Wyden says Burr's claims that Russian meddling didn't change vote totals are bunk

[Amaryllis]

This entire article is a must-read. Wyden calling out Burr on all kinds of election/Russia/Kushner points. Burr still trying to cover. Wyden is blowing his cover. Love it that they refer to Wyden as "a feisty member of the intelligence committee."

snip

First, Burr declared that although Russian hackers had probed or penetrated the election systems of at least 21 states, he could confidently state that the Russian meddling in the 2016 election resulted in no changes to the vote tallies. That is, there’s no reason to question Trump’s Electoral College win. And second, Burr said that Russia’s use of Facebook ads during the presidential campaign seemed “indiscriminate” and not designed to help a particular candidate—meaning the recent revelations do not bolster the case that Trump was the Kremlin’s choice.

But Sen. Ron Wyden, (D-Ore.), a feisty member of the intelligence committee, says both assertions are bunk. In an interview with Mother Jones on Thursday, Wyden argued that Burr’s confidence in the election system was unwarranted. “The chairman said that he can say ‘certifiably’ that there was no vote tampering,” said Wyden. “I do not agree with this judgment. I don’t think it is possible to know that. There was no systematic analysis of the voting or forensic evaluations of the voting machines.”

Wyden pointed out that the Department of Homeland Security has noted that its assessment that there was no finagling with the vote count was made with only “moderate confidence.” For Wyden, that’s not good enough for such a sensitive and significant matter—and it sends the misguided signal that the voting system is doing just fine. Wyden believes that’s the wrong message. This week he sent a letter to the major manufacturers of voting machines demanding information about how they protect themselves from cyberattacks.

Wyden also said that Burr erred in declaring that the Russian Facebook ads—some of which targeted swing states—did not favor a presidential candidate. (Presumably Wyden has seen or been briefed on the content of the ads.) “That’s one reason why the ads need to be released to the American people,” Wyden remarked, “so Americans can make up their minds.”

?w=990

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/did-russia-hack-the-2016-vote-tally-this-senator-says-we-dont-know-for-sure/

[JI7]

1. Burr is a lying piece of shit . none of these republicans can be trusted

[joshdawg]

8. YES!

Yes a million times!
Damn near all republican congressvermin are traitors to America.

[sharedvalues]

2. My gut is vote counts weren't changed. Just voter's minds were hacked

Comey said very strongly that vote counts weren't changed.

Comey ran the FBI and had full access to counterintelligence info, so he would have had access to SIGINT from Russia, and we know that NSA was listening to Russian diplomatic traffic (itself this is a huge revelation). So Comey's view could be coming from the Russians saying it to each other. I'm not sure DHS would have access to that kind of info.
That info goes way beyond forensic analysis of voter machines.

Why would Russia not hack votes? (1) it's a big escalation - everyone does propaganda, but hacking votes is different. (2) It's easier to trace hacked votes back to who was helped. If enough hacked votes were found there would be a HUGE outcry to reverse the election. Sadly, I'm not sure the same will happen for what we know the Russians did - use propaganda on social media to change the election outcome.

[StevieM]

10. Comey was more responsible for hacking voters' minds with propaganda than the Russians were. (eom)

[sharedvalues]

13. CHAFFETZ was reaponsible for leaking the letter

Also. What?
Are you denying the huge Russian disinformation campaign on Facebook and Twitter, in 2015, 2016 and RIGHT NOW?

[StevieM]

16. Nope, I don't deny it. I just think the FBI is even worse.

Chaffetz is a criminal but there should never have been a letter to leak.

[sharedvalues]

21. Comey+Mueller are prosecuting Trump and exposing Russia

Its fair to say Comey affected the election. But it seems he got played by corruption in the FBI NY office, related to Giuliani. And Chaffetz illegally leaked Comes letter, removing the classified markings. Chaffetz should be in jail.

Note that Trump and the Russians say the same thing about Comey as you. You should reevaluate

[sharedvalues]

31. False. Russia was doing this for years

Also, CHAFFETZ is more responsible than Comey. He violated the law to leak Comey's letter.

In any case, the idea that Russia was less responsible than (Comey/Hillary/Bernie/Democrats) is a GOP and Russian talking point. Don't echo it.

Russia had a huge effect on disinformation in America. So did Fox, Breitbart, Limbaugh, and GOP billionaires who pay for Reason, Newsmax, the Federalist, the NY Post, Breitbart, and Fox.

[bearsfootball516]

27. I have the same mindset you do.

And the scary thing is, it was so effective.

Buy online ads in swing states (Wisconsin, Michigan) and fill them with "Hillary is a criminal" ads. These swing voters who are really on the fence see them 20 times a day. It's almost like subliminal messaging. Everywhere they go online, they see "Hillary is a criminal", driving down the road, they see a billboard that says "Hillary is a criminal." Get back on Facebook and boom, Hillary's emails, Hillary and the Pizza sex shop story, Hillary is a criminal.

I believe it was the Nazi, Joseph Goebbels, who said "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

And after weeks of seeing "Hillary is a criminal" hundreds and thousands of times on the news, internet and everywhere else, they went to the polls on election day. And at their polling computer, they saw the names Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. And they thought.

"Hmmm. Well. I really don't like Donald Trump....but Hillary Clinton is a criminal, and I just can't vote for that."

And then they hit the Trump button.

And it the entire Russian misinformation campaign worked exactly like they wanted it to.

Russia didn't need to change votes in the computers, when they could influence the minds of those pushing the button.

[sharedvalues]

32. Exactly. Should put this in a whole new post :)

[sharedvalues]

3. The above said, this is an amazing article

Senators dont' just throw crazy accusations around and Wyden is a serious guy.

[BigmanPigman]

4. All the Congressional investigations are worthless as long as the GOP is in charge.

[oasis]

5. Russians helped traitor Trump steal the election. Americans should

be outraged and demand paper ballots for every election.

[Alea]

6. Wyden should talk to Warner

They both stood shoulder to shoulder at the Wednesday presser and spouted the same garbage.

[YOHABLO]

7. "garbage" ? how so?

[Alea]

9. Wyden is talking about what Burr and Warner said in the press conference Wednesday

Wyden essentially said Burr's comments were garbage (bunk), but it wasn't just Burr. It was Burr and Warner, shoulder to shoulder saying the same thing. So if Wyden don't like it, or believe it, he should be slamming Warner too, not just Burr.

[Achilleaze]

12. Important to point out the republican who lied to America

because of the profoundly deep, wide, and ugly pattern of lies emanating from the republican white house, senate and house.

There is a massive pattern of republican falsehoods, cover up, and apparent treason against the United States of America.

Our whole way of American democracy depends upon acknowledging and reckoning with this dark and evil betrayal of America.

[sharedvalues]

14. "Dark and evil GOP betrayal" -- for $$

[diva77]

11. K&R

[voteearlyvoteoften]

15. Kick

[rockfordfile]

17. Maybe they did. but who didn't see this coming at some point.

[Pugster]

18. Burr's job is to derail the investigation

He is Trump's ally.

[bettyellen]

19. They know the Russian ads were a variety of anti-Hillary crap- but instead frame it as pro- Trump

When they also tried to siphon off votes to Bernie and Jill. Dishonest.

And hacking the voter rolls? That is an outrage.

[ananda]

20. I like Wyden.

And remember, just because a Reep declares that vote
counts weren't changed, means nothing.

The validations and recounts in the swing states were
stopped by 45 who went to court over it.

[questionseverything]

22. in wisconsin they just ran the ballots thru the same machines

no human beings ever get to oversee the counting

in mich so many precinct had more votes than voters(150 if I remember right) that it couldn't be recounted

no one from the fbi ever checked even one machine and no one actually checked the spreadsheets that generate "results"

there was a video on brad blog showing the racine county clerk screaming at election integrity activist...NO HAND COUNTING NO MATTER WHAT

a few well placed repub county clerks and there is no need for Russian hacking

[mythology]

23. That is blatantly inaccurate

Wisconsin had some counties that were hand recounted. They didn't show a significant difference from machine recounted counties. Why this stupid conspiracy won't die is beyond me.

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2016/dec/09/sean-duffy/wisconsin-presidential-election-recount-only-dane-/

As for how the recounting has been done, the majority of Wisconsin’s 72 counties (including Dane, but not Milwaukee) are doing it by hand.

Here is what the county election clerks told the Wisconsin Election Commission at the outset of the recount about their plans for the recount:

47 counties: Recount by hand
13 counties: Combination of hand count and optical scanners
12 counties: Optical scanners

A word on the process in Wisconsin:

Every ballot is first examined by the recount workers so the candidates’ representatives can see it and raise any questions or objections to it.

If the recount is conducted by hand, the ballots are sorted into piles for each candidate for counting by hand.

If the recount is by machine, the ballots are fed into the tabulating machine for counting.

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/recount-found-thousands-of-errors-but-no-major-flaws-in/article_4ad0fe2a-40d8-5cce-8d84-f3e33469c8f1.html

The State Journal review found more than 55 percent of the ballots were recounted by hand. The error rate was 0.44 percent in wards that conducted the recount by hand and 0.30 percent in wards that recounted by machine.

The difference in error rate between wards that Trump and Clinton won was negligible — 0.38 percent versus 0.37 percent.

Of the more than 11,000 errors identified in the available data, the most common error perhaps can be explained by the 6,481 votes that were deducted from the total number of write-ins.

There is exactly zero evidence that votes were changed. None. Zilch. Nada. Pretending there is such evidence is no better than Republicans claiming in person voter fraud is a major issue. If you are going to make an extraordinary claim, you need extraordinary evidence. Instead you bring at best poorly remembered falsehoods because it is what you want to believe. Please actually bother to do basic research for easily verifiable claims that no human ever looked at a ballot in the Wisconsin recount. It can save you making laughably inaccurate claims in the future.

[questionseverything]

24. blahblahblah

http://bradblog.com/?p=11953

Our "Recount" 2016 coverage continues today, on the heels of "dueling" federal and state court rulings on Tuesday night in Green Party candidate Jill Stein's fight to continue hand-counts in Michigan, hundreds of precincts across the state (including tens of thousands of ballots) are being declared "unrecountable" by state officials --- for often absurd reasons. We explain those rulings as we await what is likely to be a federal court order ending all counting in the state by tomorrow, despite Trump's razor thin 10,000 vote statewide margin of just one-tenth of one-percent over Hillary Clinton.

Another court ruling comes down today against Stein's suit for a forensic analyses of 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems used in Philadelphia, prompting plans to seek same in state court. And the counting (and computer re-scanning) continues in Wisconsin, despite efforts by Team Trump to stop counting and oversight immediately in all three states.

We're joined today by author, former attorney and longtime election integrity advocate Paul Lehto to discuss all of the above and much more, including how failed tabulation systems, woeful election law, and extraordinary legal challenges in at least six courts in three states to block all oversight is little more than an invitation for future fraud.

On MI's "outrageous" law resulting in hundreds of "unrecountable" precincts in Detroit alone, Lehto charges: "All you need to do is add an extra ballot without adjusting the poll books, which makes it easier to do fraud or easier create an error. And that error or fraud is insulated from ever affecting the results. If somebody did want to do fraud, it's like a dream for them."

"But here's the thing: it doesn't really matter, from the perspective of democracy, whether it's an error or whether it's a fraud. Because we're only interested in the true vote count," he tells me. "But in this case, Michigan law itself is protecting and creating 'safe harbor' for both errors and fraud."

[questionseverything]

25. more

http://bradblog.com/?p=11967

Friesdat shares her short, disturbing new video released on Friday, revealing what appear to be machine mistallies noted by observers during the statewide "recount" of ballots by computer optical-scanners in Racine County, WI, and a stymied attempt by one observer there, Liz Whitlock, to get a hand-count of the paper ballots in question. Citing the 5% error rate by the machines that observers tallied in one small precinct in WI, Friesdat notes: "A similar error rate applied across all of Wisconsin’s 2,976,150 votes --- could produce an error of 140,000 votes. Trump won Wisconsin by 22,000 votes."

[diva77]

35. THIS +1000 EXACTLY!! With or without Russians, the use of computerized equipment for running

elections - whether DREs, optical scanners, central tabulators, etc. has made it IMPOSSIBLE to guarantee that a vote will be counted as cast.

These machines do NOT meet the burden of proof that a vote will be counted as cast.

The secretaries of state are responsible for certifying the equipment and are violating the oath they take as members of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS). County elections officials are violating the terms of the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED).

When will these elections officials be held accountable???

[questionseverything]

37. in germany the high court ruled

elections have to be able to be overseen by the average citizen with no special expertise...which means paper ballots counted by hand in public view


we deserve the same confidence in our elections

[diva77]

39. Absolutely! What a scam that we have this corporate computerized machinery coming between us and

our votes. A scam on so many levels.

Elections must be transparent.

If you cannot observe the entire process with the human eye, then it is not transparent, period.

Watching a computer does not qualify as "observing an election."

[Eliot Rosewater]

26. I said the instant the call was made on election day, that it is impossible

even with the nightmarish behavour of Comey and the treason of trump for the GOP to win those states.

I said it then, I say it now.

Didnt happen.

Dont know if it will ever be proved, but it did NOT happen.

[Hoyt]

28. I'm sure Burr is a POS, but I still do not believe the actual vote totals were changed, or

people were turned away from voting because of Russian hacking. Some people might have been unable to vote because of voter ID laws, discouraged in states that don't have early voting or voting by mail, etc. But that's a different discussion.

I do believe Comey, racism, bashing of Clinton, and voters sitting out in protest or just because they usually don't vote, had an impact.

Russian ads -- anyone stupid enough to believe that crap was not likely to vote for Clinton.

In the future, we need to do a better job responding to swift boating (fake ads) and getting out the vote. And we need to get more Democrats elected at local level.

I knew very early in the evening we were in trouble, when Kentucky votes came in with a lot less Clinton support than expected. I still remember feeling sick by 8:00 or so Eastern time.

[bearsfootball516]

30. Big thing that's been largely underreported is a lack of polling stations in heavilyDemocratic areas

But more than enough in Republican areas.

If you're Jane Doe and you have to work, pick up your kid from school, bring them home, take them to soccer practice, etc., you may only have a 30 minute window to go vote. If you show up at your polling station and you see the line is out the door and 30 feet down the sidewalk, you have no choice but to just leave.

It's a very sneaky, underhanded way to make sure someone who is completely eligible to vote, still can't.

[Hoyt]

33. I'm sure that is true, as Trump would say for "both sides." In my red state, they have extended

early voting and voting by mail. There is absolutely no excuse for not voting here, yet people do not turn out.

I realize in some states, there is only one day. I do not like that, but it does work against both sides. Many of the white wingers that voted for Trump have the same problems voting as Democrats. Yet, they get to the polls. I think the local Democratic chapters need do a better job to getting people out to vote.

[TheFrenchRazor]

34. you have absolutely no way of knowing that, and i'm not taking it just on faith. nt

[Hoyt]

36. True, and you have no proof the votes were tampered with. If I remember, they recounted the votes

in Wisconsin and Trump ended up with some additional votes. First, I think people over estimate how tough it would be to happen. Second, it probably takes a number of people to do it, and someone would squeal. Third there are always conspiracy theorists in elections. Heck, it's like a boxer who always has an excuse for losing.

If we change to paper ballots, there will be those who claim ballots were lost, miscounted or intentionally falsified. Happened all the time when I was growing up.

I do know, that as soon as the votes started coming in from Kentucky, early in the evening, I felt we were in trouble because Clinton's support was much weaker than expected.

The fact is -- and it's tough for me too -- there are more ignorant, hateful, racist, misogynistic, warmongering white wingers in this country than we want to admit. It's quite sickening really.

[questionseverything]

40. even when ei activists have proof nothing changes

http://www.sweetremedy.tv/fatallyflawed/media/RTA_Fraud_Flyer_3_7_12.pdf

your comments that it would be difficult to steal an election are untrue...you need to read the bradblog info I posted

[Hoyt]

41. With as many voters and voting places, including mail-in, etc., there are always going to be

mistakes made. And, the loser is always going to suspect he/she was cheated. I just don't think it is as easy as we want to believe. Trump didn't win from vote tally changes. He won by getting ignorant, racist, white wingers out to the polls where it mattered.

[saidsimplesimon]

29. Proof the Constitution

needs a new amendment from time to time. We need recourse, other than impeachment controlled by the party in power, to prevent and prosecute those who hack elections.

[NCDem777]

38. Regardless, there will be no impeachment.

And I'll keep saying this.

The GOP will march in lockstep. Any brief moments of morality are fleeting.

Dems need to give up on impeachment pipe dreams. The GOP will never turn on Orange Foolius.