How Close Did Russia Really Come to Hacking the 2016 Election

[saidsimplesimon]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/how-close-did-russia-really-come-to-hacking-the-2016-election/ar-BBYlGMP

How Close Did Russia Really Come to Hacking the 2016 Election

By Kim Zetter
12/26/19

On November 6, 2016, the Sunday before the presidential election that sent Donald Trump to the White House, a worker in the elections office in Durham County, North Carolina, encountered a problem.
There appeared to be an issue with a crucial bit of software that handled the county’s list of eligible voters. To prepare for Election Day, staff members needed to load the voter data from a county computer onto 227 USB flash drives, which would then be inserted into laptops that precinct workers would use to check in voters. The laptops would serve as electronic poll books, cross-checking each voter as he or she arrived at the polls.

The problem was, it was taking eight to 10 times longer than normal for the software to copy the data to the flash drives, an unusually long time that was jeopardizing efforts to get ready for the election. When the problem persisted into Monday, just one day before the election, the county worker contacted VR Systems, the Florida company that made the software used on the county’s computer and on the poll book laptops. Apparently unable to resolve the issue by phone or email, one of the company’s employees accessed the county’s computer remotely to troubleshoot. It’s not clear whether the glitch got resolved—Durham County would not answer questions from POLITICO about the issue—but the laptops were ready to use when voting started Tuesday morning.
…snip

[2naSalit]

1. They didn't get close...

They got IN!

[saidsimplesimon]

2. He is an illegitimate resident in our WH.

[uponit7771]

4. We are with Carter 👍

[Joe941]

15. This. These stories gopper propaganda designed to legitimize trump's presidency.

Honestly they should be removed from DU.

[uponit7771]

3. They did hack the election and changed news coverage. It wasn't"close"it was complete

[Blue_playwright]

5. When you look at his "victory" margins...

In Swing States, he won by very narrow margins. A few votes here and there. I didn’t save the link, but I remember reading an article about that margin being statistically identical in many precincts. Anyone remember that? It was a blip. But all those squeaked out wins were by less than 1%?

[uponit7771]

6. Yes, the fact that he won each of the five states by 1% ish

... was a statistical anomaly in it self

They didn't have to shave votes they could've simply added them... They had voter rolls

[lark]

8. I think they deleted votes.

The votes coming from Broward and Hiahleah (largest Dem districts) were very slow arriving and were way lower than anticipated. This county also showed Russian intrusion down to the voter data level. They deleted Dem votes, they could have added Repug votes in other counties, some vote totals were suspiciously high, but I feel certain they deleted Dem votes based on the results.

[uponit7771]

10. +1, I tend to believe bank robbers take money after they break into a bank also

[lark]

11. Perfect analogy - thanks!

I will be using that - so simple and rational

[Qutzupalotl]

16. I think they altered registrations to make certain votes not count.

Election security officials have been saying they got into the voter rolls, but didn’t change any votes. But they don’t have to change vote totals to affect an election; just change the addresses for several thousand Democrats. Same result, but much easier to accomplish.

[lark]

17. Repugs at the lstate level did everything in their power to suppress Dem voters.

In FL. voter signature mismatches were way way up compared to the norm, because of course they were. People's signatures change radically as they age so this affects the elderly a lot and they are the ones who vote most by mail so are the most targeted with these outrageous reviews instituted at this level by Voldemort. This happened in lots of other states as well in addition to voter purges that always seem to target Democratic demographics at such a higher percentage. Repugs cheat because they don't win on facts or policy or intelligence or caring.

[MrsCoffee]

7. +1

[KentuckyWoman]

9. This is exactly why he needs to be removed from office.

He WASN'T elected. He and his campaign coordinated with a foreign government to subvert our elections and succeeded. We knew it even before he was sworn in. We tried to get enough evidence to prove to America this was the case, but no one wanted to listen. Fast forward 2 years and we've got him dead to rights working to subvert the next election too.

He was never elected, won't be elected, and should not be in office. Period. Let the Republicans pick a different horse. Let the Republicans run a clean election. Then we see what America chooses.

[uponit7771]

14. +1, & Russia is going to do everything they can to help red Don again. Was reading wiki yesterday

... looks like Obama Dalton's out there squeeze in the Putin economy and they're going to want some relief

[yardwork]

12. This is the #1 problem facing us right now.

[Igel]

13. People like having a nice, easy foe.

But look at the second paragraph.

1. Things ran as expected.

2. If they hadn't, it would have meant not being able to use the laptops. Makes you wonder what they did back in prehistoric times before laptops. Oh, wait. We had printed roll books. Lots of paper, but it's not an all-day job to print and distribute. It would have been logistically more difficult--like it was 15 years ago.

3. Let's say they had corrupted the voter data and printouts were also corrupted. Very quickly that would have been noticed, when all kinds of people went to vote and weren't shown as registered. For that there are provisional ballots. When those pile up, the BOE says, "Ah, something's up." Then they investigate. At worst, it takes a few days and the BOEs have to sort through all the paper ballots.

Gee, the pain and agony. Russian hacking could have forced default use of paper ballots. But being slightly less snarky, the hitch would have been getting enough provisional ballot forms distributed, and that would have led to some people not voting. (But, you know, I've seen people look at their watch and get out of line when either there was a sudden rush or when there was some glitch in hardware or software or humanware; some people just don't know how to vote, take too long, and sometimes walk away without casting a valid ballot.)

For making a lot more provisional ballots we have photopiers and laser printers. Of course, there should be backups and clean electronic copies would probably have been distributed by afternoon.

People don't distinguish between voter rolls and the actual vote. To do so would reduce the level of concern and worry and therefore outrage, and that's a bad thing.

[gab13by13]

18. There is no way in hell,

that Mueller or anyone else can say if machines were hacked into. When we start pulling machines and independently auditing them then I will believe. The companies that make the machine don't allow for independent audits because they claim proprietary rights, you know, 2+2=4 has to be kept a secret.

[babylonsister]

19. Would you believe voting systems?

Databases? The end result is the same.

Russians hacked 2 Florida voting systems; FBI and DeSantis refuse to release details
https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2019/05/14/russians-hacked-2-florida-voting-systems-fbi-and-desantis-refuse-to-release-details-1015772

Voter databases in 2 Florida counties hacked in 2016, governor says
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/voter-databases-florida-counties-hacked-2016-governor/story?id=63052842