Breaking News! Breaking News! Everybody Scamper Around In All Directions Shouting, “The Russians Are Coming!”
No, wait. Wait. Stop. Wait.
They’ve already been here and have set up housekeeping somewhere in Ohio.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has released its long-awaited bipartisan report on election security and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
It’s 67 pages long and is heavily redacted. Click here to see it.
For your viewing pleasure, here is one of my personal favorite redactions.
What is ? Some kind of code? “See, we didn’t redact the entire paragraph.” No, you didn’t. You left a peep hole for crazy people.
I haven’t read but about 15 pages so far and it gave me a headache. But best I can figure, when they say they saw no evidence that any votes were changed or that any machines were manipulated, they are pretty much just guessing.
I’m probably gonna read the rest of it.
The Russians interfered?? Were any votes changed ? Were any votes prevented from registering? Then how did they interfere??? Spent money on media to convince idiots that the rePUKEians are nice people? Big deal!
1In mid-July 2016, Illinois discovered anomalous network activity, specifically a large increase in outbound data, on a Illinois Board of Elections’ voter registry website.'” Working with Illinois, the FBI commenced an investigation.’ the voter registration database. The attack resulted in data exfiitration from the voter registration databases.
exfiltrate |eksˈfiltrāt|
verb [ with obj. ]
withdraw (troops or spies) surreptitiously, esp. from a dangerous position.
Thats just the RNC on their Annual Skunkworks Retreat.
2You don’t have to change votes if you can change minds first. This report says nothing about the propaganda onslaught of 2016.
3Then how did they interfere?
Narrowly-targeted social media campaigns to convince marginal Democratic voters in specific precincts of specific states that Sec. Clinton was unacceptable via various false claims.
It is known.
Clinton lost by 70,000 votes total in those critical precincts in three critical states.
Spent money on media … BIG DEAL
You are possibly not aware that this is illegal?
4The governments, agents, and proxies of other nations may not do anything, including spending money, to affect US elections.
Did everybody see that documentary that showed how easy it was to undetectably change the software in the voting machines? Sure it was 12 years ago, but how many jurisdictions are still using machines that old? A lot I’d bet. We need to demand voting machines that generate a paper copy of each ballot, so we can recount if necessary. Without it, “recounts” are just asking the crooked machines to repeat the crooked totals they already gave you. There’s nothing to rexount.
5Propaganda would be far less successful if Americans had better (or any) critical thinking skills.
6Critical thinking skills…you mean like the ones that will go away with the 41% budget cut to the University of Alaska? Those thinking skills?
7Brad in Dallas:
8I’m a dinosaur with regards to computers, software, etc. But it seems like if some programming can be hacked, any could be. Just a matter of skill, time, and resources. Which makes me think that electronic machines could be hacked to cast a vote one way, while spitting out a paper copy with the other candidate. Which would be infinitely worse, because it would validate the monstrous lie.
Hey, JJ, look, a troll! I always knew this was a really important blog.
@ L.Long
9You can make much more effective comments if you actually read the article first.
About the only thing that would convince Republicans to tighten up security would be Iranian hackers. The Republicans apparently feel that easily-hacked voting systems gives them several advantages:
* so far, the hackers have helped Republicans
* it makes Republican “voter fraud” cries more credible
Pity the Republicans are so lacking in honor.
10RepubAnon @10 — the only thing that would make Goopers take hacking seriously is if the hackers (regardless of country of origin) were supporting the Dems. Then the security couldn’t be high enough and we would throw billions at it to secure the systems and it all has to happen yesterday at the latest.
But, as long as Goopers have power in the Senate and Goopers are getting elected due to Russian interference their response will be “meh…”
11Maybe, baby, but one can’t help wondering just how much intelligence there is in the Senate Intelligence Committee!
12What’s interesting is what was redacted and why. We don’t know any more now–at least I don’t–than before we read the report.
When you issue such a heavily redacted document, where the main data points are concealed behind black stripes, you fail in your purpose: to enlighten your constituents. We knew or had heard about these attempts for months now. Nothing in that report suggests anything was actually done, changed, weaponized.
Maybe the redacted bits would have helped understand what was actually happening here, without requiring I put on a tin foil cap and think like a Gomert. I hope so.
13People conducting the paper count need to be supervised though. I still remember a fairly recent election when a ton of uncounted paper ballots were locked in a closet. Of course they must be marked by hand.
14Sorry to disappoint but no troll. I did read report and still did not find any place where they show votes were actually changed from Dem to Rep! So all that was done was a media campaign to convince non-critical thinkers to be what they are. Yes it may be illegal, to have done to us what we do to other counties, but that still not as dishonest as the electoral college.
15Linda Phipps says:(12) Accounting procedures would help. Check out the ballots when they are sent to the precincts, get signitures all around, then check them back in with a time of on both ends, shipping and recieving. Signitures all around at every step. A thousand ballots go out, there better be a thousand coming back, used or not. Spoiled come back to be verified. All that, and if a box goes missing, counting to be suspended until it is located and put in its proper place in the process. No exceptions.
16L.Long, I suspect what happened was a series of probes, much like when fighters or bombers encroach on another country’s airspace; they are trying to gage how to evade radar, what might work to suppress detection, etc.
They evidently found 2 states so weak that they could indeed get into their voter data, and maybe some other states as well that were unaware of a breach. The actual damage may be underwhelming, but the possibility of future attacks is troubling.
17Some states have instituted vote by mail. If you can, call your county registrar, enroll in vote by mail and encourage other Democrats to enroll. You can skip polling place drama and create a paper trail for your vote in one step.
18Not at all surprised. The Russians play a helluva long game. Now all we have to do is defeat the Golden Gibbon so he can go to jail the minute he walks out of the White House as a private citizen and do something about McTraitor in the Senator. I don’t know when he is up again for re-election, but maybe he could retire to due to either health or family?
19Does anyone that is knowledgeable about the Law know if any of the charges brought against Bubba Clinton were unrelated to information provided by Linda Tripp? In other words, w/o Tripp’s gift of her illegal wiretap, did Starr have findings of guilt due to all other aspects of the investigation?
I’d like to say that whole investigation was a waste of time and money if Tripp had not given Starr any information. Is that true?
20What is it about securing our voting mechanisms and providing an unalterable paper trail that bothers the people that scream all the time about voter fraud? Must be the people that own the companies which make paperless electronic voting machines that give them money…
21“Emergency! Everyone to get from street!”
22The classic line from “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming”
The Russians didn’t deliver machines to predominantly black precincts without power cords, or cut back on early voting, or strip thousands of voters from the rolls, or ignore absentee ballots. Brian Kemp his own self did that last year in the great state of Georgia, and was in charge of counting the votes, too. That’s why he’s “governor.” Who needs Russians when we can rig our own elections?
Florida recount 2000 — not a Russian in sight.
23@L.Long: There’s a few problems with your analysis:
1)True, they didn’t find any instances of vote changing – but according to Wyden’s addendum, they also didn’t do any forensic analyses needed to spot such problems.
2) They did develop skills needed to falsify voter rolls. Why switch people’s votes if you can simply stop them from voting at all? Sure, some will file provisional ballots, but many won’t.
3) They did not look at domestic vote rigging.
24Paper ballots read by a scanner with a random precinct (say 10%) hand check of ballots to check against reported totals.
25If problems appear then a total recount and a forensic analysis of what went wrong.
Ensure that the random selection for mandatory check is not “gamed”
One of problem we have is the ability of voting “boards” to disallow votes.
A thuglican tactic that the establishment d’s have adopted in their primaries. Look at Queen’s D.A. contest where panel disqualifying votes were all hacks in the tank for their “law and order” candinate to protect the existing power players from AOC building a machine in that would hold them accountable.
remember exit poles in FLA in 2000? the supremes got W
26elected with the help of rigged machines when the probability was almost zero…
@Frank #26
27Thank you for bringing up Florida.
Another scandal that was only touched upon because of scotus anointing the twit was that the Florida legislature called a special sesion and passed a law stating that Florida’s eletoral votes would go to the twit no matter what the recount showed.
Think of a wingnut state (i.e. texas, n.c, florida, arizona) with a very close election returns having the legislature decide rather then award electoral votes to the one who had the most votes decides rather to just award them to demented donnie?
With partisan hacks occupying so many judicial seats and the scotus having an entirely thuglican owned majority what’s to stop them?
For many years now it’s been known how to have an election, and provide the individual voter with a receipt that allows her to verify that the vote was cast the way she intended, and that it was added to the precint’s totals. And this is mathematically provable. For an example and some explanation, see https://vote.heliosvoting.org/ and instead of the “about” page, try
https://vote.heliosvoting.org/faq
Helios allows you to set up your own elections for things like where to have the next family gathering or who to hire among a set of candidates. Helios is for on-line voting which the creators recommend against for federal elections (“we just don’t trust that people’s home computers are secure enough to withstand significant attacks”). But they link to similar paper ballot based systems that allow you to mathematically verify your own vote after it has been cast and counted.
But as long as private companies can make and sell voting machines to corrupt politicos, and as K implicitly points out, as long as we have entrenched politicians dedicated to thwarting democracy, none of this will help. The tools and capabilities exist, but implementing them requires good faith bargaining, which no longer exists in the U.S.
Wait. Do I sound cynical, embittered, and nasty-tempered, nay, downright surly? Well, this site and the regulars who post here are the only thing that keeps me from turning into the Marquis de Grouchy. As long as JJ and her merrry gang are willing to saddle up and ride out to battle the GOP troglodytes, I have not completely given up hope.
28maggie says @ #19 – Moscow Mitch is up for re-election in 2020. Amy McGrath is running as his Democratic opponent. She already has name recognition as she narrowly lost a bid for a Congressional seat in 2018. She’s also a former fighter pilot who was in the Marines for 20 years.
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