How to prevent hacking from ever happening again..simple, easy to do, but takes more time...

[Stuart G]

Is it worth extra time? ..Perhaps an hour or an hour and a half per individual voting area..

So........Let's get to it......require paper ballots for all presidential elections, and Hand Counted by members of both parties in that voting area........

So...4 or 5 election judges 2 from one party, and 3 from another...or two and two...count the votes in a voting area..They find a way to report them in to a final safe place...where there are more judges to count the final tally..Could it work? Yes, if there were cooperation of both parties and a common goal in mind:.. Fair and honest count.....

Yes, more time..first to count the presidential votes up, then to report them in..But not much more..Say there are 650 votes in a prescient or voting area. People actually count up the paper ballots in simple piles to 650...
So. there are 325 votes per pile. And the judges watch each other count, then the judges count the other pile to verify the totals. ..So the piles of votes are counted twice by two teams of judges to watch to see there is no cheating...So the Democratic Candidate ....Jefferson ...gets 325 votes.
....................the Republican Candidate...Lincoln......gets 325. votes.

Really, How long does it take to count 2 piles of votes with 325 per pile?....maybe 20 minutes?..less?

........................the paper ballots are kept safe...and.......then.... reports on the Presidential count are sent to a central HQ...

No computer hacking, just the old style of counting....just for the presidential election, and 4 people verify the totals..not some computer in some place..and the paper ballots are kept as .......PROOF ...AND.... the numbers are correct if all the counters are ..............HONEST........also, they counters are watching each other to see if they are counting correctly....

DO WE HAVE ENOUGH HONEST PEOPLE IN THE USA TO DO THIS?.......the discussion on this is up to you......

[riverbendviewgal]

1. I vote on a paper ballot

In Canada. I have also been an observer, clerk, counted the votes various times. I distrust machines.

[Stuart G]

2. Guess what..I distrust machines too, ..and the computers are worse....nt

[madokie]

5. Here in Oklahoma

we use paper ballots counted by electronic machines.

We used to be a democratic state, but since we've gone to this system we only elect 'CONs, for the most part that is.

I remember when most times our elections were decided at the primary because there'd be no republiCONs running.

[Lee-Lee]

3. Except nobody has shown any place where this hacking was the actual vote tally

All the allegations and proven hacks were of emails and internal servers that ended up with private information and communications of party officials leaked to the world.

A paper ballot doesn't help one bit when the strategy and tactic is to selectively target one side to leak their internal communications and any embarrassing or damaging confidential information.

Having people smart enough to click on phishing emails would be a huge help, however.

[TheFrenchRazor]

17. it's hard to prove hacking when you can never get an actual hand/eye recount, isn't it? nt

[mythology]

25. Do you have any idea of how big that conspiracy would have to be?

The League of Women Voters in Wisconsin agreed after the recount that there was no fraud. The counties in Wisconsin that were recounted by hand had a .44% change rate. The counties recounted by machines had a .3% change rate. The majority of that can be explained by somebody voting for the same candidate via the bubble and then also writing the candidate in. Of the about 11,000 "errors" over 6,400 of them were related to write in candidates.

Also both the chair and the vice chair of the Wisconsin election commission were appointed by the Assembly and Senate minority leaders, ie Democrats. No doubt they were in on the conspiracy as well, the fiends.

There is your evidence that there's no magic counting. Either explain why it didn't happen in Wisconsin, but magically happened elsewhere, or please stop with the unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.

[TheFrenchRazor]

28. machine "recounts" are not really recounts at all, and .44% in a few counties could very well indica

indicate the possibility of of a few % in other counties, which would be enough to swing some of these states. btw, these democrats you speak of are probably about as informed about methods of computer hacking as you are. another thing, this ain't Putin's first rodeo, ok? russian intelligence has quite a bit of experience in this area.

[Lee-Lee]

36. In NC they actually do hand to eye recounts of random precincts as an audit

After each election precincts in every county and selected and they do an audit using the paper ballot. It's been that way for years, and no evidence of discrepancies has turned up yet.

The selection of the precincts is done after the election in a random fashion, in a public setting, so what ones will be audited is not known before the election.

There is no indication at all that expanding the audit into a full recount would have any other outcome.

[madokie]

4. If we want to maintain an semblance of a democracy

WE HAVE TO GO TO PAPER BALLOTS, HAND COUNTED. As it is now we're just going through the motions of a democracy.

[Stuart G]

6. I agree. For a presidential election this must be done.

I read in Michigan there were broken machines..(I don't know if that is true) ...Who knows?..but, this must be kept away from the possibility that an outside entity could do this.

And..I do believe that the Russians did indeed change the results of this election for Trump...but, that is my opinion..It wouldn't have taken many votes to do this...

[TheFrenchRazor]

18. correct; we need all paper ballots, HAND-COUNTED; problem is, repugs like the current system, so

it will be very hard to change. in any case, dems need to get the ball rolling now. i have to think that if nothing was done after 2000, nothing will be done now, unfortunately. we are literally going to become Russia pretty soon if this problem isn't stopped. this shit (election hacking, fraud) goes on all the time there.

[2naSalit]

7. And the authorities' famous retort...

"...we can't possibly choose to do something that is ultimately more responsible and effective and open if it would take half a second longer to produce results!"

[TheFrenchRazor]

19. yep; it's just NOT POSSIBLE!!! nevermind that it has been done for centuries... nt

[2naSalit]

40. I have recently come to the conclusion

that absurdity in place of reasoning is now included in the "sure things in life" list (like death and taxes).

[spin]

8. It is obvious that a lot of posters here believe the Russians hacked electronic voting ...

machines and altered votes in the recent Presidential election. At this time there doesn't seem to be any solid proof of this. I do agree that paper ballots would be more secure than the outdated electronic voting machines we are using today. Even if the Russians didn't hack into our voting machines this time they may well do so in the future.

However there does seem to be evidence that the Russians obtained access to John Podesta's email as well as the DNC email.

My question is if John Podesta and the DNC was using some form of email encryption and if not why? It is possible to encrypt email. Ref: The mistake that made the DNC hack possible http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/dnc-leak-encryption-email/

Obviously in a utopia no foreign nation should ever hack into the email of any of our government agencies, government officials or the DNC or RNC. No foreign nation should never try to influence our elections. Unfortunately we don't live in a utopia. Everybody is hacking everybody.

And don't kid yourself. We also hack other nations. We also gather information on everybody everywhere at all times. For a while this was a really big deal but now for some reason the media doesn't mention this.

National Security Agency

The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence organization of the United States government, responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). NSA is concurrently charged with protection of U.S. government communications and information systems against penetration and network warfare.[8][9] Although many of NSA's programs rely on "passive" electronic collection, the agency is authorized to accomplish its mission through active clandestine means,[10] among which are physically bugging electronic systems[11] and allegedly engaging in sabotage through subversive software.[12][13] Moreover, NSA maintains physical presence in a large number of countries across the globe, where its Special Collection Service (SCS) inserts eavesdropping devices in difficult-to-reach places. SCS collection tactics allegedly encompass "close surveillance, burglary, wiretapping, breaking and entering".[14][15]

Unlike the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), both of which specialize primarily in foreign human espionage, NSA does not unilaterally conduct human-source intelligence gathering, despite often being portrayed so in popular culture. Instead, NSA is entrusted with assistance to and coordination of SIGINT elements at other government organizations, which are prevented by law from engaging in such activities without the approval of the NSA via the Defense Secretary.[16] As part of these streamlining responsibilities, the agency has a co-located organization called the Central Security Service (CSS), which was created to facilitate cooperation between NSA and other U.S. military cryptanalysis components. Additionally, the NSA Director simultaneously serves as the Commander of the United States Cyber Command and as Chief of the Central Security Service.

****snip***

Global surveillance disclosures

The massive extent of the NSA's spying, both foreign and domestic, was revealed to the public in a series of detailed disclosures of internal NSA documents beginning in June 2013. Most of the disclosures were leaked by former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden.

Scope of surveillance

It was revealed that the NSA intercepts telephone and Internet communications of over a billion people worldwide, seeking information on terrorism as well as foreign politics, economics[46] and "commercial secrets".[47] In a declassified document it was revealed that 17,835 phone lines were on an improperly permitted "alert list" from 2006 to 2009 in breach of compliance, which tagged these phone lines for daily monitoring.[48][49][50] Eleven percent of these monitored phone lines met the agency's legal standard for "reasonably articulable suspicion" (RAS).[48][51]

A dedicated unit of the NSA locates targets for the CIA for extrajudicial assassination in the Middle East.[52] The NSA has also spied extensively on the European Union, the United Nations and numerous governments including allies and trading partners in Europe, South America and Asia.[53][54]


NSA Headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency#

NSA is also expanding its operations.

Utah Data Center

The Utah Data Center, also known as the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center,[1] is a data storage facility for the United States Intelligence Community that is designed to store data estimated to be on the order of exabytes or larger.[2] Its purpose is to support the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), though its precise mission is classified.[3] The National Security Agency (NSA) leads operations at the facility as the executive agent for the Director of National Intelligence.[4] It is located at Camp Williams near Bluffdale, Utah, between Utah Lake and Great Salt Lake and was completed in May 2014 at a cost of $1.5 billion.[5

The data center is alleged to be able to process "all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Internet searches, as well as all types of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital 'pocket litter'."[7] In response to claims that the data center would be used to illegally monitor email of U.S. citizens, in April 2013 an NSA spokesperson said, "Many unfounded allegations have been made about the planned activities of the Utah Data Center, ... one of the biggest misconceptions about NSA is that we are unlawfully listening in on, or reading emails of, U.S. citizens. This is simply not the case."[4]

***snip***

The planned structure provides 1 to 1.5 million square feet (90,000–140,000 m2),[20][21][22] with 100,000 square feet (9,000 m2) of data center space and more than 900,000 square feet (84,000 m2) of technical support and administrative space.[7][20] It is projected to cost $1.5–2 billion.[3][7][20][23][24] A report suggested that it will cost another $2 billion for hardware, software, and maintenance.[20] The completed facility is expected to require 65 megawatts of electricity, costing about $40 million per year.[7][20] The facility is expected to use 1.7 million gallons (6,435 m3) of water per day.[25] An article by Forbes estimates the storage capacity as between 3 and 12 exabytes in the near term, based on analysis of unclassified blueprints, but mentions Moore's Law, meaning that advances in technology could be expected to increase the capacity by orders of magnitude in the coming years.[2]



NSA's Utah Data Center
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center#

[Corey_Baker08]

12. In Respect To The Hacking Of Voting Machines & The Switching Of Votes...

I am a bit skeptical that the Russians didn't mess with the actual votes simply because of the polling data...

I mean nobody disputes Russia interfered in the election so why wouldn't they hack the actual voting tabulations? They had the capability no doubt and all of a sudden all the polls that showed a Hillary landslide are all wrong? It all just seems to convenient for me...

[spin]

16. I did say that "at this time" there is no evidence that Russian hacked our ...

electronic voting machines. That doesn't necessary mean it didn't happen and that proof will emerge that it did in the future.

The polls were wrong. No doubt of that. On the other hand the polls on Brexit were also wrong.

Ref: Here's why the majority of Brexit polls were wrong
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/04/why-the-majority-of-brexit-polls-were-wrong.html

How the pollsters got the US election wrong - just like Brexit
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/09/how-the-pollsters-got-the-us-election-wrong---just-like-brexit/

Perhaps polls don't work well in change elections. Change elections occur when voters rebel against the establishment. The establishment candidates in this race were Hillary and Jeb but Bernie and Trump were outsiders.

Too many voters simply wanted to blow the system up. Unfortunately it looks like they succeeded.

[TheFrenchRazor]

20. absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; and besides, there is plenty of evidence that

voting machines are hackable; add that to the fact that the presidency of the united states is at stake, and it is virtually guaranteed that someone will try to hack the vote totals, and sooner or later they will succeed.

[spin]

27. Years ago a co-worker lent me a book on conspiracy theories. ...

I have always enjoyed conspiracy theories although I rarely believe in any of them. I also enjoy watching science fiction movies like the Alien and the Predator series but I con't think such extraterrestrials exist.

The book listed a bunch of possible conspiracy theories but the one that caught my attention was the possibility that in the future as we moved toward electronic voting the machines could be hacked and the software altered to give certain candidates just enough votes to guarantee a win. As I remember that was the one theory in the book that I thought might actually happen.

Not only could foreign governments hack our computer systems but it is also possible that certain interests inside of our own nation might also. A number of people in this nation state that we live in an oligarchy instead of a representative democracy or constitutional republic as we are told. If true this oligarchy would wish to insure that they remained in power and the best way to accomplish this would be to plant malicious software in the electronic voting machines.

Therefore we need to do our best to force those we elect to insure that we have a method of voting that is extremely difficult to corrupt. That might mean returning to paper ballots or at least insuring that there is a reliable trail of paper to certify the vote.

The problem is that all too often the people we elect do not represent us once in office. They sell their souls to the big money donors, Wall Street, the big international corporations and the pharmaceutical industry.

Therefore I doubt if much will change until if and when we find incontrovertible evidence that the results of the election have been tampered with.

[TheFrenchRazor]

30. it is totally possible, and i am not a "conspiracy theorist" either, but the reality is that some "c

conspiracy theories" just might be true. in the case of election hacking i don't think that the "conspiracy" would have to be nearly as large as some people think. if a few computer experts hack the vote totals specifically in areas where their favored candidate is also favored by the local authorities, there will not be any meaningful recount done, and the indisputable proof will never be discovered. and in this scenario, the local authorities need not be directly involved with the hackers.

[spin]

33. I would assume that there are foreign governments who could accomplish this ...

and also certain agencies within our own government.

It's probably not a question of if it will happen but when or for that matter if it already has.

[mythology]

26. Encrypting wouldn't have helped stop the John Podesta "hack"

He got spearfished. Somebody sent him a fake email that said his account showed unusual activity, he (on the urging of his aide) stupidly clicked the link in the email, gave the malicious actor his email password and boom, done.

That is what happened. Encrypting would have done exactly nothing because they had his password.

Never, ever, ever click a link in an email and then give it your password. If Google, or your bank, or whoever sends you an email, go to their website by typing the url into your browser. Or at least copy and paste the link into a word doc so you can see that instead of google.com, it went to gooogle.com or instead of bankofamerica.com, it went to backofamerica.com.

[spin]

29. Unfortunately true. Over the years I have noticed that extremely smart people ...

often lack common sense or what known as "street smarts." Perhaps this applies to John Podesta or one of his aides.

If inmprtant people did use a idiot proof system of encryption for sensitive email the world would just invent a better idiot.

[MineralMan]

9. That's not a bad idea, but it actually takes longer

than your estimate. First, each ballot must be confirmed as valid. For example overvoting for an office disqualifies the ballot for that office. So, creating those piles in the first place will take longer, since each ballot must be inspected and verified before being put into a pile. Second, there are more than two candidates for many offices, so there will be more than two piles.

Next, when counting the ballots in the piles, they should be checked again by more than one person, to verify that the ballot was, indeed, put into the right pile.

But here's the biggest problem: Almost all ballots have multiple races on them, along with things like issues that are being voted on. In each case, the ballots must be recounted for each race and piles created and counted.

I actually remember elections where counting was done manually. That's how it was done when I first started voting. In fact, I worked as a ballot teller in a couple of elections. It typically took three hours or more to do the job, even when the ballot was relatively simple and had not so many issues to be decided. In order for the process to be done correctly, double checking must be in place in each case and at each step of the count for each thing on the ballot.

Then, the results get reported by phone to the county clerk's office, where they are tallied. Then, the ballots all get boxed up and sealed in case of a recount. And every step of the process has to be checked and double checked by trustworthy people. Paper ballots and manual counting is not a panacea for elections. It's a better method, but requires more people than you think if it is to be done properly. Who are those people? Well, a lot of precincts have a lot of trouble finding enough election judges already, so getting all those people together in every precinct in the country adds up to a lot of people.

I've done it a couple of times. It's boring, tedious work, but work that has to be done with impeccable accuracy. I was never paid for that work, and didn't expect to be, but finding enough honest, sincere people for every precinct would be a real challenge, I think. It was back then, for sure.

[TheFrenchRazor]

21. well, it's been done for centuries, so i'm sure we can do it again. nt

[HoneyBadger]

41. And what happens when 1000 ballots are recorded, a recount is ordered and there

are zero ballots in the box. Or 2000. Or the original 1000, but they are have been marked up in a way to invalidate them. No one has eyes on the ballots the entire time between election day and the recount. Someone slips in and changes everything. No way to prove that the election day count was valid. Instantly you have a new President.

[kimbutgar]

10. Come on do you really think the rethugs want free and fair elections?

It's a nice dream but they have perfected their vote rigging, hacking and suppression. There is no way in hell they will let us ever have a free election again. Since they have finally cemented their power forever. United States of rethug rule satellite of Russia.

We had our last free election in 2012. From now on it will be rethug control of our country. They are probably now studying ways to take the east and west coast blue states into their control.

[TheFrenchRazor]

23. agreed, except i think that our last fair election was some time before 2000. nt

[eniwetok]

11. missing the bigger problem

Sure we need to go back to paper ballots... but that's not what got us Trump.

Even if we had

100% voter participation
100% publicly financed elections
100% vote count accuracy

We'd still have

States with 18% of the US population getting a majority in the Senate

States with 4% of the US population being able to block any amendment yet states with only 40% being able to approve one

And an antidemocratic EC which can impose on the nation a president REJECTED by the People.

Citizens would still be denied their right to vote their conscience and get representation for what they believe.

Our problems go much deeper than just electronic voting machines.

[Stuart G]

14. Yes, you have valid points..

This one is terrible........


States with 18% of the US population getting a majority in the Senate


And while it is true, that that was part of the deal to get a Constitution passed, that is the small states would have a greater say in the Senate..........that was then, and this is now. Remember, a deal was made to count slaves as 3/5 of a person to get this Constitution passed.......and

Changing the Constitution must be done..but that discussion goes beyond the paper ballot issue which is in front of us here. Would the paper ballots have prevented the hacking of the last election?..Would that have changed Michigan as well as other states?....Preventing hacking by some foreign country ....as it seems was done here is very important.. Would paper have prevented this?...

But this point you make is also extremely important................................

And an antidemocratic EC which can impose on the nation a president REJECTED by the People. ...strange...here we are more than 200 years past the adoption of the Constitution, and we are still showing how unfair parts of it are...??

[Lee-Lee]

15. And remember that when it was passed Senators were appointed by the state

They were appointed by state legislatures and we only got to have a real vote much later.

[eniwetok]

24. we're held hostage to the politics of 1787

Every special interest represented at the Constitutional Convention wanted a check on the other and as a result the Constitution is a straightjacket and in a perverse way undermines democratic principles even in the Democratic Party. We can't fix it is because the amendment formula is grotesquely antidemocratic. All reform is held hostage to states with 4% of the population... yet states with 40% can ratify any amendment.

If we're ever to begin making the Constitution democratic, all vestiges of state suffrage need to be abolished.

[TheFrenchRazor]

22. i think you have it reversed; yes the EC must go, but even if dems have the votes to overcome this h

hurdle, if they are not counted accurately, we will still lose. personally, i think both the EC and computer voting must be eliminated if we are to have anything like free and fair elections.

[Takket]

13. The Russians hacked the voters, not the vote

[Crash2Parties]

31. Creating a secure, auditable voting computerized voting system is fairly trivial.

There's no reason to eschew computers - the reason we are in this mess is because some states purposely chose to use machines & systems that have been shown for almost two decades to be insecure, untrustworthy and a joke when it comes to being able to recount or audit. Machines that were built and sold by the cronies of the same party that has used them to great effect to alter several elections.

We have long had the ability and experience to build and use secure systems that can pass audits. We choose to use them when we need to perform transactions such as when we are at an ATM. We CHOOSE as a nation not to use them when it comes to voting.

[TheFrenchRazor]

34. sure, it could be done theoretically, but when you have bad actors in charge of creating,

certifying, and operating these machines, there is too much room for malfeasance.

[Lee-Lee]

37. NC's machines print a hard copy of your vote as you do it

As in they print every single button push, even if you go back and change a vote, and then print a final hard copy.

After every election precincts in every county are selected at random for an audit where this paper trail is compared to the tabulated results.

Seems to be a pretty good set of checks and balances.

[brooklynite]

32. Voting machine hacking didn't happen...

Too many people conflate Russian "hacking" (stealing emails from the DNC) with voting machine hacking. There is NO evidence that voter machine hacking occurred; no candidate, campaign manager or Party official says it did.

Additionally, consider a ripe target (Republicans control the voting process) like North Carolina. Hillary Clinton lost the election, but roy Cooper was elected Governor and Josh Schneider was elected AG.

[TheFrenchRazor]

35. and you know that how? oh yeah, you don't. nt

[brooklynite]

39. Well, given the choice between the opinion of the Ohio Democratic Party Chair (who I know)...

...and some anonymous blogger making allegations without evidence, I'll go with the ODP Chair.

[Lee-Lee]

38. The vast majority, like 99.9%, of computer voting machines

Have no connection to the internet.

None.

They are intentionally designed to not be connected to the internet for security purposes.

How, exactly, does everyone think these machines are being manipulated by the Russians? Quite literally you have to walk into the location these machines are located in and physically hook a computer directly into it to be able to connect to them.

I keep hearing people say they are hacked, but nobody seems to be able to explain how that was done.

And while focused on that we are ignoring the real problem of the DNC and individuals in it being actually hacked and having poor cyber security protocols and culture on both an individual and institutional level.

[Generic Brad]

42. We could send our votes by courier

That will prevent 10 year olds and some guy in a basement from hacking our vote