CNN: "Putin is trying to hack the US election. What should the US do?"

[pnwmom]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/23/opinions/elections-hacks-russia-warning-zegart/index.html

FBI Director James Comey has sought to reassure Americans that our decentralized voting system is just too "clunky" for one massive breach to affect the outcome. But sometimes small changes can have big effects. Lyndon Johnson's 1948 Senate victory hinged on a single sketchy precinct where he was popular with dead voters. The 2000 presidential election was decided by just 537 votes in Florida.

In a tight race, cyber bad actors don't need to disrupt everything. They just need to hit a few counties in Pennsylvania or Florida, two big battleground states that use electronic voting but in some precincts do not use verifiable paper audit trails to confirm results.

Pennsylvania and Florida are not alone. Thirteen other states lack paper audit trails in either all or some voting locations. Even when a race isn't tight, nefarious actors do not actually have to throw an election to succeed: Simply casting doubt on the legitimacy of the process in these states could be enough.

Others advocate calling election hacking "acts of war" to deter the Russians. This feels good and sounds tough. But deterrence 101 teaches that if you call something an act of war, you'd better be willing to go to war if it happens.

SNIP

[ColemanMaskell]

1. Yup, in a tight race. SO let's go for a landslide! (get out the vote)

As Florida proved in 2000, it doesn't have to be the Russians.

In a tight race, swing counties in swing states are vulnerable targets for bad actors; and the Republicans have given us no reason to imagine them to be in short supply even without Russian assistance.

So there's only one answer. Don't let it be a tight race. Make sure Dems get out and vote.

[pnwmom]

2. YES!!!