Election rigging ...

[Jeebo]

I’ve been at 999 posts and holding for almost a week, trying to decide what I want my 1,000th post to be. How about your basic tinfoil hat conspiracy theory? I posted another conspiracy theory a couple weeks ago that y’all shot down right away. Y’all convinced me — sort of. I’m still less than 100 percent convinced that the orange con man in the White House really did have the virus. But now, let’s see what y’all will do with this one. Get your tinfoil hats on again.

Eight years ago there was a claim floating around just after the 2012 election that some Republican operatives had set up an Internet site that they were going to use to fix the vote count in a few key states so that Mitt Romney would “win” the election. A group of hackers who called themselves Anonymous claimed to have hacked into that site and erected a password-protected firewall to keep the Republican vote-riggers out. The claim was that there were 105 unsuccessful attempts on election night to guess the password.

This claim was never proven, but it does fit the known facts. For example, it explains Karl Rove’s election night meltdown on Fox News. Rove was, according to the claim, one of the vote-riggers.

This claim has been niggling at the back of my mind ever since. I have been thinking, what if it’s true? If it is, you can bet the mortgage that the Republican vote-riggers will make damn sure their nefarious plot isn’t foiled like that again.

And then, 2016 happened. Which is another known fact that the Anonymous claim fits. It’s the only presidential election that has happened since 2012, and think about how it happened. Think about how that odious orange thing got into the Oval Office. It was a weird coincidental distribution of the national popular vote that was just right to get the popular vote loser an electoral college “win”.

Could this have been the work of those 2012 Republican vote-riggers, four years delayed? And, if so …

Could they do it again?

This is going to be in the forefront of my mind while I’m watching election night returns in less than two weeks, and while I’m sure Joe Biden is going to win the national popular vote, probably by a wide margin, if that popular vote distribution starts falling into place like this again, the same way it did in 2016 …

Well, we need to be thinking about what we’re going to do about it. I’m 70 years old, and I have health issues. I wanted to join the George Floyd protests, but this scenario would be enough to motivate me to take to the streets.

— Ron

https://www.salon.com/2012/11/20/did_anonymous_stop_rove_stealing_the_election/

[questionseverything]

1. Biden just needs to demand an open transparent vote count

And we will be fine

If the machines spit out a result that doesn’t make sense his campaign needs to fight it

Senators need to do the same

Don’t be afraid of a hand count

[dchill]

5. You can't hand count electronic voting machines...

... with preprogrammed glitches and no paper trail.

[questionseverything]

9. Georgia has paper now

It’s a bar code the scanner reads to count but there are paper ballots with choices names that could be counted

But yes the paperless dre are worthless

[Karadeniz]

2. I don't trust the computer voting system many states have. As I understand it, they can be rigged.

[C Moon]

3. I remember that Rove melt down. I also remember watching the 2016 numbers coming in on 538...

and 538 telling people to hold steady, because the early numbers are always Republican.
But it didn't stop. And districts that were predicted strong Hillary districts, fell one by one.
I sat and watched as 538 was scrambling to understand what was going on.

I'm convinced you are correct about the stealing of votes. I think that's why Trump is freaking out so much about the mail in ballots—it threw a wrench in the works.

[dchill]

6. This is the reason I voted by mail in PA this time.

[58Sunliner]

4. You and me both. I think the election was stolen in 2016.

Only because Putin doesn't do half measures.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

7. The 2006 Documentary, Hacking Democracy, shows how electronic voting machines can be hacked.

Watch it on YouTube:

Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Democracy

(BTW, can someone with a Wikipedia account please edit the heading, "Demonstrated flaws" in the Wikipedia article to something that makes it clear that the flaws are in the voting machines, not the documentary?)

[Awsi Dooger]

8. There were definitely some strange numbers in 2016

I've looked at exit polls since 1992, specifically the ideological numbers. There had never been an example of a state with 37% or fewer conservatives, and less than a 10% gap between liberals and conservatives, voting for the Republican. Prior to 2016 I would have considered that combo almost impossible.

Then in 2016 it happened 3 times...Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The Pennsylvania numbers were particularly bizarre because that state reported only 33% conservatives, and only 6% gap to the liberal number (27%). Beforehand I would have considered that combination 100% impossible. The 33% conservatives ties the lowest number of a Republican winning the state since I have charted. There were only two other examples at 33%. But both of them had a much larger gap to the liberal number -- Florida 1992 was 33-20 and 2004 North Dakota was 33-13.

If someone had told me a Democrat could lose a state in 2016 at 33-27 I would have laughed for hours.

The 6% gap is the lowest ever for a Democratic defeat. Well, lowest since statewide exit polls became a regular feature in 1992.

[brush]

10. You're onto something. I remember the 2012 plot. It was called...

Orca or Killer Whale, something like. And Rove certainly got shot down by Megan Kelly on national TV about the Ohio vote count. Your theory makes sense as trump won in 3 states by some 77m votes. I myself have always been suspicious of that as the trump "victory" in those states was by less that one percentage point. Close margins like that are the only ones that can be jiggered, hacked or whatever you want to call it.

The repugs for sure will try again as they never give up their underhanded, cheap and dirty ways, but this time it won't be that close. And I saw a piece today that the Dems have a task force of hundreds of lawyer already set up and ready to go on Nov. 4 for just such developments.

They aren't going to catch us unawares again.

[BadgerMom]

11. I've never forgotten the Rove meltdown in 2012 on Fox.

I have a cousin who still swears Ohio was stolen from Dems in 2004. The fact that Rove was so certain Ohio of all states wouldn’t go for Obama was telling. And, I agree about 2016. It stank to high heaven. Those votes in the Midwest were manipulated. The corruption we’ve witnessed in the past 4 years only makes me more certain. The American oligarchs and the Republican Party would do anything to be in power. Blinders need to come off and gloves need to go on regarding investigating these things.

My foremost hope is for a Dem wave so large it can’t be erased. Numbers of voters and mail-in ballots can overcome rigging. If we pull off a fair win, we must take steps to remedy the issues of corruptible voting machines and all of the forms of voter suppression that have gained ground.

[Sancho]

12. I'm convinced there were issues in Florida....

...in 2004 and 2016 were the worst, but it’s happened often. I’ve seen a DRE flip votes right in front of me. I’ve also been aware of very weird numbers here in close elections.

It has always seemed crazy that some precincts have large under votes in key races, that Democratic referendums or down ballot candidates win, while some republicans like Rick Scott or Trump prevail by a tiny margin. The only explanation is hacking or some kind of manipulation.