Submitted while DU was still down, but posting members' submissions:
Why DU?
We know the Feds suspect Russian hacking into the election systems of Florida, Illinois, and a number of other states. http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/12/politics/florida-election-hack/ ;
If the state systems are vulnerable, the county election boards aren't going to be any more secure.
We also know that small changes in key counties can make a huge difference, even to the point of getting someone "elected" by finessing the Electoral College while losing the popular vote and defying all the polls (which are, let's face it, much more scientific and thorough than the tabulation of votes).
Back on election night of 2004, like last Tuesday night, a lot of people found themselves watching the totals roll in and felt they defied logic, just as everyone, including the candidate himself, is surprised at the miraculous outcome of the vote tallies this year.
That evening in November 2004, and continuing into the following weeks and months, DU became one of the key places on the internet where people assembled and raised and documented the statistical impossibilities that the election of Bush posed. At DailyKos, you could get banned for talking about fraud (instead of discussing why Democrats were losers).
DU's Election Results and Discussion Forum 2004 became an ongoing and evolving meeting place for citizens and leading academics to discuss whether the election had been hijacked. I would argue that it was a key factor in getting the conversation of the electronic theft of the 2004 election to go national (and beyond).
Back in 2004, DUer "Botany" worked long hours at the polls in Ohio, that critical, pivotal, essential state, and witnessed it being stolen with his own eyes. While DU (meaning the admins) didn't take any position on the question of election fraud, it gave him a place to share his experience so that it was able to ripple out and join with and amplify other voices from all across the country and become a national conversation.
Here in 2016, if you've read Botany's email on this page, you know he had an even more definitive experience this election.
Stifling dissent is a basic tool of guys like Putin. If someone were to try to pull this off, shutting down online discussion would be one of the first things on the to-do list. You'd want to make sure random citizens like this Botany guy wouldn't gather in the streets or on the internet and share their stories.
This is why I think DU was hit by something sophisticated enough to disable it for a number of days, and not just by some rude, punkish hack.
= new reply since forum marked as read
