- How many other hackers got into election machines?
- How many machines were compromised?
- How did this affect the election results?
Republican senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain have been pushing for a full investigation of the Russian hacking. They want to ensure it doesn’t happen again. In January, Graham added that the hacking didn’t affect the results of the 2016 election and that Trump won legitimately. Why would he make that statement? How would he know? And why would the two lawmakers press for an investigation to prevent future foreign interference — if the 2016 election hacking was innocuous? Their motives are contradictory. Could it be the Russian hacking has greatly benefited the Republican Party? Why attenuate something that’s working well for them? They have what appears to be an idiot puppet president who is rightfully blamed for his bogus Executive Orders and all of his daily chaos, while the GOP pushes their own agenda in overturning Obamacare/Affordable Care Act, working to defund Planned Parenthood and pushing a profit-bearing and preposterous bill terminating the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The parties that would benefit would be environmental aggravators and pipeline builders like the Koch Brothers and their ilk.
In December, another story cited two election experts who were calling for an election audit saying, “There’s cause for concern.” UC Berkeley statistician Phillip Stark and MIT professor and cryptographer Ron Rivest called for an audit to double-check and ensure hackers didn’t manipulate our American election results. They state:
“There are reasons for concern. According to the director of national intelligence, the leaked emails from the DNC were “intended to interfere with the U.S. election process.” The director of national intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Security Agency concluded that the Russian government is behind the DNC email hack and that Russian hackers attacked U.S. voter registration databases.”
Bruce Schneier is a security technologist and a lecturer at Harvard University. He wrote an apprehensive piece in The Washington Post back in July of 2016.
“Over the years, more and more states have moved to electronic voting machines and have flirted with Internet voting. These systems are insecure and vulnerable to attack. But while computer security experts like me have sounded the alarm for many years, states have largely ignored the threat, and the machine manufacturers have thrown up enough obfuscating babble that election officials are largely mollified.”
Of course, voting machine manufacturers want the public to believe their products are infallible. Imagine the financial hit they would take if machines were proven to be easily corrupted.
On November 8, 2016, as Election Day results began cascading in, most of the country and many around the world were stunned into disbelief as we watched the numbers show in favor of Donald Trump. Throughout his campaign, even many Republicans saw him as a pompous, hate-mongering idiot —.
Going into Election Day, the New York Times polls showed Hillary Clinton winning at 90% and Trump 15% chance. From the very moment Trump was declared winner, one would think every major media outlet and government agency would have begun questioning and investigating. Some did — most did not perhaps out of shock, or perhaps the got distracted by the blame games.
We’ve had reporters and election experts doing their jobs, when few would listen. Via Buzzfeed, the Russian agent and Cambridge graduate Christopher Steele, who’s now running for his life, presented a 35-page dossier stating “the Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting Trump for at least five years” — all endorsed by Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation. Major news outlets and pundits like Chuck Todd, Andrea Mitchell and even Anderson Cooper balked at Buzzfeed and Steele’s dossier and referred to it as unsubstantiated/fake news not worth talking about.
Now, almost a month after Trump was sworn in, his appointed National Security Advisor Michael Flynn resigns due to contact with Russian officials to illegally undermine current Russian sanction policies. The allegations of Russian connections have been denied again and again by Trump and his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway who said the Trump campaign “absolutely did not have contact with Russian intelligence.” On Tuesday, that statement was refuted by The New York Times — the same media giant Trump has been trying to discredit with Twitter rants by calling NYT ‘failing” and “fake.” The displacing is almost comical if he wasn’t so dangerous.
It’s now imperative that the press and government agencies review reports, evidence and denials of election fraud/hacking that occurred during the 2016 election year. If the votes of millions of American citizens were compromised due to foreign interference and deception, then impeachment is only one step towards resolution. A president can be impeached and remain in office. We need investigations, resignations, hearings, and a commitment to severely penalize those who’ve had knowledge, were complicit and/or tried to cover up election fraud.
When it’s proven that Donald Trump won the election through corruption and treason, the office of the presidency must not go to Mike Pence, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell or any Republican by default. It goes to the Democratic nominee — the woman who won the popular vote. The office belongs to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
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