
Be Very Skeptical of Stolen Election Claims - kushti
http://www.vox.com/2016/11/22/13721426/election-hacked-stolen-trump-russia?utm_campaign=vox.social&utm_medium=social&utm_content=voxdotcom&utm_source=twitter
======
hackuser
A prior article from a legitimate news source, New York Magazine, saying that
the claim was raised as a possibility by leading experts in the field, was for
some reason suppressed from HN's front page:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13018675](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13018675)

@sctb or @dang - I'm not suggesting some conspiracy, but perhaps an algorithm
or process needs to be tweaked. In any case, I hope the other article can also
be 'freed' to be seen by everyone.

EDIT: Currently this comment has 1 point, is 13 minutes old, yet is somehow at
the very bottom of the discussion. C'mon guys; that feels like an
inconsiderate, combative response to a reasonable question. Why not just be
open about it and make a comment?

~~~
dang
Ok, please see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13024781](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13024781).

~~~
hackuser
Thanks.

------
elihu
> But he argues that since hacking is possible, it’s simply prudent to conduct
> a recount in close states where there’s a paper trail, which is reasonable
> enough.

I think this is key. We should be skeptical of stolen election claims, but we
should also be skeptical of claims that the election wasn't stolen. If
recounting is straightforward to do and it addresses the very real concern
that the count was tampered with, why not do it? Even if there was no
tampering, it's very harmful to democracy to allow reasonable doubt to persist
as to whether the vote counts were legitimate.

~~~
ganoushoreilly
The issue here is there isn't evidence to support the investigation into the
allegations. Everyone can make the hacker bogey man a defense, but the truth
is while hacking does happen, the way in which the voting systems are designed
it's less likely to have been hacked through exploiting voting terminals. It's
more likely that the registration of voters would be manipulated. I would
argue that's why the Clinton campaign hasn't been aggressive with it, they
haven't met the threshold of reasonable doubt.

Off topic, I wish people and their passions had been put to work during the
elections on both sides. It's all been yelling at each other over superiority
and whatever else is the hot ticket button of the day. If people would take
the energy and focus on a micro level, working within their communities to
make change, we'd be a better country for it.

\- not directed at previous poster, just tagging on commentary.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
> Off topic, I wish people and their passions had been put to work during the
> elections on both sides. It's all been yelling at each other over
> superiority and whatever else is the hot ticket button of the day. If people
> would take the energy and focus on a micro level, working within their
> communities to make change, we'd be a better country for it.

>\- not directed at previous poster, just tagging on commentary.

The problem is everyone "knew" HRC was going to win...

------
maxxxxx
Being skeptical is generally good but I am afraid that the US is more and more
eroding trust in their democracy. Most people think Congress is corrupt, a lot
of people think that most elections since 2000 were rigged, or they think
Obama is not even eligible to be president, now they think Trump is
illegitimate because he didn't win the popular vote.

I think this is a very dangerous path. When people have no faith in
established institutions this creates a big opportunity for an authoritarian
that "cleans up" the system.

~~~
snewk
at the risk of opening a can of worms, why is obama ineligible for the
presidency?

~~~
JohnTHaller
I've spoken to people who seriously believe he's a secret Muslim born in
Kenya. The fact that our president-elect spent years pushing this completely
fabricated lie to further his own ends didn't help.

~~~
hackuser
Trump was a minor player in that rumor; it was pushed by many in the GOP and
in right-wing 'news' organizations.

~~~
weberc2
For that matter, it originated among Hillary supporters in '08.

~~~
JohnTHaller
Once Trump finally dropped the birther lie in September of this year
(seriously, he spent 5 years trumpeting that lie) he came up with the new lie:
Hillary started it. Neither Clinton nor her campaign ever publicly questioned
Obama's citizenship or birthplace.

~~~
weberc2
I agree; I never posted anything to the contrary.

------
yk
Alex Halderman's blog post [1] (mentioned in the update of the vox piece) is a
interesting read. He argues that a paper trail is an important independent
check on election results, and that it should be checked as a matter of
principle, instead of not using it at all.

[1] [https://medium.com/@jhalderm/want-to-know-if-the-election-
wa...](https://medium.com/@jhalderm/want-to-know-if-the-election-was-hacked-
look-at-the-ballots-c61a6113b0ba#.dk3myiksw)

~~~
Theodores
The act of physically counting ballots in community halls by people that care
about participating in democracy is something lost with all electronic
everything. The count used to bring people together in an event that you could
watch or help out in. Many eyes ensured the count was good. Plus the hours
would be late evening, so the count passed as a sociable event to some extent,
certainly something would happen so not a dull evening.

We should have a paper count for the community aspect even if the vote
disappoints those concerned, e.g because it is between a spokesperson for the
arms trade and a reality TV host.

------
BEEdwards
How is asking for a recount because number don't seem to match up anything
other than skeptical?

------
6stringmerc
I'll give one of the study author's some credit for chiming in - following
media wind up, mind you - regarding interpretation and pointing out that the
deviation is completely reasonable when considering erroneous poll numbers
being used for comparison. Which, I think, is a very worthwhile position to
take because of, ahem, how generally off the polls were this time around.
Those swing state numbers weren't even close to reflective of the majority of
polls, IIRC, by Nov. 9.

~~~
hackuser
Do you have any data on how well the polls did?

According to FiveThirtyEight, national polls did pretty well, while state
polls had more problems - but he doesn't say how many or how bad the problems
were.

[https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-a-
difference-2-per...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-a-
difference-2-percentage-points-makes/)

...

Theoretically, if a scientific survey says one thing and a reported vote count
says another, how do you know which is wrong (or are both wrong)?

------
api
The claim has been made by the losing side in every election since Bush II in
2000. I take it as a sign of a widening gulf between political factions.

~~~
Retric
Landslide elections are far less prone to this. Close elections are closer to
a coin flip where small changes may swing an election.

Ex: Few people doubted Obama's first election as it was very clear. The vocal
minority wanted to question if he was eligible in the first place, not the
outcome.

You can see clear election 'influence' just look at the number of voting
machines vs. voters in different areas and the lines this creates. Even pole
closing times have a significant impact. People try to get so close to the
line so often there are often court cases about this stuff. The core question
is; have we gone from vote suppression to direct tampering, and the odds seem
very high that this occurs in some places. Impact on national elections is
harder to demonstrate.

PS: And no I don't think there was a clear winner for this election, but IMO
getting within spitting distance of a win is generally good enough. If 0.1% of
voters change the outcome then the populace is just undecided.

