And it hardly i makes news. Not a chance the announcement to withdraw America from the Iran agreement came the same day.
1
'Preparing to undermine confidence'.... sounds like capital punishment is in order here.
The propaganda machinery that overplayed this activity in order to bring down a duly-elected president seems more of a threat to our democracy that such internet dabblings from Russia, China, or whoever.
1
This is an act of aggression and international terrorism. It threatens our democracy. Trump needs to tell his buddy Putin that this will be viewed as an act of war against the US.
1
We probably wouldn't know any of this except for the courage of Reality Winner, a young NSA contractor who leaked this information. She was arrested in June, 2017. She has been rotting in a county jail in Georgia now for almost a year with a trial not scheduled until October, 2018.
Reality should have been released on bond instead of being held incognito all this time. Clearly, someone was deathly afraid of what she might tell the press.
We should demand justice for Reality, and listen to what she has to say
4
We used to be the guys who are the experts on hacking. Norton antivirus, McAfee AV, etc. I saw it all on Halt and Catch Fire.
We’re the guys who broke into other countries computers and reeked havoc. Used to. Not anymore.
Now it seems the cyberwarfare experts are Ukrainians, Russians, and everybody but the “good guys” in hackersRus of the United States of America.
And it’s amusing how we can’t do a darn thing about it. Not amusing but amazing.
2
Tired? How about suceeded.
1
You don't change voting machine tallies. What you try to do is change people's minds about the nominees through lies and misinformation. We now know that was done.
1
More news on the Russians hacking into voting systems. This is in addition to reports of hacking into the power grid, government agencies, and defense contractors.
When will someone realize that we need to get these things off the internet and on to a secure intranet that Russia and others can't access?
2
I see....
Russian hackers were sophisticated enough to hack into at least 21 state's voter systems... And now, we the voters, are asked to believe these hackers couldn't be sophisticated enough to cover a few thousand vote alterations?
When you look at the miniscule margins of victory in the three states that made the difference... The three states where all polls leading up to the election showed Trump would lose... The three states where all exit polls showed Trump had, in fact, lost...
Then surprise!
We The People shouldn't accept these findings for a second...
To safeguard our democracy, all national elections should return to hand counted paper ballots - followed by random sample auditing where suspicious election "surprises" exist.
6
If you can deregister those that you think will vote for someone you want to lose, isn't that similar to changing their vote later?
In the bigger picture, privatizing our election machines is insane. Slot machines are heavily regulated, and have special chips that are assisted by the FBI.
Sounding our elections be at least as secure as slot machines.
And every vote should be printed on a piece out paper that the voter can see, but not take, so they can be semi sure the machine counted their for correctly.
And those paper records should be used for recounts.
3
If Russia can figure out how to change the results of our elections maybe our NSA can as well, that way they could go in retroactively and change the outcome to what it should be.
1
"But the committee said it saw no evidence that the Russians had ultimately changed vote tallies...."
First, "changing vote tallies" implies actually altering a counted result. That was never the Russian intention. What they did do, and that is documented by all investigations, was make concerted, long-term efforts to provide fake news to fire up one side while trying to make the other side believe their vote either was not needed or did not matter. I find it appallingly disingenuous at the least to claim that the Russian activity did not ultimately effect the vote. Psychology 101 tells you it must have by increasing the likelihood one side would get out the vote and other would not. All it took was concentrated effort in three states.
2
Not all states have been forthcoming about attacks on their systems. Any of those states ignoring or taking advantage of any knowledge that Russia:
1. Is/was "in a position to, at a minimum, alter or delete voter registration data"
2. can/will exploit states with "continuing vulnerabilities of those systems"
3. "breached election computer defenses" in their state
4. can/will/or has exploited "The three largest vendors of voting equipment dominate the industry" and "are largely unregulated."
Are willfully complicit in compromising the integrity of our elections. I hope Mueller knows more than the Senate Intelligence Committee about how far the Russians got into our systems.
2
Old fashioned paper ballots counted by hand, at least for federal elections and state-wide office. Manual voter registration lists or onsite registration. Handstamps to prevent double voting. Sometimes the way forward is to go back.
Too many Republicans, it seems, are OK with the voting system being compromised so long as the results go in their favor.
The House Intel. Comm. didn't report the same problems that this Senate Comm. found, even though they share a lot of info with each other and FBI. Either the House Comm. can't see the obvious, or they didn't want to.
Gerrymandering is largely a Republican tool. Despite the denials, they wouldn't be doing it if they didn't believe it was working.
They still say the Electoral College is a good thing to keep, even though recent 2 Presidents have been elected by the EC despite the opponent having more popular votes. The original purpose of EC was just to keep an unfit person from being Pres, which they failed to do.
They believe in the right to vote, but only sort of.
Beyond voting issues:
Many still rally around Trump, despite the large body of evidence that he and his people have done major wrongs, and that FBI must have found a lot more than the public knows yet, including very likely collusion with Russia.
GOP portrays itself as the more patriotic party, stronger on law and order, and more willing to stand up to enemies including Russia. If a Democratic President did everything Trump et al have done, they'd scream.
This same GOP claims to be fiscally responsible, then did the national debt blow-up in December.
Hi time for GOP to rethink what they claim to believe, vs what they actually do, and try to get the two more aligned.
1
In my county, only 23.9% of people voted last night.
Trump and the GOP seem to be banking on very low turnout for the mid-terms. People are indeed frustrated by the voting system when we learn of incidences like this.
Bottom line however? The Trump Administration has done NOTHING to combat them.
1
This issue should be the Trump administration's top priority. But we have a narcissist as our president, who is worried that he may not have been legitimately elected and doesn't want to know about it.
Either that or he DOES know about it.
3
So they hacked in but didn't change the election results or anything. Maybe they tried and failed or maybe they were waiting to see if Trump lost. Remember Trump saying that the election was rigged? It's easy to imagine that if Trump lost that the hackers would have followed through, in order to show "rigging" and to cast doubt on the election results. Since Trump won, they didn't need to. That's my takeaway. It may be a stretch but it fits in with my belief, supported by lots of other evidence, that Trump was colluding with Russia.
3
There are a lot of legitimate reasons not to be confident in our voting systems. Experts have demonstrated the ease with which tabulation machines can be hacked. You have schemes like Crosscheck which deregister eligible voters and the elimination of polling stations in areas with high concentrations of likely Democratic voters. Russia may be exploiting these vulnerabilities for their own ends, but that doesn't invalidate the concerns about them.
4
Why are we still trying to figure out where, why and how the Russians interfered with our election?
Where is the intense national defense effort that this invasion demands?
Donald Trump's fragile ego is no excuse to show walk this.
2
hackers mucking about with voter registration? I doubt it. But the Republican Party did not allow, fought hard, against a recount in Michigan. The ballots are paper,, but the ballots are read by a scanning machine. And the program for that machine is received in a single disc a few days before the elections.
There are tests before the elections. But there were zero tests after the elections,,, and if Volkswagen diesels taught us anything,, it is easy for a machine to exhibit a different character and result.
To the best of my knowledge,, and i tried,,, there were no double checks of the system after the elections,, comparing paper ballots with machine counts. The Republican Party forbade that.
One man,, or one hacker could alter the program for millions of votes.
80,000 voters in Michigan cast no vote for President. That number statistically, smells to high heaven. Personally, I think that number represents the number of Democrat straight party votes. That were not counted.
2
The slow, slow drip.
At this point do any reasonable, fact-based folks NOT think the 2016 election was not rigged exactly like "Trump" told us it would be? Of course it was. That's why Rudy was all bubbly just prior to the election 'a pretty big surprise' - it wasn't about the HRC emails, but rather it was this: "Trump" would "win" regardless of actual votes cast. That's what he was giddy about.
Always remember those congress folk coming out from the behind-doors, secret briefing right after the election with their faces blanched their eyes agog. They were told. They know. But it's confidential so they can't tell us even to this day.
It was stolen. This is an illegitimate and intensely criminal "administration".
2
I am equally, or perhaps MORE concerned about how the electronic voting system can be manipulated INTERNALLY. Diebold, the largest actor in the industry, is a major donor to the GOP and has been indicted as far back as 2004, for criminal conduct.
Of course, given who benefits from their actions, I wouldn't expect a Senate committee to be too concerned.
We REALLY need to go back to paper ballots, with random spot recounts, done under the supervision of election monitors. Membership in the monitoring teams should be random and required, like being summoned to jury duty.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/03/diebolds-political-machine/
https://columbusfreepress.com/article/diebold-indicted-its-spectre-still...
1
It appears that most agree that votes were not changed. The Russians are not stupid. Any atempt to change a vote tally would be discovered and fthe fingerprints would leave a trace. What is more obvious is the atempt to create distrust in the voting. I am convinced there will be no evidence of change of any vote. All attempts to harden the voting machines are good but are not looking at the real problem. What the Russians did was used psychological methods to cause distrust or question if voting is rigged. It did not help to have one candidate claiming vote rigging and illegals voting.
All attepts to find a 'hard' cause will fail. It will be very difficult to convince people that they were manipulated by 'propaganda.' We believe (falsely) we are too smart to fall for such things when in fact that is what happened.
2
Nationwide we need to go back to analog. The electronic voting machines have been shown to be hackable; they need to go.
Back to everything from the old mechanical voting machines, paper ballots, and, like we have here in Oregon, mailed or dropped off in locked and secured ballot drop off boxes. In my state we get our paper ballots a month ahead of time which is wonderful. Love our system, and we have paper ballots for counting.
Voter roll systems need to be secured and hardened. Don't know how feasible it would be to go back to having the lists kept in localities in books, but if the electronic voter roll servers cannot be secured and frequently audited, that's the way to go.
Yes, vote results will take longer than they do currently, but security of our voting system has to take precedence.
And, while we are doing that, we need to get rid of all the rules and laws that disenfranchise people.
2
Confidence in American "voting systems" is all ready at a all time low, whatever Russia did or could do makes little difference! When you go to vote in California (home of 4 million illegal immigrants) and a person who can barely speak English refuses to look at your ID, tells you its not required, and they can't read well enough to find you name on the rolls. Then you know that ANYONE could go in and vote in your place. Without a check of citizen ID requirement to vote our most sacred right is debased and violated. But then our political class has for decades defied the majority will by maintaining high immigration quotas, refusing to enforce immigration laws and shipping millions of jobs to China and Mexico and accusing anyone of racism who dared to question this in order to justify their treasons. So really how much more damage could anyone to include the Russians do the public's confidence in our political class and our rigged for the 1% political system? And what ever trivial nonsense the Russians are doing its actually a big, big strategic mistake. By high-lighting the run by our 1% corruption in the American political system and so hastening an American revolt against our corrupt leaders they are actually strengthening the USA.
2
The alteration of voter registration data may well have caused thousands to be prevented from voting under Republican voter suppression legislation. Keep in mind the total number of votes across three key states that gave Trump the Electoral College was less than 80,000 out of nearly 130 million votes cast nationwide. The Senate Committee findings about Russian hacking are limited in scope. Russian hacking was one of several deciding factors that gave the GOP the razor thin margin they knew they needed in the Electoral College. This was not by chance.
7
After the House Intelligence Committee became Trump's shield, determined to protect him from accountability , I have no trust that the Senate counterpart is able to produce anything of value. I'll wait and see what Mueller has to say
3
Well, if those that do vote continue to elect Republicans, my confidence in our country and my countrymen will be undermined. The system used to elect them (Electoral College, rampant gerrymandering, obvious illegalities and corruption going unpunished) does seem to be a part of the problem. How else to explain Democrats winning substantial majorities of the raw and popular votes, but ending up in the deep minority representationally?
6
Hmmm. The House's report didn't mention any of this. It just went on and on about Trump and the lack of collusion. Can we therefore assume that Republicans in the House do not care that a foreign power used a variety of illegal means to try to undermine our voting systems? I think so.
27
The fact that the NRA and Devin Nunes are recipients of Russian monies makes me wonder how many more Republican entities and members of Congress are taking money from the Russians, and colluding with them to destroy our election system.
It is looking less and less like a coincidence that Republican-sponsored gerrymandering, voter ID laws, the closing or sudden moving of polling places, the refusal to use backup paper ballots, and the lack of oversight of the three companies that manufacture voting machines are dovetailing with Russian efforts to undermine confidence in the voting system and driving people like cattle toward the authoritarian who claims that "I alone can fix it," while at the same time appealing to hard-right-wing paranoia over guns, immigrants, and liberals. It sounds too much like what has been happening in Russia since Putin took over.
24
Nothing can undermine our elections as well as the "election"of Trump.
4
That's right, the Electoral College has done more to undermine democracy than the Russians from what I can tell. But there may be more . . . .
This is the third article I've read in the NYTimes on this topic. The conclusion within the article is always the same - no votes were changed or impacted. But the title always implies the opposite. What's up NYTimes?
6
There's a big difference between "no votes were *changed*" versus "no votes were *impacted*."
Even if a hacker didn't get in and change voting records, it's already been established that Russia did successfully hijack advertising and social media to sway voters' opinions.
Of course there's no way of knowing for sure (or mathematically extrapolating) exactly how many people who voted "against" Hillary Clinton would have voted for her if it weren't for the Russian anti-Hillary lies and propaganda. And of course there's no way of knowing for sure (or mathematically extrapolating) exactly how many people who voted for Trump did so because they believed the Russian lies and propaganda about Black Lives Matter, Muslims, Mexicans, etc. And most importantly, the hack of the DNC computers and the Wikileaks exposures most certainly took away critical votes from Clinton.
Thus, it's wrong to claim that because no "votes" were mechanically or electronically changed by Russia that therefore their interference didn't change the outcome of the election. It's probable that there's no individual strand of Russia's tactics that can be traced as the singular smoking gun that changed the election.
But that misses the point. It's clear that the Russian strategy as a whole DID work (even better than Russia expected it to!), i.e. not only did they weaken Clinton and sow discord in our country (which was their original goal), but they actually got Trump elected (which they hadn't expected).
I've noticed Conservatives really love the phrase "no vote tallies were changed." I assume this is because they don't understand enough of what's going on to comprehend that changing vote tallies is not the only way of interfering with elections, but I freely admit it's also possible they simply don't care and are just trying to distract people from their clearly anti-American support of foreign interests manipulating US elections.
14
Seriously, did the Russians pay the democrats to portray the election as rigged? Democrats were clearly useful idiots in the Russians' scheme.
2
I have always wondered why, during the run up to the election, Trump repeatedly claimed the election was rigged.
there is no way, ever, in any universe that the gop would report otherwise. unless, of course, a dem had won. but even then, the risk of pandemonium would cause many to question the strategy for doing so. and the dems know as well, that such accusations, (even with concrete evidence, which carries no weight for much of the gop) would unleash partisan warfare at a dangerously destructive level.
(as if it's not already happening)
at this point in the administration, it would be political suicide to follow such a path.
yet, I believe in all certainty, that the electoral system was compromised and manipulated in a manner that succeeded in changing the results. wether or not actual votes were changed is less likely because of the success of the other campaigns .
4
The Russian hacking group's mischief went beyond our election systems. Posing as ISIS to threaten our military families was a new one to me:
"Russians posed as ISIS hackers, threatened US military wives --
Ricketts was one of five military wives who received death threats from the self-styled CyberCaliphate on the morning of Feb. 10, 2015. The warnings led to days of anguished media coverage of Islamic State militants' online reach.
Except it wasn't IS.
The Associated Press has found evidence that the women were targeted not by jihadists but by the same Russian hacking group that intervened in the American election and exposed the emails of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta."
https://www.stripes.com/news/us/russians-posed-as-isis-hackers-threatene...
4
Even though the evidence clearly indicates that the Trump campaign had ties with the Russians the POTUS seems to be in total denial. Also Trump’s “bromance”with Putin has never been adequately explained.
5
You-- the NYTimes, are on the wrong side-- Read Bret Stephens today. Be ashamed.
1
Did read Bret Stephens today. And my question to you - was the U.S. better off yesterday when Iran gave up their enriched material, shut down their centrifuges, and allowed on site inspections? Or is the U.S.better off today with no agreement in place? Simple question tells you all you need to know.
Frankly, I do not trust any Senate Intelligence Committee period. Especially one with the majority being Republicans, who are only out for their own agenda which trump provided. Why would they care HOW he won the election??? As long as you have Nunes and his ilk sitting there, trust is out the window
11
Beyond paper back up paper ballots, the simplest approach by far seems the Washington and Oregon "vote by mail" system. More and more states are going to this on a de-facto basis with "permanent absentee ballot" options, but why not take precinct voting machines and election day lines totally out of the equation? Republicans will scream "voter fraud", but in the post-modern world cyber hacking has much more fraud potential than ballot box stuffing or sham voters. Plus, the real problem in our system is low voter participation. Vote by mail, I think, works to address this as well.
6
"But the committee said it saw no evidence that the Russians had ultimately changed vote tallies or voter registration information."
June 21, 2017 the Senate Intelligence Committee held hearings on election infrastructure security. J. Alex Halderman testified. He is the Director at UM Center for Computer Security & Society. His team was hired by District of Columbia in 2010 to hack their election system. DC monitored their activity. Within 48 hours Halderman's team changed every vote. THEY WERE UNDETECTED.
These vulnerabilities have been identified repeatedly by numerous computer science sources. I am not convinced that our systems are secure from intrusions by enemies foreign or domestic.
I am not convinced that 2016 was a fair or reliable election. Mandatory election audits are considered best practice by experts. The US elections do not have such protections.
After seeing what happened here in 2016 other countries used paper ballots. Unless and until our systems are secured and protected by mandatory audits we do not have a democracy.
16
"The Senate Intelligence Committee...said it found no evidence that vote tallies were changed." Yes, they would say that; my confidence is completely restored.
6
If EVERY ATM machine can give you a recepit, and keep a record of EVERY transaction, so can a voting machine.
Diebold makes both, BUT for some strange reason, the voting machines can't.
6
Well, no wonder that guy kept saying the elections were rigged!
Insider information...
4
Russia is hardly the only one to inspire lack of confidence. Every time I get the error message on this page that an error has to occur and has to be reloaded, requiring me to login all over again, my confidence hardly soars and my patience grows very thin. With the news as it is anyway, why am I punishing myself trying to read things over the internet to begin with? Ninety nine percent of my email is junk, so what would I really be missing if it were gone?
How foolish can Liberals be, to think that the 2018 election will somehow be free and fair, when the 2016 election was already rigged! They deserve the autocracy into which they are sinking.
#calexit - decent people deserve better.
1
Altering or deleting voter registration data most certainly could have affected the vote.
5
"But the committee said it saw no evidence that the Russians ultimately changed vote tallies..." How would they know? What specific measures did they use to reach that conclusion?
9
I've been doing research for a living for decades. When I tell a client I didn't find so-and-so, it emphatically does not mean so-and-so doesn't exist. It only means that given my search skills, I didn't find it.
1
Saying that they did not see evidence of vote changing is not the same as saying vote changing did not occur.
Easy: paper ballots.
Sorry Diebold... democracy is too sacred to have “proprietary code” at the heart of it.
3
What a joke, We didn't need Russians to undermine our confidence in our voting systems any more that we needed them to divide us.
"In a few states, however, Russian hackers were “in a position to, at a minimum, alter or delete voter registration data...”
Yet the Congress ignores this attack on our Democracy.
Congress is ignoring an attack on our Democracy. Not surprising considering the GOP's reluctance to challenge Putin, but let that sink in for a few moments.
Run for office, register people to vote then take back our country!
6
These unfounded claims of Republican-controlled U.S Senate from Republican leaders, Mr. Burr for example, is a total lie and deception, misleading the American people. Russian did in fact hacked and chnaged votes in the Voting machine through modem and Radio signala as reported by a Harvard Computer scientist as you read the report of NY Times by Kim Zetter in February 2018. What a pathetic outright lie of the Conservatives- Republicans.
2
Due to Russian success in interfering without consequences in the 2016 American Presidential campaign and elections,Russia will be back much more effective and damaging to American voting in campaigns and elections in 2018 and beyond, Thanks to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin helping Donald John Trump hide his income tax returns and business records from the American people we cannot see what most motivates Trump.
1
One thing is clear: it is very easy to manipulate the electoral college system. Of course the Russians and possibly others can see the drawbacks in this peculiar voting arrangement. Individual voters cannot be sure their votes will even be cast for the candidate of their choice depending on the state in which they live. The electoral college should be eliminated at once. Small states already have the advantage of two senators from each state no matter how large or small the population. Add fake news to the mix and it becomes the proverbial piece of cake to change the "people's choice" on election day as the 2016 election proved by about 3,000,000 votes. Think about it.
3
Last summer (2017) J. Alex Halderman, a skilled computer science professor at Michigan University, testified before Congress that he and his team began studying "direct-recording electronic" (DRE) voting machines 10 years ago and found that "we could reprogram the machine to invisibly cause any candidate to win. We also created malicious software — vote-stealing code — that could spread from machine-to-machine like a computer virus, and silently change the election outcome."
As a computer science professor, Halderman has not only run academic trials on hacking voting machines, he has also run real-time examples.
"The one instance when I was invited to hack a real voting system while people were watching was in Washington D.C in 2010, and in that instance it took less than 48 hours for us to change all the votes and we were not caught," Halderman said about the experiment.
Keep in mind this experiment was in 2010. Many voting machines' software are no longer supported by their manufacturer. Plus, another six years had passed by the time the 2016 election took place. Imagine the advances in hacking techniques that occurred during those six years. Especially by foreign state backed hackers like the Russians.
This year paper ballots should be printed and used in every state to ensure votes are counted as cast and not hacked to alter the outcome of the election.
3
There's only two words needed to sum up the republican party's response to the Russian hacking:
Voter Fraud
How can any sane person vote republican?
4
This "nothing" is precisely what is done when someone plants a computer virus into an intranet system. The "nothing" isn't "nothing" when the virus actually runs, but it if properly programed, it will show up as "nothing."
Paper ballots in all these states please...
4
This report does little to assuage my fears the 2018 November elections will be messed with from within and without given the Trump administration's cosy relations with Russians and a GOP who've very successfully suppressed votes of Democrats. They want to win so badly they don't, in general, seem to care much if they win aided and abetted by Russians, so long as they WIN.
6
I don't know which is worse, Russian interference in our elections or Republicans remaining complicit in this mess and doing absolutely nothing except trying to back Trump and obstruct Mueller.
7
The Russians "actually breached election computer defenses" ........... we got Trump as President .......... and Trump goes out of his way to be pro Russia - as a Republican!! I'd say the Russians changed the votes and these idiots were not smart enough or motivated enough to find out how.
1
All those Bernie people who were led by Russians to believe that Hillary secretly purged them from voter roles, after Russians had purged them from voter roles....
ANY interference by an outside foreign power is illegal and any influence by an outside foreign power is unacceptable.
2
still afraid to tell the truth...found no evidence ...really. States are allowed to control digital voting machines which have been proven over and over to be easily hacked. Suspiciously in Florida elections, there seems to always be a voting digital machine going down just minutes before closing of a poll and no one checks to see if votes were uploaded, changes or diverted. Many counties in Florida went to scanners...you can't change a pdf vote. Allowing states and private companies to control voting machines was the first step in de-democratizing our country. It should be the federal government controlling our voting machines with thorough audits from several agencies and with every election. Digital voting machines are not safe, neither is the internet. If Russia can hack emails, bank records, federal databases, irs..what makes one sure they didn't change votes. Republican controlled states would never tell.
2
The fact they haven't found evidence, yet, of the Russians changing votes, doesn't mean they didn't do the deed. I'm also thinking Congress would not publicized any evidence they have and consider it a national security secret. I also think they would keep it under wraps to sooth dear Mr. Trump who would have a cow if it leaked.
When will our government get serious about Russia? This was clearly an attack on us and we should respond. Perhaps not with outright war, but at a minimum, a tit for tat cyber attack on them.
4
When does influence become tampering? Ultimately, this is a distinction without a difference. American democracy, and any democracy for that matter, depends on people's trust in the process and a willingness to accept election results. A recount here and there is fine, but when one notices widespread distrust, as we are seeing in the US now, the difference between influence and tampering is merely academic. Certainly its impact is just that.
I will take the study's conclusion at face value: no one, or no "bot", actually changed a vote for Clinton to a vote for Trump or vice versa, but that the system was influenced is bad enough.
We are in a dark place now. All relationships are built on trust. There is very little among Americans of different tribes. Weather that tension is caused or worsened by bombastic politicians or foreign entities or merely a reflection of a divided nation, I don't really know. What I do know is that we had better get past it, quickly, or what we will have is simply a paper Constitution and an equally fragile nation.
5
In Oregon, we all vote by mail on paper ballots. Libraries and other locations have ballot drop-boxes set up for days ahead of the election date so we don't even have to spring for a stamp. It's low-cost and hacking is very difficult.
I never understood why any municipality would devote funds to a system that is hackable. Why is high-tech always "better"?
Computerized voting systems are just begging to be hacked.
19
And how many people are in the state of Oregon?
4,142,776 (2017 est.) 98,381 sq mi
How will that work in an urban area of 48.42 sq mi with a population of 4,628,910.
My guess is not so well.
Pretty quick on the criticism trigger.
Where there's a will to make voting easier and less prone to hacking, there is a way.
We have the same system in Washington State. Its awesome. No standing in the rain waiting in line after work, no voter intimidation, just sitting at one's desk with a mocha and some homegrown taking all the time you want to go over all of the issues.
There is no evidence the Russians did anything. But boy were they up to no good. Trump is making huge stupid mistakes as president and the Congress is focused on fantasy land non sense. The US through a duel track of foolishness is going to get the itself into a trade war with the EU. Sanctions on Russia and Trump's efforts to end US business with Iran. Europeans must surely think the US electorate have lost their minds. Certainly the Democrats have lost theirs with this Russia stole the election foolishness. And Trump is the prince of fools.
1
Missed the story about the $500,000 payment from Russia to trump's lawyer to help pay for campaign affairs we can suppose. Given the pattern we can assume there was more we just do not know about yet.
Missed the trump tower story too.
And the reports from our IC that Russia was using bots and trolls, and continues to use them, inside the US
Or the report by facebook to congress that 146,000,000 Americans were subject to Russian agitprop
Or the 83,000,000 that twitter reported.
Yeah. Nothing at all...
1
Academics don't believe that Russia physically tampered. They believe the charge is purely a function of politics.
I agree with the skeptics here. Republicans have so poisoned the rational water with Trump-spiked Kool-Aid that we can no longer trust a congressional committee to provide us with a factual report. Were the congressional investigation to show results that did not favor Trump, then we *expect* Republicans to massage, or quash, the results to favor Trump's egomaniacal rants.
"Senators have conceded that consensus on that final report may be difficult to reach."
After a year with Trump and his followers, we just don't know what the truth is. During that year, Trump and his followers have vilified our investigative agencies.
Trump has had obscure relations with Russia, and may still have those Russian connections, in major part due to the fact that Trump has not dissociated himself from his businesses which could be influenced by relations with Russia.
And entities in Russian businesses have surreptitious connections to the Kremlin. How can we expect beneficial results from Republican members of congress who have declared allegiance to Trump?
24
I have more faith in the Senate, though clearly McConnel has no intention of holding Trump accountable. The house, on the other hand, is now a worthless institution thanks to the antics of Nunes and Ryan.
1
Conspiracy theory, much?
Conspiracies work best with the fewest participants possible. The bigger the conspiracy group gets, the greater chance that someone will not go along.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is made up of many Republicans and Democrats all giving their slant on the data they are reviewing.
Russians did not change votes, the American public voted as they wanted, even if they were influenced by Fox News or Twitter feeds.
VOTING MUST BE SECURED In the upcoming election in 11/2018. The states must be provided with feedback about possible past, present and future Russian intrusion into the voting systems, with advice from the federal election commission on how to prevent such interference. Also, all states must be required to provide paper trails of the vote. Otherwise there will be NO way to determine whether the results of the election were properly and accurately tallied. One way to assure that interference will be detected and data protected is to use "blockchain" software. Such software is already in use for financial transactions. It should be a simple matter to customize the software to keep security track of voting records. The software shows all evidence of attempted tampering and immediately blocks the tampering. Such software must be mandated to secure all voting machines. The federal government must set security standards for voting machines. Otherwise the protection is left to the "discretion" of the states. Where is the freedom in permitting states that wish to block access to the ballot box unchecked?
5
If in anyway Russia did alter the outcome of the 2016 election results...which if you read between the lines is a real possibility because reports keep repeating that they can’t be sure of anything...it changes not only the election of Trump and his illegitimate presidency, but Americans’ and its pundits entire analysis of the results and what it says about us as a nation. Who we are, how we stand on race and gender and why we vote why we vote...
This election has sown some deep divisions... perhaps divisions that were never there in the first place.
Something to think about my fellow Americans.
4
Maybe we should go back to the future.
Paper ballots have some drawbacks, as was apparent in 2000 in Florida. But at least they can't be hacked, right?
6
Those are "paper" ballots where holes had to be punched through them.
People MEAN paper ballots that have to be marked, with a pen and ink. Ink that doesn't rub off, smudge, or fade.
Interfering with elections is nothing the US hasn’t been doing to lots of little countries since World War Two. Thanks to the internet our system is centralized and easy to penetrate. Too bad the people making the big decisions about our systems barely grasp the concept of email not to mention real computer science. We are doomed.
Voting must be conducted by hand-counted paper ballot. Any other form of voting - electronic Diebold voting machines, for example- is unacceptable. There is too much risk of interference, either foreign or domestic, with the integrity of our elections.
4
Move on...move on...
Nothing to see here...
No collusion, no conspiracy, all fake...
Obama's to blame.
3
Ah you got it exactly right (NOTHING IS PROVEN, ALL CONJECTURE and LIBEL)! Where's the proof?? Where is innocent until PROVEN guilty?? Why no apologies for setting up Assange on false rape charges??
The UN and the EU courts call Assange 'the victim of injustice' and found for him and Sweden after disgracing itself by allowing then SOS HRC to get Sweden to open a case the police and the two women involved said was no case.
And you lot of McCarthyists expect your mere bigoted suspicions ot replace evidence and trials?? We have evidence of DNC and HRC cheating and law breaking AND lying. That is EVIDENCE not conjecture. A very angry Sanders Democrat!
Actually, Hillary is to blame. Putin is getting her back for questioning whether parliamentary elections were "free and fair". Hillary "reset" things alright. Trying to pin it on Trump was a masterful move by Obama, but the republicans, fortunately, are not letting them get away with it.
The voting bank has been robbed but no votes seem to be missing. The votes were not changed after the vote. The voters were changed before the vote.
But overall, the candidates offered nothing to make America the greatest country again. The best we got was making it great by destroying it.
The 1% don't care. They got their tax break welfare check. The rest of America paid for it.
3
Collusion or no collusion, that is the question. Who knew and when did they know it?
2
They should line up all the republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee in a store window and pin a price tag to their chest. These guys can be bought and sold on a dime and are a disgrace to our country.
6
Ok. So the Senate did their job. Trump won and our system worked. Tweaking the system is next (i would recommend going back to simple paper ballots). So why do we need a "special" person to handle this? End Mueller, now.
3
So it's okay with you that a hostile foreign power is attacking our institutions and Republicans won't say a word. They serve their donors and, as long as they're paid off, don't really care about the "little people."
Who Cares? This East Cost Liberal saw his Federal income tax go down by over $100,000 and has gained over $2M in his stock portfolio. And the lazy, overweight Ohio voters get to watch free reality TV on Fox News. Its a win win for all!
3
A simple solution a paper ballot. Unless Putin personally stuffs an American ballot box there will be no problem. Americans tend to watch their boxes much better than Russians. I Russia ballot box stuffing is commonplace.
12
This doesn't sync with the Nunez House Intelligence Committee report, at least the one released by the Republican members of that committee. Was Nunez so concerned about protecting Trump that he was willing to throw the American voting system under the bus? If this is an example of Republican leadership let us hope that the Democrats win a majority of seats in the House in 2018.
15
Which is the worst? 1.The Russians hacking the Voting Systems with the potential to change registrations and votes. 2. The coordinated effort to spread false information to influence voting in favor of one candidate. 3. The concerted effort of one political party to prevent certain segments of the US population from voting.
Who will stop these three serious threats to our democracy? Our current administration hasn't truly labeled the first two as threats and has taken action to implement the third. Is there any hope that our opposition party will get organized sufficiently to save the democracy or are these threats simply part of the end of the US democracy?
17
Yes! Has there been an investigation into the voter registration rosters?
1
they are targeting a lot of things, like NYT & WAPO blogs, and probably FOX.
When you are a paid troll, got to show some work product. Putin and Xi don't want freeloaders.
8
They don't have to infiltrate fox. Fox is already doing their bidding for free.
Brief report is putting it mildly. Since when are state names classified information? Voters need to know.
24
Yes indeed - they hacked for no reason - not to change votes - sounds reasonable to me - you said that bridge over there costs how much?
28
Pure conjecture of course, McCarthyism and bigotry. Shame on you lot. Just FOX in reverse. I am disgusted by fellow liberals who are now the new GOP, paranoid, war mongering, anti democracy and bigoted.
Utter rubbish. You believe what you like or more accurately what you want too and what the Elite have made you think. Both parties have the blood of wars of choices and regime change on their hands. Russia spying on us is nothing new and the charges of collusion like the set up rape charges against Assange, since dropped and denounced by both the EU and the UN are the evidence for this just as Donna Braziles book, the firing of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and wikileaks have proven that it was the Democrats who sabotaged the election via Sanders.
You've got nothing but MSM massaged bigotry and ignorance on your side! Pitiful hypocrisy! You are the enemy of US democracy even more than the bigoted GOP
1
"The lady doth protest too much, me thinks."
HAMLET III:2
"Small number of states"? It only took 72,000 votes scattered across THREE states for Trump to win the electoral college!
57
Actually that true fact is 77,744 votes in three states.
But read the article - no evidence that any votes were changed by Russians.
Perhaps you should be blaming the States for not adopting the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
Most states blindly adopted the same State Constitution when they joined the United States Republic. This included how Electoral College representatives are elected.
Yes, it 77,744 in WI, MI, PA. However the "no evidence that any votes were changed by Russians" isn't proven one way or the other. There is no evidence that votes weren't changed either. States have to cooperate to produce evidence -- many states have not done so. "No evidence" is not proof either way.
I'm not sure which is worse.
The Russian attempts to infiltrate our software systems running the basic political, social and in all probability, military services supporting our country.
Or
The demonstrated incompetence of our elected leaders to comprehend the fundamental changes to governance and security brought about by our dependence on software.
Or
The simple fact that the Russians merely took advantage of the effort by republicans and the right wing beginning with Reagan to undermine confidence in our voting systems and our governance.
My guess is that the Russians were continuing to test their ability to penetrate key systems in the possibility that such competence might be necessary should future hostilities break out. They saw a great opportunity to leverage the work of the republicans to undermine voter confidence in Washington and they had a complicit candidate in their back pocket.
Pure conjecture of course, but it makes about as much sense as the president of our country refusing to publicly criticize Putin over this and instead reserve his wrath for the intelligence agencies that uncovered the Russian efforts.
19
I have always suspected that the voting systems in some places were tampered with, but the government would have thought that reporting such events would effect confidence in the voting system. The Times and other news outlets reports of the federal government calling on voting districts to ensure the security of their systems seemed to bear this out. Now this article appears. Hmmmm...
5
I could have written your post verbatim.
Here is a hazy anecdote. Shortly before the election, I saw an on-the-fly interview with Kellyanne Conway. I wish I remembered the specifics. I have looked online and have never located it--I think it was with Katy Our or some other woman reporter and I think it was one of the last debates or maybe coming off some rally stage.
What I remember is people were lining up to interview her and she kept repeating the same thing as I noted through channel surfing. Then this female reporter angered her and Kellyanne went off.
She said something very specific. Something like, "On election night you are going to see that we win michigant, Pa and ?". I paused where I was and thought "that is awfully specific. wonder if she knows something." before deciding I was paranoid.
Was I paranoid? I don't think so. I am a pretty good read of people; she seemed to know something and bragged about it because of the frustration from the nonstop barrage she was getting. That moment stayed with me, even though I did not think Trump would win......
Now I think about that all the time and I can't help but wonder if my intuition of the Trump campaign knowing something was true....
2
Paper back ups are needed for recounts.
4
The truth is the Senate does not want to open that can of worms...especially when the GOP gave a thumbs-up to anything goes, including Russia's interference, to defeat the worst person on earth, Hillary Clinton!
7
If nothing else, this article proves that voting machines are hackable. No more electronic voting! Counted paper ballots for voter security!
30
Right, because we all know that paper ballots cannot be changed. Just as the ATL school board, principals, and teachers who cheated on student standardized tests to get a big bonus from Obama, and were found guilty after years of court and cost.
Who has any confidence in this Intelligence Committee? Putin and company must be howling with laughter at the ongoing spectacle of a plodding, tired, partisan showboaters going through the motions of investigation, mostly for home state consumption and media play in Washington. Give our adversaries credit: They understand how out of step our security systems are with modern technology, how two branches of our government are, if not completely broken, are crippled and function reactively if at all. Historians decades from now will review this charade as they seek to explain how our democracy was systematically undermined by a foreign power as America slept. Will they find solid evidence that Russia indeed used diabolical technology to outsmart state election supervisors and succeeded without too much effort?
4
If it is actually true that there was no Russian tampering with vote casting in the 2016 election cycle- that's great but it is also a wake up call.
It certainly would not hurt for every state to look at their voting systems to ensure they are tamper-proof. Voting is a basic right for every American citizen and people in every state in charge of the voting "mechanics" have an obligation to protect that democratic right.
10
Signed paper ballots nationwide please. Probably less expensive per vote.
Scan and upload as they are tallied. Let voters access the database.
41
No one should ever be required to sign a ballot. Voting is anonymous for good reasons.
We use the highly-reliable optical-scanning method in my city. The ballots are scanned and preserved. That's all we really need.
And what database do you want made available to the public? The list of registered voters? Those lists are available today. A list of who voted for whom? No thank you.
9
I'm a recent economic emigré to Oregon from California and one of the pleasant surprises of my new home is that I was automatically added to the voter rolls when I got my new driving license. The ballots are mailed to the enfranchised a month or so before the election and there are locked drop boxes throughout the region for us to deposit our ballots at any time up through Election Day. It's pretty dang easy and tremendously convenient. (I'm too new to this method to speak to how the counting is done.)
5
Peter, here in Washington State most voters use the mail in ballot, we have to sign it and return it.
If voters can access the voter data base easily so will a hacker.
The Republican Party, by slow-walking and minimizing this investigation, obviously has something to hide.
They either tacitly accepted this attack (because it dovetailed with their own efforts), or they overtly cooperated with Russian intelligence agencies to undermine the American election systems.
Either way, they’re treasonous.
71
It's the Justice Department that is "slow walking" the investigation by redacting too much information and refusing to comply with demands for it.
How did the Rep party slow walk or minimize this investigation? It's gone on, conclusions by non-partisans have been made, but somehow because some don't like the results, they claim that there is some overt cooperation with Russia?!
Stop with 'we and them' - the Rep party is no move evil (or less) than the Dem party. It's ridiculous to imply either party is working for Russia to get their candidate elected.
Most likely the republican majority will issue a whitewashed report to Trump's liking and the minority will issue its report. We can only rely on Mueller.
PROSECUTE RUSSIAGATE!
5
Candidate Trump repeatedly said during the 2016 campaign that the election was rigged and we have solid evidence that Russians interfered in the election. Now, we have new information that they surveilled some 20 states with the aim of undermining the process still further.
As president, Trump has yet to condemn the interference that worked to win him the election, even in mild tones, and has done little to nothing to prevent a reoccurrence. I wonder how Trump supporters in Congress can sleep at night with the knowledge that he is undermining our country.
Oh, right. In return, they are getting the tax giveaway to corporate interests, gutting environmental protections, and largely destroying the beneficial legacy of the previous president.
27
The senators and others need to stop watching so much Homeland On the boob tube.
The only thing missing from the Russian investigation are Russians...
2
You mean other than the thirteen Russians that Mueller indicted? Did you just happen to forget about them? I'm not even going into the financial ties and back-door contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian agents.
5
The Senate (bipartisan committee) underscores that our voting system is under attack. But the House Intelligence Committee (Republican report) told us they found nothing we should be concerned about.
Are there Republican senators who will call out their House Republican colleagues? If not, then collegiality needs some adjustment.
21
Dear Readers,
Let's do a simple test. Column A contains the efforts of the GOP to "surpress the vote, manipulate elections and hyjack our democracy"
Felony diinfranchisment.
Removing names from voting rolls because they didn't vote in the last three elections.
Onerous and sometimes unlawful voter ID requirements.
Outdated voting machines.
Constitutionally deficient recount procedures.
Underfunding voter registration.
Opposing same-day registration.
Opposing registration at all state agencies.
Moving polling places.
Closing polling places without notice.
Gerrymandering.
Opposing early voting options.
Opposing the extension of the Voting Rights Act.
Now let's look at the evidence against Russia in Column B.
An unproven allegation that they hacked the DNC.
An indictment but no verdict against 13 Russian nationals for hacking.
Cyber probing on several state systems.
$150,000 worth of Facebook adds favoring Trump.
The Steele memo containing alleged dirt on Trump.
There may be a bit more, but I think I've listed the highlights.
Now, which of these two, column A or column B has likely had the greatest negative impact on our democracy?
Which has received the greatest amount of press coverage?
Which is likely to result in some federal legislative action?
Which is likely to be occasionally mentioned by pro-democracy advocates who will largely be ignored?
What does business as usual look like?
47
Deleting voter registration data isn’t bad enough?
It’s no comfort that the Senate didn’t find any evidence that Russian hackers altered vote tallies. (See the House Republicans failing to find any evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian agents.) Besides, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
43
Here we go again: attempting to blame the Russians for our broken election systems. It's not just Russian attacks and breaches that could have gone undetected, it's anyone's tampering with our easily-hackable electronic voting machine system that can be done without leaving a trace of evidence. Our own scientists and independent studies have shown that, time and again. And yet, with bi-partisan incompetence at best, nothing has been done to address this urgent problem despite a decade or more of awareness.
https://www.wired.com/2016/08/americas-voting-machines-arent-ready-elect...
I am not a Russian bot and Russia is not responsible for my lack of confidence in our voting system. My feckless representatives are primarily responsible. The mainstream news media that has looked the other way for years and is now letting those same representatives blame Russia instead of Dominion and E.S. and S., to name the biggest, is hugely to blame as well.
6
In my opinion, Russia engaged in psychological warfare, hence, it ought to be no surprise that one cannot prove those Russian actions changed the vote. Merely looking at registration data or other so-called indicators is tantamount to trying to un-ring a bell. Once that sound bite coupled with DJT's coordinated rhetoric & Fox News poison is released, an attitude & emotion bomb were released. Persons who had been primed to believe themselves to be disenfranchised thanks to persons of color & those 'horrible' immigrants were the targets. Those targets then proceeded to spread one nonsensical conspiracy theory after another, aided by Russian bots & the coordinated rhetoric of DJT.
What people didn't realize & the Republicans will never acknowledge is that in permitting a mindset of 'being above the law', one is treated to a belief that if a court decision was not favorable to them it was due to smart lawyers or the liberal media or some other nonsense. I.e., women, people of color, gays, transgender people were not entitled to equal protection under the law because of morality. Another example would be the Bible is part of American jurisprudence because there exists no separation of church & state. I can go on & on.
All democracies destroyed themselves from within, which is what history tells us. Remember that those who fail to read & comprehend history are doomed to repeat it. DJT & many of his followers/supporters do not read, while the 1% financially benefit. Scary & sad.
13
So they didn't change the election results in 2016 but we know that they did hack the system and we know that they did put out fake news to influence the election.
This country needs to wake up and make sure that the midterms are not hacked or influenced in any way shape or form.
73
I'd say that horse already left the gate. Only six months until elections, and given the kind of cleanup that's needed, the lack of good alternatives, the lack of funding... 2017 was more than reconnaissance and less than attack - it reeked of confidence, and demonstrated how lax we are when it comes to noticing really bad stuff happening. But doing something about it? That horse already left the state.
Too much preening and too little actual leadership. By way too many in both politics and media.
9
I have no confidence in the conclusions of this Senate committee. Really? The Russians undermining confidence? A three year old could have come to that conclusion without all this time and expense. Did the Russians change data...even votes? I'd say there is a strong probability they did, but frankly, who knows? These guys don't.
36
Genuine facts coming out, and yet with no political spin there is little mainstream attention.
Let’s focus our conversation on the real and known enemies first, and the internal, bumbling, destructive political ones second.
11
I always though it odd Trump at the end started accusing Democrats of stuffing ballot box stuffing. Was a Trump distraction to hind something he knew was going on. Personally I do think the GOP and Russia tinkered. I would love to see a statistical analysis of voter turnout and votes cast in extremely rural Red counties and states.
4