deniers to hang onto. Much like the "southern strategy" it will become part of the left's mythology.

Brando said...

Not such a wise idea--they're just as likely to turn up shenanigans committed by Team Dem.

I say, though, go on with your investigations. The people should see what really goes on in these elections.

HT said...

Because we all know that if the shoe had been on the other foot, Trump would have been fine with the way things are.

Mick said...

The little children of the Left will never give up. When caught in a lie they double and triple down on it. They must be driven into the ground and beaten into dirt and their heart ripped from their bodies and stakes driven through them. Trump showing the Crooked Old Lady Compassion is merely a sign of weakness to them . Hang that evil bitch in the public square.

tim in vermont said...

Putin hacked the electronic voting machines? Who woulda thunk it? - Unknown

Putin was probably tired of Hillary's high prices.

Clyde said...

One wonders how much Democrat voter fraud might be exposed if they really start investigating the voting. The true surprise was not just that Trump won, but that he won beyond the margin of fraud.

tim in vermont said...

"Call the DOJ…and tell them you want the votes audited,” she wrote. “Even if it’s busy, keep calling.” says Huma, guilty of multiple felonies by her own admission.

The DOJ has to be shitting itself about the new sheriff in town, among other agencies. What a fucking carbuncle of corruption the DOJ is on the face of the whole Federal Government.

Clyde said...

tim in vermont said...
The DOJ has to be shitting itself about the new sheriff in town. What a fucking carbuncle of corruption that agency is on the whole Federal Government.

Yeah, Tim, it ain't gonna be the Department of Just-Us any more!

Guildofcannonballs said...

We know when Trump lost: Iowa.

Caucus.

He was gracious in defeat, as he is in victory.

Don't matter though. This story helps Clinton by making her appear gracious because she, what exactly?

Didn't make a concession speech? Didn't refute the crazyily extremely amazingly insane fringe of her party?

Yes! The INSTANT! non-refutation, like Trump with his boy Davey Dukes, is proof Hillary is attempting assasination of the Republic.

QED. QUODMONSTERUM EDUCATADA DEMOSTERICAL.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"Deja Vu: Don't take it so hard Nick, life is filled with it's little miseries, each of us in his own way must learn to deal with adversity in a mature and adult fashion.
[Sneezes into hands screams, and jumps out a window]"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088286/quotes

Bruce Hayden said...

Trump's well published history over the past 30 years provides adequate evidence to believe what tomorrow will bring. His long history of abusing his acquaintances (he has no friends), employees vendors, investors, bureaucrats, reporters, politicians, tenants, family and women run deep throughout his life, so there is little chance that all of the news falls into the "fake news" category. You can work through the history and come to a reasoned conclusion, but if you don't really want to know about Trump truth, you can continue your emotional connection to the carny barker.

The projection here is almost breathtaking. This is obviously from a supporter of the woman whose rules were that underlings never make eye contact, stand by the side of the hall, with their eyes to the floor when she walked by, etc., whose abuse of her security detail resulted in only junior people protecting her while Secretary of State, was documented as flying into a screaming rage at Vince Foster, the day before he died. On and on. Who really has never thanked her campaign workers and millions of supporters for the work they did to get her so close to the Presidency. Who didn't bother with a concession speech until the next day. Etc.

What we do know about Trump is that he does publicly thank those who work for him, including the lowest level workers. We know this from his victory speech, and from his thank you speech after the convention. When has Crooked Hillary ever thanked the Secret Service for being willing to put themselves between her, and a bullet? We also know that he has on multiple occasions stopped on his way to important occasions to ask (low level) people their names and about themselves.

Does Trump abuse his enemies? Yes, and that is part of why he was elected. McCain and, esp., Romney, were too nice to win against the nastiness that is at the top in the left. Against the MSM especially. And, that is the important thing here - pretty much no matter what you say negative about Trump, Crooked Hillary was worse in that respect. Meaner, nastier, more violent, less generous, less stable, etc.

D.D. Driver said...

I thought this was certain to fail until I watched this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tz_iFOCzSU

It's a mistake to underestimate these guys. Trust me. Hillary's cavalry maybe have arrived afterall.

Amadeus 48 said...

By the way, the Intelligencer's crack reporter apparently has a little trouble with reading comprehension, so I wouldn't trust his reporting on math.

He says that six faithless electors have already agreed to vote for someone other than Trump as a protest. He ignores the fact that the six are Democratic electors, and they were never going to vote for Trump. If they vote for some other person than the person that won their state, it will be a vote against Hillary. In other words, it is time for a totally futile and pointless gesture, and they are just the ones to do it. In fact, it is so pointless that they have confused poor Gabe Sherman.

Beclownment as far as the eye can see.

AllenS said...

From the article:

Clinton received 7 percent fewer votes in counties that relied on electronic-voting machines compared with counties that used optical scanners and paper ballots.

I live in a rural WI area, and we have both electronic-voting machines, and paper ballots. You get to choose which one you want to use. Very few people seem to want to use the electronic ones.

Hagar said...

The gentry left has firm convictions that they are representing the wishes of certain voting blocs and just cannot believe that some of these blocs seem to have bolted and actually have voted against them in this election. It just can't be true!

campy said...

This story is just battlespace prep for January, when the deplorables find out Crooked Hillary flipped 150 or so Trump electors.

Brando said...

"This story is just battlespace prep for January, when the deplorables find out Crooked Hillary flipped 150 or so Trump electors."

I've been hearing about the "electors" plan but can't picture it actually coming off. Sounds a lot like the "just get the delegates to dump him at the convention" plan. Those electors are pretty tightly bound, in most cases by state law.

Karen of Texas said...

What AllenS say re: machine verses paper ballot - I have vague memories of Team Trump prepping for vote fraud and one of the 'nip it' scenarios was use a paper ballot so there is a record of your vote. Could this possibly account for the greater percentage of nonHillary votes in such areas?

Fabi said...

Does this mean the three or four million votes illegally cast by illegal aliens will be thrown out? Trump in a popular vote landslide!

campy said...

Sounds a lot like the "just get the delegates to dump him at the convention" plan.

If there had been a utterly ruthless and amoral criminal organization devoting all its resources to that plan, who know what might have happened.

Fabi said...

Rick wins the thread with "election deniers". Stealing that one!

F said...

Hillary's "win" of the popular vote is well within the margin of fraud. This is a bogus issue.

Brando said...

"If there had been a utterly ruthless and amoral criminal organization devoting all its resources to that plan, who know what might have happened."

If this "electors" plan works, I'll owe you a Coke. I figure if they could pull off an elector plan (which would be a much more obvious coup) it would have made more sense for them to hack into electronic voting machines, or print up extra paper ballots in Miami and Philadelphia and Detroit to secure it in a way that would be much harder to prove.

Hagar said...

Some people voted otherwise than these "experts" thought they should have voted and this is taken as in itself evidence of election fraud?

WisRich said...

"campy said...
This story is just battlespace prep for January, when the deplorables find out Crooked Hillary flipped 150 or so Trump electors.

11/23/16, 7:24 AM"

Indeed.

MayBee said...

Hahahahahaha!

This election has demonstrated that politics = hypocrisy.
Let's all keep that in mind from now on. None of these people believe what they are saying, none of them have any real convictions.

MaxedOutMama said...

I don't think the country will react favorably if they do challenge. The odds of success are strikingly poor, given Trump's wide margin in electoral votes.

It would be a public relations disaster.

This is amusing due to the pre-election furor over Trump's "rigged" comments.

And I would think that if such a challenge were filed, it would open the door for those who want to take a second look at illegal voters.

mikee said...

Recounts tend to lead to immediate prosecutions. Hillary should take her hundreds of millions and wander off into the desert of ignominy, lest she lose a large chunk of that money defending herself in courts against her indefensible actions.

boycat said...

Hillary does this DJT will rethink how bored he is with all that investigating and prosecuting going on.

Michael K said...

Hillary's "win" of the popular vote is well within the margin of fraud. This is a bogus issue.

Especially in California where illegals are all registered to vote if they have drivers' licenses. My wife had to renew her license last January (her birth month) and could not get an appointment at the DMV until April because they were swamped with illegals. For four months she did not have legal ID because the Democrats were getting all the illegals registered to vote.

And I would think that if such a challenge were filed, it would open the door for those who want to take a second look at illegal voters.

True but Trump will have the AG do this anyway later.

MaxedOutMama said...

The only "evidence" I see here is of hypocrisy - I think MayBee has summed it up.

They have no evidence at all, really. But I don't know, maybe they are inspired by Austria's example? There there were very significant violations of voting laws, although no evidence that they did change the election. But the upshot is that the Austrians are about to rerun their election. That's what they really want - a rerun.

The likely reason for the difference in vote totals between electronic and scanned votes would be local demographics which affected the speed of change to electronic voting machines.

I personally strongly prefer the paper ballot/optical scanner system, because with that you get rapid results but you can perform a valid recount. But we go to the polls with the election equipment we have, not the election equipment we want.

LuAnn Zieman said...

I'm a poll worker in a rural Wisconsin township. We use the Edge voting touchscreen machine. The process involves touching the screen to choose each candidate. At the end of the initial choosing, the screen shows each candidate that has been chosen. The voter then touches the "print" square. The machine prints the choices in an enclosed and locked area that the voter can see. If something is not as it should be, the voter can then go back to the screen to change his choice. Not until everything shows exactly the way the voter intended to vote does he/she cast a ballot, which is printed and stored in the machine. The idea that there could be hacking on these machines is ridiculous. The only paper ballots we received were early votes and absentee ballots.

LuAnn Zieman said...

Also, the Wisconsin Elections Commission only allows for the use of two kinds of ballots : paper and optical-scan. According to Ballotpedia , the "Electronic" machines Wisconsin uses are "Direct-Record" machines. These machines tally and record the result as ballots are put in, but there's a paper ballot somewhere in storage (likely in the municipal clerks office) which could be used to double-check the results.

MadisonMan said...

Click bait that I won't touch.

Big Mike's quote is apt. I also like that the hacking put Trump in but didn't give him the Popular Vote. That's some precision hacking!

Darrell said...

Hillary Clinton will never be President of the United States.

tim in vermont said...

I think that the Democrats are going to give this issue a good leaving alone. The Kool-Aide drinkers may think that the Democrats are pure as the driven snow on this point, but I don't think any Democrat wants, for example, the voting as it happens in PA to be examined any too closely, to give an example at random.

MayBee said...

This is what Haldeman- the guy who seems to have admiration in the business- has to say about his part in this:

https://medium.com/@jhalderm/want-to-know-if-the-election-was-hacked-look-at-the-ballots-c61a6113b0ba#.grqa5rb82

tim in vermont said...

Nobody wants investigations into how the sausage of vote counts is made in some of these states less than Obama, I would think.

Hagar said...

Maybee beat me to it, but this article (Washington Post!)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/23/attention-democrats-theres-still-no-good-evidence-the-election-was-rigged/
seems to say that the "experts'" article simply does not say what the New York Magazine article says it says.

madAsHell said...

Wow!! This comes a day after Trump backs down from authorizing a special investigator into Clinton's email.

I guess any thought of the Clinton's sauntering off into history should be dismissed.

gerry said...

@Michael K, I just read that article to which you linked, and how Jared managed the Trump campaign's successes in Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin was fascinating. And, as a bonus, the social media targeting and focused traditional advertising saved millions of dollars! It is indeed a revolution in political campaigning.

MacMacConnell said...

Does Trump really have anything to say concerning the prosecution of the Clintons? Does anybody really think AG Sessions won't be independent? There are still investigations going on.

M Jordan said...

Minnesota only gave Hillary a 1.5 margin over Trump. Minnesota is historically 4 points more Democrat than Wisconsin.

Case closed. Trump won the Rust Belt.

khesanh0802 said...
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Gretchen said...

Considering that Trump supporters are beaten by Clinton thugs, maybe everyone wasn't 100% truthful upon leaving the voting booth.

That said, I can assure you the Democrats do not want to look closely at election fraud, if they do it will be Al Gore style selective canvassing, which is unfair. The story says that areas with computer voting were 7% lower for Hillary than those without. There are many precincts that are 20 points in one direction or the other, so that is BS, and could be proof that Republican areas are more likely to have modern voting machines, or that the areas controlled by Dems had 7% more cheating for Hillary.

khesanh0802 said...

Thank you MayBee. Here are two essential quotes from the Halderman piece: "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."; "I know I may sound like a Luddite for saying so, but most election security experts are with me on this: paper ballots are the best available technology for casting votes."

Halderman's point was: it can be done and we'd only know if requests for recounts are made before deadline. Another great example of slanted reporting.

alan markus said...

So, does all of this mean there is a chance that Hillary Clinton will be inaugurated as the next President?

Sammy Finkelman said...

Wel, it may be a good thing that the outcome doesn't hinge onn one state, but she'd have to win recounts in 3 states to win the election. They decided it was lost at about 2;54 am Wednesday, November 9, 2016, when one additional state besides Wisconsin would have to be revesred - taht probably was Pennsylvania. But this shows you what was prepared or what people were ready to do.

Sammy Finkelman said...

In North Carolina, the Republican Governor narrowly lost a bid for re-elecrtion, and he tried finding trouble. (Trump and the senator won somewhat by well over recount proof margins)

Normaly it might be the SDemocrats who have claims - discouraged voters and the like.

Sammy Finkelman said...

Zieman said...11/23/16, 8:43 AM

Also, the Wisconsin Elections Commission only allows for the use of two kinds of ballots : paper and optical-scan.

Optical scan is paper.

Sammy Finkelman said...

The claim that something s wrong is based on nothing more than a statistical argument that some outcome is unlikely, but you can come up with bad statistical arguments all the time. It's not a true statistical argument, which you can make. That's how teachers' changing tests scores were detected in Atlanta, for instance.

It might be a good idea, as matter of principle, to do a spot check to make sure the ballot totals were recorded accurately. But this is probably happening anyway because of local races, or no one could be sure in advance it would not happen.

If somebody changed votes, they'd also have to know just how much to change it, or else it either would not be enough to change the result or it would be unnecessary for the side being favored to win. The more they do, the more it might be detected, and few would want the risk if unnecessary when it carries the risk of jail for some people, and the collapse of much more.

Paul Snively said...

Here's the thing.

I'm an honest-to-God computer scientist (in fact, most of my colleagues would refer to me as a "theoretical computer scientist," which just makes me wonder "as opposed to what?") My community is small, so by definition, I'm a bit of a big fish in a small pond. A lot of people in my field know who I am—a lot more than I know of them.

Computer security is a tiny community within this community. The top people in this field all have names and are all well-known in the field. The ones who are serious about their work write about it. Incessantly. If they find "persuasive evidence" of a system's insecurity, they document it assiduously. Please see What voting machines can be hacked through the Internet? for responsible reporting on the subject, follow "Freedom to Tinker" generally, and in particular read everything Andrew Appel, a highly-regarded computer scientist, writes there.

If there's one domain in which there is zero room for handwaving, it's computer science.

alan markus said...

@ Sammy F. Zieman said...11/23/16, 8:43 AM

Also, the Wisconsin Elections Commission only allows for the use of two kinds of ballots : paper and optical-scan.

Optical scan is paper.



Wisconsin Elections Commission lists two ballot forms - EL-203 Election Paper Ballot & EL-203Fms - General Election Optical Scan Ballot.

Sammy Finkelman said...

in just a few seconds, anyone can install vote-stealing malware on those machines that silently alters the electronic records of every vote.

But you'd have to first write the software, or obtain it and modify it for that election, and do it one machine at a time. They are not cnnected to the Internet. You would need to plug in a special USB drive. That might attract some attention. Too many people would have to be involved to do this in enough places to matter if this was not for a very local election. And there might be sme mistakes in the customizing. And switching any more than 5% or 10% of the vote would be kind of noticeable.

Sammy Finkelman said...

Wisconsin Elections Commission lists two ballot forms - EL-203 Election Paper Ballot & EL-203Fms - General Election Optical Scan Ballot.

Probably in one case you make check marks, ad in the other you fill out a circle. (and for write-ins, fill out a circle that says write-in and then write out a name)

Sammy Finkelman said...

And then, what happens if after the election, someone checks the software that you've uploaded to many of the machinesa at the warehouse before the election? Is it going to erase itself? They do test out the machines.

wildswan said...


In Wisconsin you can fill out a paper ballot and it goes through an optical scanner and the ballot is stored "paper ballot" or you fill in a touch screen and it prints out a paper ballot which it stores automatically (electronic ballot). So until there is a recount the paper ballots would have the electors' and poll workers' fingerprints only while the electronic ballots would have no fingerprints. The recount should find out whose fingerprints are on the ballots first before any recount. This simple trick will end calls for recounts.

wildswan said...

BN

In Western tradition.

A memory is recall of an actual happening. A fantasy is a wish that something would happen or did happen.

A soul is the form of a living body. A ghost is the soul of a dead body in mainstream Western tradition which is revisiting the living and manifesting itself. But in some other traditions in the West a ghost could be the soul of a living body which is separated from that body without death and is moving about and manifesting itself.

In a way you have to ask what tradition or culture gave you the question you are asking and what tradition gave you the words you are asking about.

Captain Drano said...

@Paul Snively
I'm just curious if this potential scenario is feasible--If the electronic machines store a hard copy of the vote in a lockbox, what's to say anyone has to mess with the machine itself?

If the recount/audit entails tallying the lockbox copies with the computer tallies, and if the lockbox hard copies are deemed to be the thing that constitutes the true count (let's say because it was agreed upon that the machines were open to tampering) and given the amount of time that has elapsed since the election, hasn't there been plenty of time to print and "stuff" the lockbox with fraudulent hard copies? It would be so easy to see how many people didn't vote, take an unsuspicious percentage of those, print up some hard copies, bribe someone into stuffing them into the (I am assuming now unlocked) hard copies, and voila--new tallies after an audit.

Andy said...

So let's say that the Clinton campaign tried to steel the election in say Wisconsin and they failed because they underestimated the degree to which they had to cheat to win. So for the sake of argument Wisconsin didn't use machines that provided a paper trail. So in an effort to cover their tracks and not take to many risks they, only hack a small percentage of machines. So the voters who use one of the hacked machines are 100% Clinton voters so the bad software never actually switches any votes. The problem is that there is no way after the fact to show that the machine didn't switch any votes. Also a decent hacker has probably swapped back the legit software into the machine.

Sammy Finkelman said...

Another problem with trying this is, that if you tested out any machine, by running ballots through them, it would then give a wrong count.

Another possibility is only to fill in undervotes. The results are unpredictable, but let's say someone tried this: Tamper with the counting so that the machine records no undervotes. But that would be kind of suspicious. And then later, in this scenario, they'd have to fish out just the right ballots, or right number of them - let's say they only added votes for one quarter or one half of the undervotes - and then they'd have to mark the ballots, after searching through the ballots to find them. It's time consuming and a lot of people would have to be involved.. They'd probably skip steps and rely on nobody checking.

In any cases you are talking about doing more than just tampering with software.

It would be so easy to see how many people didn't vote, take an unsuspicious percentage of those, print up some hard copies, bribe someone into stuffing them into the (I am assuming now unlocked) hard copies, and voila--new tallies after an audit.

Here you are proposing they are creating new votes. There's a sign-in process at the polling place.

The place where you have fraud is with absentee ballots - people filling them out for other people. Sometimes ollecting them and mailing them themselves. But thise are actual votes (maybe wrongly cast) but not switched votes.

The thng is to have a lot of checks and balances in the system. Banks do a pretty good job of making sure tellers don't steal cash - you ahve to design a system where this kind of thing requres a lot of things to happen. The danger is a faulty system culd be used - but merely having machines tabulate paper ballots isn't faulty enough. They are not connected to the Internet, you'd have to plug in a malicious USB drive in each and every counting machine or scanner - and they are not even all booted at the same except on Election Day and then they are all in different places. And you'd have to have nobody ever examine the software.

Scott said...

Brando said...

"This story is just battlespace prep for January, when the deplorables find out Crooked Hillary flipped 150 or so Trump electors."

I've been hearing about the "electors" plan but can't picture it actually coming off. Sounds a lot like the "just get the delegates to dump him at the convention" plan. Those electors are pretty tightly bound, in most cases by state law.
11/23/16, 7:37 AM


I really hope the electors plan doesn't come off. If there's one thing that could really ignite something nasty, having the Electoral College pick someone other than Trump after rioting in the streets and reports of Trump electors getting death threats. At that point, you are staring a second Civil War in the face. 'Stolen Election' wouldn't begin to describe it then.

wildswan said...

"So for the sake of argument Wisconsin didn't use machines that provided a paper trail."

But in Wisconsin even touch screen machines DO have a paper trail. It's just created after the vote, not before. And it should be fingerprint free. If we recount (someday after some other election) we need to get a "CSI" team (is that the show I mean? - heavy on technology?) on the items before the recount. Otherwise we can't prosecute for felony voter fraud but still have to do an expensive recount. If we recount, someone goes to jail. Voter fraud in the cities? Lock them up.

Yesterday I thought the people saying the Clinton-snivel-pix were part of a plan were paranoid. Today I think trial balloons are being floated.

Sammy Finkelman said...

Andrew Pardue said...11/23/16, 12:10 PM

Also a decent hacker has probably swapped back the legit software into the machine.

They can only be swapped back one scanner or counter at a time. It won't do to change the grand tootal - results are given for every precinct. The arithmetic has to check out.

In New York besides printing out a result the votes are recorded on a USB stick. So OK, maybe the interanal computer results are corrupted. But someone would have to get oo them papaer ballots and carefully change them or prepare substitutes if this is to be undetectable.

The paper ballots in the lockbox are guarded. The machnes are guarded. How is all this going to happen?

It's not that something couldn't be tried, but we would know it. Even if it wasn't officially investigated, we would know it.

Sammy Finkelman said...

What the oressure on the electors shows, if the result is within 5 Electoral votes it could be pretty ncertain.

But in the year 2000, it was 271 BBush and 267 Gore, and the only faithless elector was one Gore elector from Washington DC who left his presidential choice blank.

wildswan said...

Novels of the future based on this election.
Maybe the Clintons prepared a computer hack to switch 7% of the votes and discussed the secret plan, known as the "The Blue Firewall" on their private server and the Russians read the plan, hacked the hack and made a plus a minus. Imagine the outrage at the DNC. Those dirty Russians - interfering in a clean all-American election theft. How dare they?

Brando said...

"I really hope the electors plan doesn't come off. If there's one thing that could really ignite something nasty, having the Electoral College pick someone other than Trump after rioting in the streets and reports of Trump electors getting death threats. At that point, you are staring a second Civil War in the face. 'Stolen Election' wouldn't begin to describe it then."

I think it's just a lot of "we can't believe this is happening!" saber rattling, much like the "delegates will dump him at the convention" idea. Partly because it's not like those favoring this idea can even agree on another candidate (Republican leaners won't want to install Clinton). But also, the electoral college has evolved into a rubber stamp for how the voters voted, and the college members are political functionaries who aren't about to screw over their states' voters. Maybe a few will on principle, but no one will be the deciding vote that will send things into the House. It'd be too much like a coup.

Rusty said...

Here you are proposing they are creating new votes. There's a sign-in process at the polling place.

And you don't think those could be altered after the fact. I assure you the precinct captains have the system gamed seven ways to Sunday.

richardsson said...

I think Hillary and Trump have made a deal. Hillary won't contest the election and Trump won't send her to jail. By the way, does anyone other than Hillary or the official Hillary for President campaign have Standing to Sue in court over the election results?

Bad Lieutenant said...

Oh, that sounds good, richardsson, then hopefully he will f*** her. After Dec 19 she's shooting blanks. I would settle for an Obama pardon. Gets the point across.