WARNING: This is a long, thoughtful Diary that I have been working on for weeks. It is not a quick BREAKING NEWS post, but I hope you will find it worth your time to read.
As we enter into the 2018 mid-term voting season, we [Progressive Democrats] are riding high on a wave of enthusiasm bolstered by a number of positive signs. Here are just a few:
- Most polls show that Democrats have around a 10 point advantage on the generic ballot, which historically has been the margin needed for Dems. to win a Congressional majority;
- Nate Silver’s (Poblamo’s) 538 House Model now forecasts that Democrats will pick up an average of 39 House seats (we need 23 to take control), with an 84% chance of a Dem. takeover;
- We have seen Democrats either win or come very close to winning purple to deep red Districts in Special Elections since Trump took office;
- Trump’s approval #s have been around 38% to 40%. Presidential #s in this range have historically provided big mid-term wins by the opposing Party (e.g., Bush & Obama had approval #s in the mid 40s in the House flips of 2006 & 2010);
- In Pennsylvania we have undone the Republicans Gerrymandered Congressional map, a move that will likely gain us at least two House seats in that State;
- Democrats have gone through the Primary season and come out pretty unified with little battle scares (although the media has tried to create and overplay Party divisions);
- The DNC has smartly (for once) allowed candidates to run campaigns as they see fit and run on issues that fit their Districts, instead of the old top down DNC campaign management and rigid Democratic Party platform that can hamper some campaigns;
- Independents are with us in larger numbers than ever before, with around 70% favoring Democrats in most polls; and
- We even have some establishment Republicans coming out and urging Republicans to vote for Democrats this Fall. AMAZING!
I could go on and on with this list of positive indicators, all pointing to a Big Blue Wave. Combine this list with the fact that this Fall’s GOTV effort is set to be our biggest and best EVER, and its hard to see a scenario where we wouldn’t take control of the House (maybe the Senate too, but that’s still a steep uphill climb due to the # of Senate seats we are defending). I don’t think it would going too far to say that in a FAIR ELECTION, its almost a guarantee that we take the House this Fall (I’d go as far as giving it a 95% chance at this point).
But will we have a FAIR ELECTION?
That’s the BIG question we all need to ask ourselves, followed up by the question of whether we can assume that it will be FAIR or whether we should prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
I for one, am concerned that our electronic-based registration and voting systems will come under attack this Fall, and whether our very Democracy will survive will depend on what we do as Progressives to try to prevent it before and on election day, and if it happens, what we will do to rectify it afterwards. But, before I get into that, and before you all turn me off as being a tin foil hat crazy, let me present my reasons for why I am so concerned:
1. 2016 Election: First, lets recap what happened and might of happened in the 2016 election. Remember right after the election we were first told by our government that nothing happened in terms of meddling with our actual election systems. While the Russians had messed around with social media, there was no evidence that they tried to interfere with the voting/registration systems. Then we later found out that they did try to hack into voter registration and/or electronic voting systems in 21 States. We were then told (by our government) that there were no successful cyber breaches of election systems (i.e., no successful hacks) in ANY of these 21 States. We then learned that Russian hackers had indeed breached (successfully hacked into) our elections systems in 7 States. But then we were told (by our government) that although these systems were breached, there was no evidence to suggest voting tallies were altered. Of course not! If you were Putin and found out that your people had the ability to change vote tallies in 7 States to help insure Trump (and possibly other Republicans) won, why would you order them to do that? BTW, State election officials in 6 of these 7 States deny the Federal governments report that their systems were breached, despite evidence to the contrary. Either out of pride or they just don’t want the public to question the election results. Then we have circumstantial evidence which shows actual election results which are substantially different than what the exit polls show in several States. Exit polls which had been substantially accurate in previous years we are being asked to believe somehow were wildly off the mark in several key States, all in one direction. All of this is well detailed in this Pennyfarthing Diary.
2. 2018 Election Protection: So what’s our Federal government doing to prevent an escalation of the 2016 Russian election systems tampering in 2018? NOTHING, of course. In fact, a few weeks back, the White House blocked a Bill that would have provided additional funding to the States earmarked to increase cyber protection of our election systems against hacking, as fully described in this Laura Clawson Post. So Trump doesn’t want to make it harder for the Russians to hack our election systems in the upcoming mid-terms. Why would that be? Maybe its because 100% of Russians interventions to date have helped Republican candidates and why, if your Republican, would you want to try to prevent someone from cheating on your behalf.
3. State By State Vulnerability: Now lets look at our voting systems across the country and gauge their vulnerability. VOTING METHODS AND EQUIPMENT BY STATE presents a good picture of voting systems in each State. here is a summary from least to most vulnerable (Caveat — I am not a computer expert, so the ranking below is based on my educated opinion as a layperson):
— 21 States have either mail in or on-site paper ballots. Although in many cases these paper ballots are tallied by computers, such as an optical scan system, they are the least vulnerable since computers are not involved in marking the ballot and in the end there are paper ballots that can be hand counted to confirm or invalidate the computer’s tally (i.e., a non-computer paper trail).
— 14 States an D.C. use Digital Recording Electronic (DRE) systems with a paper trail (Note: In some of these States, some Districts use paper ballots). The DRE systems record the vote electronically and store it in the computer’s memory. They also can print out each recorded ballot for use in a recount. While these systems do have a paper trail, that trail is dependent on how the computer recorded the vote. For instance, if the computer was tampered with so that every 5th vote was for Candidate “A” even if the voter pushed Candidate “B”s button, the paper print out would still show the vote was for Candidate “A”. So I would rank these DRE systems as being moderately vulnerable.
— 15 States use Digital Recording Electronic (DRE) systems without a paper trail (Note — In some of these States, some Districts use paper ballots). These systems are highly vulnerable to successful tampering since there is no paper to verify the computer’s tally. So a recount can be meaningless since you will only get a “carbon copy” of the original tally. There is no real verifiable way to check whether the computer’s output matches the actual vote.
So lets look at some of these 15 States with DRE systems and no paper. They include Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas. Besides all being States with DRE no paper systems, these 6 States all have a number of close Senate, House and/or Governor races this year and they all have their elections run by Republican Secretaries of State (SoS). Setting aside Russian/Republican conspiracy theories for a moment, what would motivate a Republican SoS to aggressively investigate the possibility of Russian tampering with their voting/registration systems in which the outcome favors the Republicans? Just saying its easy to look the other way when there is now way to invalidate the result.
4. A 5th Grader Can Do It: Recently its been revealed that some systems are so easy to tamper with, a child can do it. Now I am not talking about the voting machines themselves and changing the actual tallies. I’m talking about the internet websites used by government and the media to put out election results. These systems, like anything put out on the web, are highly vulnerable to being hacked. Case in point is this recent article entitled: “Kids at hacking conference show how easily US elections could be sabotaged.”
It focuses on a recent Hackers Conference where wiz kids were allowed to try to hack into facsimile government election websites.
“Armed with facsimiles of the websites of 13 battleground states and a child-friendly guide to basic hacking techniques, the kids were set loose on critical infrastructure – and proceeded to tear it apart.
“It took an 11-year-old girl 10 minutes to do it,” Braun says, “and she was the first one.” After that, the convention cycled to a new state’s website every 30 minutes, and another child would break it in less than a quarter-hour, over and over. At the point I arrived in the room, the website for the state of Colorado was being projected on the wall, declaring that the candidate for the “Comnnunism” party, Kim Jong-un, had won the state’s election with one quadrillion votes. (The runner-up, the rapper Lil Pump, apparently standing for the Democratic party, had just under 46m votes.)”
And yes, the Russians have done this before.
““We know that Russia has done this before,” Braun says. “They did it in the Ukraine, where they hacked Ukrainian election results on the government website. Fortunately, the Ukrainians caught it and shut the website down. But then the Russians announced that their candidate had won on RT, when he hadn’t.” Disarray ensued, and the Russian press had a foothold from which to begin spreading the allegation that the winner of the election wasn’t legitimate.”
Now take the inherent chaos of mid-term election night with 435 House seats, 33 Senate seats all in play at the same time, with hacked government/media websites putting out phony results in multiple races. Yes, the errors might be uncovered later, but in the meantime the whole election is thrown into disarray, and doubt among the electorate as to who actually won. Such doubt could lead to anger, and maybe even violence. But it also could lead to legal challenges and there is no guarantee that the Courts will get it right or be un-biased (e.g., Bush v. Gore, where it was later discerned by media recounts of Florida ballots that Gore had actually won the State).
5. Manning the Polls: Now look at who runs the actual voting systems at the polling places. I am talking about the people who look through the voter registration rolls to determine if you are eligible to vote, who give instructions on how to vote, who tally up the votes for the District at the end of the day and transfer the results to the County/State election officials, and whose responsibility it is to secure the ballots and/or machines. Because the job of manning the polls is a one day employment gig in the middle of the week that pays very little, it is manned by mainly old, retired people, at least that’s how it is in my District and I’m sure in yours too. Now I’m not trying to have it sound like I’m bashing elderly folk, especially since I am one. But the fact of the matter is these folks started out using our old pre-2000 paper/mechanical voting systems. Then in the vast majority of States they had new computerized systems thrust upon them with little training. All of these folks grew up before the computer era and few have computers at home or any familiarity with them at all. In my District I’ve stuck around to watch them tally the vote and secure the ballots/machines. They almost always run into problems, they start reading the instructions and have to call the County officials for help. Its almost as scary as watching a bunch of 5th graders trying to figure out how a NASA computer works minutes before launch. After all it is an election where the fate of our Country is on the line.
Also, they are not big on security. I’ve seen “County Officials” who they don’t know, come in and help them when problems occurred with the computer systems and never get asked for ID. This person could be anyone, they don’t know, and they are allowing them to fiddle with the election software.
The point I’m making is that there is no way these folks are going to detect tampering with the computerized registration rolls or voting systems. And since many State election laws make recounts and elections audits very difficult to get done, especially when the winner’s Party controls the State Election Boards, there is little chance that such tampering will be discovered post-election.
6. Close Races: We have all been inundated with talk of a “Blue Wave” with pundits relying on various polling indicators such as the generic ballot and similarities to past blue waves (e.g., 2006). They have all predicted a Democratic take over of the House as all but inevitable. But when one looks at polling of the individual races in the House and Senate, there are a large numbers of “close races” which I will define as being + or — 4 percentage points, basically within the Margin of Error (MoE) of most polls.
Taking look at the House races, 538's House Polling shows 48 races that are either lean D, Lean R or toss ups, all within + or — 4%. Of these 48 races, 20 Lean R, 8 are toss ups and 20 lean D. 538 predicts 208 races as either Solid or Likely D. If we add in the 20 Lean D races, that gives us a total of 228 seats, 10 over the 218 seats needed for a controlling majority in the House. But many of those “Lean D” races are tight, all polling within MoE. If we look at another source, the NY Times has polled a total of 58 House races as of the date of this writing. Of these 58 races, only 16 races show the Dem. winning outside the MoE of around 5.0%.
The point is that the closeness of the races needed to take control of the House provides cover to election tampering. Having a majority of races that are within the polling MoE go to the Republicans will dampen most folks suspicion of vote tampering.
If we look at the Senate, the situation is even worse, with enough close races that already are Lean R to make any suspicion of vote tampering non-existent, especially since all polling indicators predict that Republicans are likely to retain control of the Senate. Tampering with the votes in a couple of Republican States will ensure Republican control of the Senate with no questions asked.
7. Motive: If one looks at Trump, the Republicans and the Russian government, all three have substantial motives to tamper with our mid-term election.
Starting in reverse order, Putin and his Russian friends have every incentive to help the Republicans. First, the fact is that some Republicans have been “Russia Friendly” in comparison to almost all Democrats who have been hostile to Putin’s government. Keeping the Republicans in power might not lift all the sanctions imposed on Russia, but it sure is better then what will happen to Putin and his Oligarch friends if Democrats take control (e.g., further harsher sanctions, seizure of Oligarch assets and possibly even rendition to face charges in the US). However, the main Russian motivators are the disruption and division such tampering causes within our country. They know that blowing up our electoral system so we start to question who actually won is the best way to take down a democracy. But more importantly they know that helping far right candidates sows division withing our nation, using the old method of “divide and conquer” only with ballots not bullets.
With respect to the Republicans, they are either directly colluding with the Russians if you’re a conspiracy believer, or simply turning a blind eye to the help they are getting from Russia. At best, they have no incentive to investigate and uncover tampering that keeps them in power. Why would they bite the hand that feeds them.
Lastly, there’s Trump and his Crime Family. They have the most to lose from a Democratic takeover of Congress. A Democratic Congress not only threatens Trump’s Presidency, but his Family’s fortune and maybe even their freedom. Trump has every incentive to help the Russians tamper with this election, or at least stifle Federal investigations into Russian tampering to help them get away with it. His and his family’s whole future depends on stopping the Democrats at all cost. If Trump feels like a cornered animal (which he probably does) and that he has nothing to lose by thwarting a Dem. Congress by any means necessary legal or illegal, he will go there. Nothing is worse for him than a Democratically controlled House.
8. Personal Anxiety: Part of me looks at the majority of the polling which shows that our side is a cinch to take the House and that its all but inevitable. But another part of me remembers that I felt the same level of high confidence in 2016 when almost all signs pointed to a Clinton Presidency, and we all know how that turned out. Now I see some polls trending towards the Republicans, while most still show a widen Democratic lead (most recently +13 points on the generic ballot for what that’s worth). But what has me the most anxious is the Republican propaganda of a Republican bounce from the Kavanaugh confirmation and the claim that their voters are becoming more motivated. Whether true or not, it provides cover for tampering. Even if the vast majority of the polls point to a blue wave, Republicans can point to a minority of indicators that show a closing gap in order dissuade suspicion away from a rigged outcome.
Case-in-Point, here’s an October 14 House prediction from CNN:
“House forecast: Democrats will win 229 seats (and the House majority) while Republicans will win just 206 seats. A Democratic win of 205 seats and 262 seats is within the margin of error.”
Polling like this with such a large MoE plays right into Republicans hands.
So now that you have read my reasons for concern, what do we do about it?
There are things we can do before, during and after election day.
Before election day we can GOTV like hell! Election tampering relies on close races to conceal the crime. If you can get our side to turn out in droves, you can either prevent the tampering from succeeding by overwhelming the #s of changed votes and/or cancelled registrations, or at least make the outcome close enough to require audits and/or hand recounts of paper ballots. Also, if you work in the election division of a Secretary of State’s office or for a County Election Board, you can keep your eyes and ears open with respect to how voting machines and electronic registrations are programmed/handled and blow the whistle if something doesn’t smell right. In addition, we can encourage voters to check their registrations in advance to uncover any widespread problems/purges of voter registrations before election day, and if so, act on them to correct the registrations before it becomes a major problem on election day.
On election day, man the polls if you can, especially at the of the day when each district tallies the votes. Watch for large numbers of voters being disenfranchised by registration problems and make sure they cast Provisional ballots. Keep an eye on voting machines and watch for breakdowns or anything that seems out of the ordinary. Watch poll workers tally the vote from the machines at the end of the day and look to see if they are having problems or appear confused, and if there are paper ballots, watch how they are handled. All of this holds doubly true if you work for the County Board of Elections or for the Secretary of State’s election division. RECORD AND REPORT ANYTHING UNUSUAL! Also, most importantly, we need to check actual vote tallies against exit polling and record/report any significant discrepancies. Voters will not lie to exit pollsters in substantial numbers. If they don’t won’t you to know who they actually voted for, most will simply tell exit pollsters that they prefer not to say. In addition, look for unusual results within the tallies themselves. For instance, if a Democrat running for a State or local seat wins by a big margin in a District, yet the vote in that District shows the House/Senate seat going to the Republican, something is fishy, especially where there is no candidate favor-ability involved.
After election day, “Send Lawyers, (not guns) and Money”. Its more important than ever that in this election cycle that we call for recounts and make legal challenges wherever the law allows. All close races need to be recounted and/or legal challenged, especially if discrepancies are identified and especially if the House or Senate hang in the balance. Demand hand recounts of paper ballots where possible and audits of voting equipment. Any evidence of tampering must be uncovered and publicly disclosed. We need to be legally aggressive despite what the Republicans (and possibly the MSM) say or do against our efforts. Democracy based on FAIR ELECTIONS is just too important!
Let me end with this. I am an optimist, so I don’t think there is a good chance of tampering to the scale needed for Dems. to fail to take the House (Senate is another story because it sits on a knife’s edge). But I’m also a realist, and I remember how sure I was going into 2016 that there was no way Trump could win. I also remember how angry I felt when voting discrepancies were identified in key States where Trump’s margins were slim (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida) and we either didn’t do enough to challenge them or were shut down by partisan courts. I remember at that time the public wasn’t as aware of Russian meddling (Thanks to Mitch McConnell) as we are today. So I hope, now that we are more aware of Russian meddling and how it is real possibility, we as Democrats will not just lie down and accept a result that allows the Republicans to keep control of both the House and Senate.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading, and I hope and pray I’m wrong for the sake of our democracy!
Friday, Oct 19, 2018 · 12:03:35 PM +00:00
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Doctor Who
UPDATE: Thank You to whomever put my diary into the Community Spotlight. And Thank You for all the Kudos and thank yous in the comments. I am truly humbled.
I will leave you with one last thought. With all the polls and early voting numbers vastly in our favor, if we don’t take back the House on November 6, something very fishy has happened and we can’t just sit on our couch and say we will get’em next time.