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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAn Unbelievable Voting Machine Hack
We'll never know if our voting machines are hacked/rigged. Because touch screen machines create no checkable physical artifact of a vote, all they have to do is have the same vote totals as the number of voters and they can return any result desired. If the security is broken.
I don't know if votes have been changed, either in local, state, or federal elections. None of us know at present. But what I do know is that the machines offer no assurance that they cannot be hacked. And, I know that the GOP would absolutely use any and all means, including altering the results of the machines, to win. They have shown no respect for the process, only the lust for power.
What that means is that if results are being hacked, it is in the hackers' best interests to make the results as realistic as possible. Give a candidate trailing in the polls a surprising win, but only by 1 or 2%. Try to match previous voting patterns as best as possible, or create winning anomalies in just a few key districts.
BUT. If the machines can be hacked, then they need to be hacked and shown to be hacked. To do this, the hacker should create An Unbelievable Voting Machine Hack - a result that can't possibly be true. 100% of the vote for the Democratic candidate. Every vote but 1 for a little known independent. Create a result that lays bare the vulnerabilities of the system. Even just in one precinct.
If this can be done (especially if we put the GOP on the losing end of the result), it might finally wake somebody up.
The only drawback is that it would be a crime. But maybe worth the risk.
madokie
(51,076 posts)most local election would be won at the primary then we started using electronic vote counting machines. Used to be that in most local elections there would only be one if that republiCON running and they'd hardly get a vote. Now we're over run by the Kocksuckers.
I'm old enough to remember when we were deep Blue
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Now that I have been in Alabama for almost thirty years, I can honestly tell you, it's not the machines, it's the machine operators!
And the US still swings indisputably on 'the Race Card' - just as it has since our Founding. Oklahoma is no exception.
madokie
(51,076 posts)I remember it well.
ETA: Our state didn't have a repupbliCON governor until Bellmon in '63
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Alabama was Democratic for almost a century after Reconstruction, and the state had its first majority-Republican legislature in 2010 after Barack Obama was elected.
George Wallace was a Democrat.
When we left Tulsa, I remember a little asshole named Jim Inhofe, who was noted for "suing his own brother" but was still winning elections! Now he carries snowballs on the Senate floor and ponders global warming.
I'm just sayin' - I won't be blaming no machines.
I blame voters.
madokie
(51,076 posts)As I stated it used to be that on the local level not many republiCONs even bothered to run. Most of our elections was decided at the democratic primaries. I stand by that. I lived it, Seen it up close and personal
elehhhhna
(32,076 posts)Do some wacko libertarian or something.
Gabi Hayes
(28,795 posts)ProfessorPlum
(11,251 posts)and definitely worth doing, if it's possible
Weekend Warrior
(1,301 posts)"But what I do know is that the machines offer no assurance that they cannot be hacked."
Jimbo101
(776 posts)"The Dismal State of America's Decade-Old Voting Machines"
Wired
Brennan Center Report (pdf)
"No one expects a laptop to last for 10 years. How can we expect these machines, many of which were designed and engineered in the 1990s, to keep running?," write Larry Norden and Christopher Famighetti, authors of the Brennan Center report. "[T]he majority of systems in use today are either perilously close to or past their expected lifespans."
What's more, many of the machines are running an embedded version of Windows XP, an operating system Microsoft no longer supports or is about to stop supporting, depending upon the version of XP the system is using. That means Microsoft won produce patches for any new security holes found in the software. Almost all of the machines in California run on XP, and some even run on Windows 2000.