Esquire: 'The evidence is building if we can handle the truth'

[triron]

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a16758812/russia-hack-voting-machines-2016/

"We are inching ever closer to the revelation that the actual vote totals were hacked—some very smart people are already there, by the way—and, once that happens, I don’t know where we go from there. The Republican Party already has shown it will tolerate all manner of jacking around with the franchise in pursuit of power and its benefits for the Republican donor class. But, simply, I don’t know if either party truly has the sand to face up to the possibility that a president* was installed under those circumstances."

[democratisphere]

1. Rigged elections are a very real possibility, specially when drumpf and

the redumbliCONs are involved.

[onit2day]

59. Bush was installed by the SC. Votes were flipped by % or stolen by Koback

[Iggo]

2. Why would they hack the machines if they weren't going to flip the votes?

Nobody ever gives me a good answer to that question.

[triron]

4. You mean the voter registration data files and election systems (of 39 states)?

[Grammy23]

8. That has been the elephant in the room all along.

Every time the hacking was mentioned, some republican or talking head would quickly say, “But nothing was changed about the outcome of the election.” And this was before any deep forensics were done on the votes or machines. Well, why on earth bother with the hack at that level if changing the tally and the outcome of the election wasn’t the motive? No one has a logical answer for that. The ONLY answer that makes sense is that they were attempting to manipulate the votes and change the outcome. And every day, it becomes more and more obvious that is what happened and why everyone was caught so off guard. We wuz robbed.

[erronis]

37. Of course one reason is to test/hone their weapons. Next time will be for real.

The actual tally of votes properly cast will be whatever the "State Planners" want it to be.

Some of us my live in areas that are just not worth dealing with and they give a nice backdrop to:

Vladimir Putin Was Elected As President For Life Of The USA-
Some ignorant people didn't agree and they will enjoy their stay in a new re-education facility."

[Grammy23]

39. I believe that tampering and manipulation of the vote has been going on for several years.

We’ve had stunning surprises over quite a few election cycles. So whatever happened in 2016 was one of many attempts to manipulate. It is my opinion they went as far as they could go to get tRump “elected”. Notice that it was only in certain places this happened, because they knew ahead of time where to intervene.

I don’t think it was a dry run, but likely the culmination of many dry runs. They knew what they were doing and where to do it. We are counting on the Congress to look out for us, but so far, they have turned a blind eye (or they are in the minority and don’t have the power). The ones who have the power don’t exercise it because they are in it up to their necks. So there you have it. Another nation bites the dust.

[TryLogic]

45. I have to agree. Except we are not done yet even if we are very close.

PROTECT MUELLER AND HIS INVESTIGATION.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

49. ever since 2000

The article talks of how the current Republicans "tolerate" -- that's incorrect. The current Government Of Putin has actively, aggressively worked toward rigged elections. See, e.g., the laws suppressing voters, gerrymandering, etc.

The push for electronic voting machines made by G.W. "shrub" is when the GOPers began working toward rigging the final count. Nobody sees where the electrons go in the wires and chips. Paper is harder to rig and harder to conceal the act of rigging.

[napi21]

54. I think the vote manipulation began when we went to voting machines. The more I think about it,

the more I know unverifiable machines should NEVER have been OK'd. As stupid as the "hanging chads" were, at least there were pieces of paper that could be fixed. We need to find a system that includes paper verification!

[procon]

10. I been asking that from the beginning.

It would be like thieves cutting into a bank vault and then walking away without touching the money or opening the safety deposit boxes, but that what robbers do all the time, right?

[uponit7771]

19. +1, like a bank robber cracking a safe and just looking at all the money then leaving

[ProfessorGAC]

22. Dead On!

It's like they are saying that the hackers just wanted a leg up on knowing the results. We already get them in minutes with exit polling (unnecessary, IMO).
So, the hackers did what they did for some reason other than to just see the results before everyone else.

[SonofDonald]

30. Exactly

They were looking to see if they could get in to our system.

But why on earth did they do that unless there was a reason to attempt it?????

And we all know what the reason was, anyone that can't see that just isn't thinking clearly or is lying through their teeth.

[Amaryllis]

51. Just for fun, to prove they could. I never learned how to make the sarcasm thingy...hope

the sarcasm was obvious, but there are people here who keep saying yes, but no vote totals were changed! THe burden of proof should be to prove that they were not, not that they were.

[politicaljunkie41910]

55. Exactly. Like they just wanted to be the first to know. Like on Christmas Eve.

You can't wait to open the presents. Bullshit. Nobody has ever given any plausible explanation on how all those Exit Poll data could have been sooooo wrong. If we had been a Third World Country, reporting those same results based on the Exit Polling Data, the final vote talleys would have been determined to be fraudulent.

[garybeck]

56. why do you think they didn't flip votes?

[FakeNoose]

3. We've been saying this since November 10th, 2016

Is anybody listening?

[triron]

5. I see strong evidence of it in Ron Baiman's 2016 exit poll analysis.

(you can google it). I get attacked on this point every time I mention it (same people).

[cilla4progress]

11. Also

2004.

Wonder why not 08 and 12.

[brush]

12. They tried. Don't you remember Rove on TV, on FOX of all places, stammering that the Ohio tallies...

couldn't be right. It just wasn't close enough for them to steal. Megan Kelly had to break the news to turd blossom that it was over.

[uponit7771]

20. +1, this sticks in my head the most ... Rove was going nuts his expectations were something were ...

... Obama loses and when they couldn't get the presidency they went hard toward voter suppression and went that wasn't 100% then micro purging.

Another elephant in the room is all the states HRC was going to win by 1 and 2% but lost by 1 or 2% were Republican voter suppression states or took some voter suppression efforts.

[brush]

25. Yep, voter suppression was in effect along with the Russian tampering. I hope to hell that...

Last edited Mon Apr 2, 2018, 12:20 PM - Edit history (4)

we have political leaders and a nation strong enough to deal with the fact that the presidency was stolen, unlike in 2000 and 2004.

In 2000 SCOTUS stepped in and gave it to Bush instead of letting the recount go through. But Gore conceded too soon instead of fighting. He wasn't, IMO, able to handle, and maybe he was thinking of the nation itself not being able to handle the fact that the presidency was stolen. In 2004 Blackwell, SOS of Ohio, saw to it that long lines and broken voting machines in AA districts in Cleveland siphoned off enough votes to steal it from Kerry.

Now we need leaders strong enough to confront the fact that the repugs pulled off another presidential theft because it's going to come out one way or another. As a party we have to be behind them because if we as a nation don't stop this now every other presidential election will be suspect.

And the repugs won't care because they've cheated to win since Nixon, Reagan, W Bush, Trump— maybe Daddy Bush's wasn't stolen but his presidency was just an extension of a stolen one and shouldn't have happened anyway.

Once it becomes obvious that it was stolen for trump we all need to brace ourselves as the deplorables won't take it sitting down. It could be taken to the streets.

[uponit7771]

31. OP Worthy, You're right ... they've cheated since Nixon. They've stopped believing in democracy

[More_Cowbell]

34. That was a big sign for me, too

I remember that Anonymous claimed that it stopped the hack. I don't think there was ever proof either way, but Rove's outburst was significant.

[JI7]

60. McCain and Romney Were Very Anti Russia so Putin wasn't going to help them

[Sinistrous]

6. Confirmation of such an election-stealing hack

Would push the right wingers into a violent and bloody revolution. They would spare no cost to maintain power.

[bitterross]

7. The GOP doesn't care how he won. They got what they wanted. That was clear in 2000.

It has been quite clear for a very long time the GOP doesn't give two shits about the vote or the count or how it might have been compromised as long as THEY win.

We all knew this since 2000 when Scalia intervened and then the rest of the right-wing court backed him up and gave the loser the Presidency. Bush was installed and 45 was installed.

They don't fucking care.

[Tatiana]

9. We have to handle it if we are to fix the problem and prevent it from happening again.

We have to at least entertain the possibility. That is why we must take back the state legislatures and offices of the Secretary of State. Someone needs to take these machines into custody and analyze them from top to bottom.

Moreover, we must cease using machines without paper verification mechanisms.

The stolen elections of 2000 and 2004 prove that the right-wing will continue to cheat as long as we let them.

[brush]

28. Yes, the repugs don't care how they "win", they will do anything to grab power (McConnell and...

the stolen SCOTUS seat is a prime example).

And we might as well go back to how Nixon and Reagan both committed treason to win which means the repugs haven't won legitimately since Eisenhower (Daddy Bush maybe, but his presidency was just an extension of Reagan's who cheated so can we really count that?).

[Skittles]

13. is George W. Fucking Bush in any position to talk about trusting election results?

[Hekate]

16. Don't you find it intriguing that in his own dimwitted way he seems troubled by this?

Things that make you go hmmm.

[Skittles]

18. he is such a piece of shit

he should hide in absolute shame for the rest of his life

[roamer65]

14. Anytime we have an election less than 5 pct difference, it can be stolen.

Need to go to a runoff or preferential popular vote system.

[Duppers]

15. K & R

[Sancho]

17. I have no doubt.

[Achilleaze]

21. k & r

[Mr. Ected]

23. So who is or would be entrusted with making this determination?

Is this within the purview of the Mueller investigation? Perhaps if this "is where the evidence leads"?

[spanone]

24. yep and as long as the party in charge was the beneficiary nothing will happen

[rainin]

26. I still trust the problem is contained. It works in close elections.

I still think it will be hard to hold back a wave. But, we'll see.

[YessirAtsaFact]

27. If this is even a possibility, we need to use paper ballots for now

And any computer voting systems used in future need to include a paper trail that so we can check for hacking before any election results are certified.

[kentuck]

29. We are not equipped to handle the truth at this time.

The truth is not the property of the majority and does not have the power it would normally have. The majority denies the truth.

[CrispyQ]

32. Excellent read.

Talk about a story nobody wants to hear. Imagine if the margin of victory in, say, Wisconsin, was a result of votes “cast” in some cubicle farm in Minsk.

There is no evidence that any of the registration rolls were altered in any fashion, according to U.S. officials. In a new NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll, 79 percent of the respondents said they were somewhat or very concerned that the country's voting system might be vulnerable to computer hackers. In January 2017, just weeks before leaving his post, Johnson declared the nation's electoral systems part of the nation's federally protected "critical infrastructure," a designation that applies to entities like the power grid that could be attacked. It made protecting the electoral systems an official duty of DHS.

That is a very carefully parsed statement. Not to be completely cynical, but “there is no evidence” can mean just that, or it can mean that we haven’t found any, or it can mean in the worst case that we’re afraid to look for it. In any case, it remains idiotic that we leave national elections in the hands of 50 individual state governments, with 50 individual secretaries of state, many of whom are undermanned, underfunded, and using equipment that is ridiculously outdated. That's to say nothing of the ones—Hi, Kris Kobach! What’s up, Ken Blackwell?—who are party hacks with their own agendas.

Jeh Johnson has been right all along. The electoral systems should be treated like the power grids and communications systems. The states are too riven with internal mischief and budget problems to handle a problem of this magnitude.

[poboy2]

33. r'd

[BlueJac]

35. K&R

[poboy2]

36. Someone, anyone...save western civilization...anyone...-nt

[pansypoo53219]

38. they cheated before. 2000 was stolen. 2004 as well.

2008 was only won because onama was a better messager. GORE won LURCH won. sadly hillary was not mrs excitement. we need extra good to DEFEAT CHEATING.

[mythology]

40. This article is long on maybe and short on facts

When he's reduced to citing that statement that there is no evidence votes were changed as evidence that they might have been changed, there's no there there.

The national polls were more accurate in 2016 than in 2012. Wisconsin counties that hand recounted didn't differ from machine recounted counties. There is zero evidence votes were changed.

[BadGimp]

41. I disagree, the (majority of the) GOP is perfectly ok with stealing elections by hacking votes.

eom

[YOHABLO]

42. "some very smart people are already there, by the way" I was there long ago.

[Ellen Forradalom]

43. Anyone following DU from the first year was there

[magicarpet]

44. Voter purge data program designed by Kris Kobach....

..... named "Cross Check" of voter rolls suppressed enough voters that it caused tRdump to steal the 2016 national election.

Enough names were wrongly purged in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Florida to cause a fraudulent "win" for tRdump.

[TryLogic]

46. The scariest thing for me is that most Republicans like power much more than Democracy.

[oasis]

47. The truth shall set America free.

[DoctorJoJo]

48. What's New About Repukes Stealing Elections?

Has everyone forgotten how Ohio Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell, and his fellow Repuke thieves stole the Ohio electoral vote in 2004, thus giving Bush the election over Kerry? They had limited voting machines (6-10 hour waits in Dem precincts), machine irregularities, and every type of skullduggery in place to swing that election.

[randr]

50. The President, as our temp help, will have to recuse himself of this one

He may very well have been elected fraudulently. We do not know if he was involved in actual vote flipping or not. Regardless, the issue is beyond his control and would be one of major interest to the citizens, not those elected to work for us for a few years.
If the system is broken or has been compromised, we need to take responsibility and action to fix it.
I wish we had a system where after two years we gave our hired help a vote of confidence. Pass it and get an extra two years.

[Honeycombe8]

52. I'm not surprised. Anyone here surprised? The question is: will Congress even acknowledge it? nt

[jimlup]

53. yep pretty much knew something was very fishy by midnight November 9th

Our election system was hacked to install the orange clown and weaken the United States so Putin could fuck the world and he is doing exactly that.

Sorry for the language...

[garybeck]

57. what evidence is building? this article is void of information

it says "We are inching ever closer to the revelation that the actual vote totals were hacked—some very smart people are already there"

who are the smart people who think the vote totals were hacked? that's quite a claim!

there is nothing in the article about any evidence that the election was hacked.

it talks about the idea that the election systems are not protected.

LOOK, I believe the election may have been hacked. I am eager to see evidence.

this article was a disappointment!

[czarjak]

58. You mean hes not legitimate?

[Orsino]

61. The vote is already hacked in myriad ways.

The goddamned machines are directly hackable, too, but we've known that for a long, long time. Congress has determined that they like it that way; having our votes counted makes us uppity.