
To Know If the Election Was Hacked, Look at the Ballots - smacktoward
https://medium.com/@jhalderm/want-to-know-if-the-election-was-hacked-look-at-the-ballots-c61a6113b0ba#.tuyhjzxvm
======
novaleaf
If you want a candidate to win, use the most effective hacking tool available:
social engineering. As a bonus, it's legal!

It might sound flippant, but I wouldn't be too surprised if the masterful
politicians (in the USA or abroad) wouldn't consider illegal hacking just
because it's too risky. Better to use shady-yet-legal tactics to shift
opinions. The whole "fake news" issue seems like it could be a very smart
campaign in this regard.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I've wondered why the fake memes don't result in fines - they didn't identify
who was responsible as all other political ads must do.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
That and freedom of speech is a protected and valued right in our democracy.

If fake memes are wrecking your country maybe it's not the memes that are the
problem?

~~~
vehementi
All citizens of high quality countries naturally just grew protection from
propaganda, PR and psychological tricks, which evolved effortlessly for mass
media/communication that reaches 100M people instantly. If that shit works on
your "country", you probably need to see what's wrong with you people.

~~~
kazga
> high quality countries

Please define

> protection from propaganda, PR and psychological tricks

Yes, we here in Europe are blessed to represent the epitome of rational
thought immune to all kinds of manipulation and fear-mongering. Alt-Right
populism like the Front National, the Alternative für Deutschland and the UK
Independence Party has no success here at all!

~~~
vehementi
Brexit

But, it was a sarcastic post

------
joshwa
From NYT Upshot's Nate Cohn:

\- _" Metro Wisconsin, where Clinton did well, uses paper; rural Wisc, where
she collapsed like everywhere, is electronic.
[https://www.verifiedvoting.org/verifier/#year/2016/state/55"](https://www.verifiedvoting.org/verifier/#year/2016/state/55")
_
[https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/801217804783394816](https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/801217804783394816)

\- _Remember it 's not just Wisconsin here. 1. Michigan only uses optical
scan.
[http://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,1607,7-127-1633_8716_45458---,...](http://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,1607,7-127-1633_8716_45458---,00.html)
2\. The margin in PA is 65k votes. 65k._
[https://twitter.com/ForecasterEnten/status/80121914932638515...](https://twitter.com/ForecasterEnten/status/801219149326385152)
retweeted by @Nate_Cohn

~~~
joshwa
And Nate Silver:

\- _To follow: some _very_ quick analysis which suggests the claim here of
rigged results in Wisconsin is probably
BS:[http://nym.ag/2gI6YLP](http://nym.ag/2gI6YLP) _

\- _Run a regression on Wisc. counties with >=50K people, and you find that
Clinton improved more in counties with only paper ballots. HOWEVER:
[https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/801221546685661184/...](https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/801221546685661184/photo/1)
_

\- _...the effect COMPLETELY DISAPPEARS once you control for race and
education levels, the key factors in predicting vote shifts this
year.[https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/801221907609579520/...](https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/801221907609579520/photo/1)
_

[https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/801220813890277376](https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/801220813890277376)

~~~
Natsu
Nate has a full article here that's likely better than a few tweets for
discussing something like this:

[http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/demographics-not-
hacking...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/demographics-not-hacking-
explain-the-election-results/)

------
dang
There have been several posts about this (e.g. [1] and [2]), downweighted by
user flags and by standard penalties (e.g. for politics stories). But some
thoughtful users have argued that it's more on-topic for HN than most
politics, so we'll make an exception, even though HN probably ought to be in
detox right now.

Edit: actually there was already at least one major discussion about this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13019333](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13019333),
so technically we ought to be marking all these as dupes. But we'll leave this
one open for now.

The moderation test in cases where there's an ongoing story and many follow-up
posts is: have one major thread and bury the rest as dupes unless there's
significant new information.

1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13018675](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13018675)

2\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13023998](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13023998)

------
tmaly
I was having a discussion about security of the voting systems with my
neighbor from Germany. He was of the belief that the mechanical machines
without computers were more secure.

I like the type of machines we have in Connecticut. There is a paper ballot
that is filled out and then scanned optically. We get a paper ballot that acts
as an audit trail. There is always the possibility that the optical scanner
contains a bug or something, but the 2000 election showed that even mechanical
machines have flaws if not maintained.

I would not prefer the touch screen voting machines as there are always
reports of the machines switching the vote. It just seems like more can go
wrong with those machines.

~~~
nickbauman
The voting machine's viability is all about how easily a layman can verify its
correctness. This is why any mechanical voting machines are theoretically
"better" because the layman can actually SEE it working correctly or not.

~~~
akytt
Have you ever tried to inpelement a modified d'hont method manually? There are
always computers involved. Counting hundreds thousands of votes manually will
always yield an error that can be exploited. Voting as a concept has changed
beyond what mr. Halderman is willing to admit. Let's say you have widespread
electronic id and electronic voting. In isolation, this sounds mad. In
conjunction with physical voting and common use of eid, not so much.

~~~
admax88q
Seems harder to exploit manual counting of paper ballots than the firmware of
some closed source system that's poorly understood by those deploying it.

The larger the election, the more manual counters you will have. Which means
the more people you would have to influence in order to rig an election.

~~~
ComodoHacker
Ironically, Russia is particularly good at it.

~~~
blobbles
Manipulating a manual ballot process is easy. Just stuff some ballot boxes.
Doing so without leaving evidence all over the place is really hard.

Widespread vote manipulation of electronic systems much, much easier to keep a
secret.

------
hackuser
I read and saw many assurances by IT experts that the election couldn't be
hacked and wasn't hacked (said much too soon for them to know) but I never
heard a convincing argument or an indication of a serious analysis. Can anyone
here provide one?

The only serious argument I heard was that it would be very complicated and
expensive to hack so many local voting systems. However, certainly state-
sponsored - and maybe other - attackers have the resources to do it, they can
greatly reduce the cost by targeting only necessary systems (e.g. just a few
voting systems in each swing state), they probably can find more ways to
economize on a brute force attack, and most importantly: For them the massive
return on investment - controlling who is the next President of the U.S., and
possibly undermine confidence in U.S. political institutions - makes it
worthwhile. It's arguably worth it to hack the machines, leave evidence, and
not change the result

I worry that in their rush to refute Trump's allegations of rigging, the
experts opened the door to attackers by preemptively blocking investigations;
they are now politically very difficult, they will cost the experts'
reputations, and they may cause more uncertainty among the public than they
resolve.

The best security I can think of is deterrence: If they get caught, the
attacker might be inviting a war with the U.S. But do Russia and China really
feel threatened?

~~~
umanwizard
What makes you think it would be Russia and China necessarily, as opposed to
just internet trolls?

~~~
dmurray
That's one good argument against mass hacking: if it was as easy as it's being
made out to be to manipulate the results, we should expect to see something
obviously vandalized: a black county that voted 100% Trump, or a county where
third party candidates get all the votes.

> There’s no question that this is possible for technically sophisticated
> attackers. (If my Ph.D. students and I were criminals, I’m sure we could
> pull it off.) If anyone reasonably skilled is sufficiently motivated and
> willing to face the risk of getting caught, it’s happened already.

Surely there's someone on 4chan who ticks those boxes. The motivation doesn't
even have to be pure vandalism: it would be a very effective way to call
attention to the vulnerabilities in the system.

------
yosito
It's mind boggling to me that we don't automatically check the paper trails of
an election and do several counts to verify the results. How will democracy
survive if our mechanisms for implementing it are so far behind the changing
world?

~~~
jboynyc
Here's a hack: you can fund Jill Stein to request the recounts.
[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/23/jill-
stein-e...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/23/jill-stein-
election-recount-fund-michigan-wisconsin-pennsylvania)

------
rubyfan
TLDR: _Were this year’s deviations from pre-election polls the results of a
cyberattack? Probably not. I believe the most likely explanation is that the
polls were systematically wrong, rather than that the election was hacked._

~~~
rdhyee
Followed immediately by "But I don’t believe that either one of these
seemingly unlikely explanations is overwhelmingly more likely than the other."

------
hackuser
If they have a serious argument backed by evidence, they should make it
public. Hillary Clinton may have a personal concern about the issue but it's a
very serious issue for all Americans (and the world). She shouldn't have a
veto.

~~~
whybroke
>She shouldn't have a veto.

Absolutely. Regardless of how likely or unlikely manipulation is, an
independent group should be able to request an audit.

If for not other reason than she could be silenced by a tacitly threatening to
endless prosecute and summon before congress on some unrelated matter if she
makes any trouble.

~~~
stale2002
Would you say the same thing about the Democratic primary?

~~~
whybroke
What a curious default view of humanity and reality.

------
misterbowfinger
I kind of don't understand why we can't vote through a web app. You can
deposit checks and buy stocks through your phone. Why can't you vote?

~~~
Ao7bei3s
Because voting is way more important than home banking.

And voting through a web app is wrong on so many levels:

\- "Electronic voting": Electronic voting machines already have a bad enough
track record. If nothing else, it makes large-scale attacks easier. Voters
have to trust the ballot operators (different from home banking, where (a) you
can choose your bank and (b) manual banking wouldn't be better either).

\- "Electronic voting, at home": Assuming [1], it wouldn't be coercion
resistant, wouldn't be independently verifiable, couldn't guarantee vote
secrecy to voters and be susceptible to ballot stuffing, open against
technical attacks (eg. as simple as DDOS, or malware).

\- "Electronic voting, at home, in a web app": No local (non-attacker-
controlled) code means you must trust server completely. And its basically
impossible to _really_ isolate the voting from everything else.

All these problems for what? Paper ballots really aren't so bad. Especially if
you eliminate two of the obvious problems US elections have: get rid of voter
registration, and move votes to sundays.

[1] Assuming you don't use a cryptographic voting scheme; these have their own
problems. It's an entire field of research that just can't be summarized in an
HN post, but key problems are: a) impossible to understand by voters, b) some
desirable properties are mutually exclusive, c) computationally prohibitively
expensive (even with state level resources), d) some problems aren't technical
in nature and can't be solved technically (think coercion).

~~~
paulddraper
> Because voting is way more important than home banking.

Most banking -- "home" or multi-millions -- is done electronically. It's
safer.

~~~
Ao7bei3s
You missed the point. I'm arguing for voting - not banking - to be kept on
paper.

Banking is a completely different problem. The secrecy requirements are
different - in fact, audit trails of all individual transactions are
_expected_. Big transactions are typically individually reviewed by humans.
People/organizations can choose their bank. There are multiple banks -> no
single target. Transactions can be traced and rolled back, so coercion is less
of a problem. Risk is mostly financial.

~~~
rubberstamp
Coercion won't be a problem at all if voting places are just like in secret
ballot voting. Online connection to a central server isn't even required. Just
have an audited code and its verified executable run in a physically secured
system.

~~~
nfoz
> Just have an audited code and its verified executable run in a physically
> secured system.

Do any of those exist? Is this possible in practice, in this decade?

~~~
rubberstamp
If the runtime code is audited and compiled in a secure compiler then the
executable is good and secure. Run it on a clean system(embedded system) which
is also physically secure. Its not only possible it already exists. Many
countries do have tried and tested such systems (am not sure if compiler is
audited by them) used in production.

------
akeck
A (dystopian?) future? One's birth certificate includes a cryptographic
certificate used to sign and validate everything related to one's interaction
with the government (replaceable by some protocol as cryto tech changes over
time). One's vote is signed. However, subway cards and automatic highway tolls
are signed as well.

~~~
kej
This would enable both vote selling and tracking down the people who voted
against you.

~~~
waqf
Not if properly combined with other technologies.

Cryptographically signed voting enables vote selling only in the same sense
that requiring voters to present ID at the polling place already enables it.

~~~
kej
Depends if you're signing the actual vote (Alice voted for Bob) or just their
presence (Alice voted). I thought akeck was talking about the first one but
you're right that the second one would not present the threats I mentioned.

------
altendo
My tongue-in-cheek solution: put the sysadmins in charge of voting machines.
They'll make sure there are several backups, automate testing of all the
machines, and an unwavering ambition to prevent data corruption and hacker
intrusion. The heroes we need.

Full disclaimer, I am a systems engineer :p

~~~
waqf
How is it tongue-in-cheek to suggest putting a professional with relevant
experience in charge of critical national infrastructure?

One of us has a misaligned Overton window.

~~~
altendo
I didn't mean to say that we shouldn't have knowledgeable people handling our
voting machines (as pretty much any election shows, we certainly do). I just
imagined sysadmins across the country saying "screw it, I'm taking care of
this" and abandoning their normal jobs to take care of it.

------
hackuser
TL;DR

 _Were this year’s deviations from pre-election polls the results of a
cyberattack? Probably not. I believe the most likely explanation is that the
polls were systematically wrong, rather than that the election was hacked. But
I don’t believe that either one of these seemingly unlikely explanations is
overwhelmingly more likely than the other. The only way to know whether a
cyberattack changed the result is to closely examine the available physical
evidence — paper ballots and voting equipment in critical states like
Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania._

He goes on to give an overview of voting machines' vulnerability and methods
for resolving the problem.

------
fbreduc
that was much less interesting than i thought it would be...

~~~
waqf
That was much more sane and reasonable than I thought it would be. Two sides
of the same coin.

~~~
fbreduc
We've all known for quite some time that election system needs improvement,
what's so different this time? Each and every election the losing side brings
up the tampering bit, well yes if people cared enough, we should begin
processes to make sure tampering election votes is extremely difficult to
impossible. And maybe this is the beginning of real discussion, only problem
is who will lead the effort, is this guy just another person with a megaphone?

Also to say paper ballots cannot be tampered seems silly . Unless we know the
exact procedure and check points in which they are handled, how they are
stored and secured even after the win for case of recount (especially if
tampering happens afterward and recount is the plan to which the coin lands on
the other side). Hell maybe even down to the specific type of paper a ballot
is printed with. And I like what someone else said, scan them in as well...
have machine and human come to the same total.

I expected the guy to have proof considering the hype around this, but I do
appreciate he said it is unlikely the election was hacked...as if just to
quiet those twitter echo chambers.

------
helpfulanon
Why does it have to be a foreign government hacking?

An election tech worker or contractor with an agenda, could easily achieve the
same results without having to go to the great lengths of breaking into the
network using malware etc.

------
ddingus
By the way, can we now discuss South Carolina?

Paperless touch screen voting there me and we have no idea who won any
election.

Completely unacceptable.

~~~
shortstuffsushi
What does this comment mean? Are you saying that the results of the election
are unclear in the state?

~~~
ddingus
Completely. There is absolutely no way to understand how the election result
compares to voter intent.

The record of that intent consists of smudges on dirty touch screens.

We could come close to at least questioning with aggressive exit polling, but
the real problem is no voter using those devices can ever understand their
vote cast.

They walked in and did something. That's all they really know.

~~~
shortstuffsushi
That really seems like a tin foil hat perspective. Sure, in the literal sense,
there is no way for them to prove which way their vote was cast because it's
managed by an opaque (for them) computer system, but the same is true if it
were paper ballets that are handed over to a processing clerk. Once youve cast
your vote, the collector "owns" the results, and their counting process is
opaque in either case.

And with that said, I don't think it's fair to ,

~~~
shortstuffsushi
My phone isn't working for some reason, second paragraph:

I don't think it's fair to say that the intent of the voters is unclear unless
you're wanting to entirely throw out the results of the electronically
collected and processed votes as completely invalid. That seems extreme to me.

~~~
ddingus
Show me how it can be trusted, and I will agree.

Fact is, no voter in that state can actually tell you how their vote was
recorded.

That's reality. How can we trust the election then?

~~~
shortstuffsushi
Going back to my earlier point, how is this different from handing over a
paper ballot? You have no record of your paper ballot, and can't prove how it
was counted toward totals either. Sure there is a "physical" record of it, but
I'm sure (or at least I would hope) there are logs for the voting system as
well that could be analyzed.

If you're unwilling to trust a computer system counts in a non-corrupted
fashion, I'd be surprised to learn you use them for anything at all. Heck, who
knows how the messages you're typing in here are showing up for me? Who is to
say there isn't a middle man re-interpreting everything you type? How can you
have any confidence in any system, unless you wrote it yourself? And deployed
yourself, and completely control 100% of the system it's deployed on.

Hyperbole, sure, but why trust any system if not your vote recording system?
I'd like to think (and again, I have no research to back this) that these are
maintained by relatively "non-partisan groups," and that they are audited to
evaluate for any sort of corruption or tampering. But even if they aren't, I
don't think that paper ballot systems are any more so. The qualifications to
be a ballot worker in my area seems to be that you've reached the age of
retirement and are white, which could very easily bias the vote here. Should I
not trust my results?

~~~
ddingus
There are a number of differences

First, the voter does know their vote record reflects their intent. They can't
actually know that with a paperless touch screen.

Second, we do have the ballots and various things can be done to resolve an
election, and they can be done in court, by humans. Trust can be established
there too.

Now, we don't always need that, but it's extremely important that we have it,
or the systems simply will be gamed. I would. What's to really catch me?

You bring up a great secondary point. Why trust computers at all?

In this case, both you and I have a dialog, and it needs to be sane. The
machines could be coughing up a lot of garbage, but we both know they don't as
the chat is coherent.

WHile this ambiguity has always existed with computers, most use cases get
past it in similar fashion. Banking, by the way, resolves down to personally
identifiable records, or at the least an account known by someone, and
distributed copies of said records too.

All of that must make sense, or there are problems. It's subtle, but we catch
a lot of trouble this way.

Voting is an edge case, and it's extreme as well as important, and a
significant issue when it's not trusted.

Billions and Trillions of dollars can be impacted by votes. To think we aren't
seeing manipulation is crazy.

In the case of SC, we don't actually have the means to catch this being done!

The niche case of voting breaks down to anonymity being coupled with no public
record of the vote and this ambiguity of input.

In my State, Oregon, we use a hybrid. Voters do cast paper ballots and have
plenty of time to do so. Individually, we can understand our votes are
accurate.

They are verified by signature, which preserves the secrecy of the voters.
It's damn tough to get data out of that part of the system specific to a
voter.

We then publish voting and validity status for everyone too. So individually,
and collectively, we can understand the votes are valid and will be counted.

For those who check, they can remedy things too.

Then, counting is done electronically coupled with blind audits done by hand.

This question is of paramount importance: How can you have any confidence in
any system, unless you wrote it yourself? And deployed yourself, and
completely control 100% of the system it's deployed on.

For most use cases, it's not an issue for reasons I've given. Votes are an
edge case we do not bump into very often.

And that status makes this a difficult discussion.

Couple it with the strong incentives to control elections, and it's not
something we should take lightly, and given we have plenty of time tested,
cost effective, reasonable means to do this, we hardly require that risk be
taken.

That it is consistently taken is a bother to me. There is no reason for it.

------
paulddraper
Pollsters predicted reality incorrectly => Reality was hacked

Man, those guys know how to spin the outcome.

------
cmdrfred
I don't know if Donald Trump is a tactical genius or surrounded in a cloud of
luck. Remember when he said he wouldn't accept the election results if he lost
and the outcry at his comments? Now all the pundits who question these results
have tweets from a couple of weeks ago saying things like "You have to accept
the result, that's how democracy works!" effectively invalidating their
arguments today. If on purpose that is some Lannister level statecraft.

You can down vote all you want. Game recognises game. You don't have to
support someone for that.

~~~
shortstuffsushi
To be fair, (many of) those on the right thought Donald Trump was an idiot for
saying he wouldn't accept the results, so it doesn't seem unfair for them to
continue they're claiming "we won, leave it be" now. They would (likely) have
asked Trump to do the same in the "we lost, leave it be" situation.

~~~
cmdrfred
Agreed, but you also look rather hypocritical saying "The results are perfect
don't question them!" and then a week later "I question the results."

This reveals partisan hacks on both sides of the aisle.

~~~
shortstuffsushi
This reveals human nature on both sides ;) When you lose, it sucks, and you
want to find a way to alter the results. When you win, it's great, and you
don't want it taken away. I don't think this behavior is limited to politics.

------
scarmig
Election results must be beyond doubt. Clinton, Trump, and all Americans have
a shared interest in this. It seems unlikely for the result of the election to
change even if one state was hacked, so it's not like anyone's skin is even on
the line.

Absolutely no one should doubt that Russia, and many other nations, have the
capability to do what people are suggesting might have happened. The only
question is whether they did, which would be almost unprecedented: the
undermining of a mature democracy's electoral process by a foreign power would
be a singular event. (Though, both the USA and Russia have done similar-ish
things in the past, but often against immature democracies.)

Russia has shown interest in destabilizing the USA's electoral system
throughout the year. The only question is just how far they are willing to go.
We have the capability to determine whether they did this time. We should
exercise that capability: if we don't, it will encourage our enemies (and our
friends!) to do so in the future, regardless of what happened in 2016.

~~~
btilly
_It seems unlikely for the result of the election to change even if one state
was hacked, so it 's not like anyone's skin is even on the line._

You don't seem to have followed this story. The whole point is that we have a
very realistic possibility that Trump's unexpected win was due to manipulation
of electronic polling machines. Possibly by Russia.

To be specific, Clinton was projected to win Wisconsin, Michigan and
Pennsylvania. If she had, she would have won the election. Instead Trump won
all three by around 1% each. Across those states, Trump did about 7% better in
precincts that used electronic voting than in ones that didn't. A recount of
the ballots cast can tell us whether he really earned those votes, or the
machines were manipulated.

This kind of manipulation of electronic voting is well within the abilities of
US security experts. It is also within the abilities of countries like Russia.
Russia had an obvious preference, and has demonstrated the willingness to use
cyber attacks to manipulate elections.

~~~
AcerbicZero
538 does a better job of debunking this than I ever could:

[http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/demographics-not-
hacking...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/demographics-not-hacking-
explain-the-election-results/)

~~~
btilly
The articles don't debunk each other, they are in fundamental agreement on
observable facts.

Both accept that it is possible for the Russians to hack the election. Both
state that it is reasonable that Trump actually won. Both agree that the only
way to be sure is to conduct an audit.

They do differ. The medium article digs into depth on the technical details of
how doable the hack is. The 538 article digs into depth on the quality of the
statistical evidence.

They come to opposite conclusions. The medium article concludes that we should
audit because eventually someone will try to manipulate the election. 538 is
more concerned with raising public concern about fairness. I am more concerned
with actual fairness than perception, so I agree with the medium article.

------
Kinnard
Does the HN team have any plans to increase transparency on flagging. Maybe a
way to view flagged stories and how many users are flagging them?

~~~
yareally
I'm sure it's not your intention, but I read that question as "How can we make
it easier for someone to game the system on hacker news?"

Making it more transparent would probably not be a good thing.

~~~
Kinnard
I'm surprised the value in transparency isn't obvious. I'll think more about
how to convey my thoughts on it.

------
TheGirondin
>Election results must be beyond doubt.

It's been so interesting to see this turn of narrative after months
"questioning the outcome of an election is undermining democracy." I wonder
what happened between Sept-Oct and now that changed all that?

~~~
scarmig
So, your point of view is that concern about Russian hacking of the US
electoral process is stupid, because people were also upset Trump suggested he
might reject the outcome of a legitimate democratic processes?

~~~
sakopov
I think the OP was just commenting about the irony of the situation and that
at the end of the day everyone doubts the democratic election process.

------
Kinnard
Halderman is a computer security professor at UofM:
[https://jhalderm.com/](https://jhalderm.com/)

~~~
agumonkey
Many people on twitter linked him to Watergate's Halderman.

~~~
Kinnard
That would be _Haldeman_ :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._R._Haldeman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._R._Haldeman)
?

~~~
agumonkey
Yes, somehow people are mistaking the two. I didn't know any of them before
this affair.

------
TheGirondin
Democrats were right when they said the losers of this election would refuse
to accept the results.

~~~
forgetsusername
I also find this interesting: in the week leading up to the election, Trump
was asked repeatedly, "If you lose, will you accept the results?", to which he
said he'd have to assess the results at the time. He was roundly criticized
for this.

------
HillaryBriss
I was excited to read this, thinking "Ok, finally! This is the _shit_ \-- the
actual evidence that uncovers the actual conspiracy by a foreign government to
elect Trump."

Then I read this:

> _Were this year’s deviations from pre-election polls the results of a
> cyberattack? Probably not. I believe the most likely explanation is that the
> polls were systematically wrong, rather than that the election was hacked._

~~~
jfjejxjcjf
It's amazing how people can mock the idea of subverting elections as long as
it's not their candidate who lost. Many similar concerns were raised during
the election by people who hold very different political views than most HN
readers, and yet these concerns were written off and publicly mocked. Now the
shoe is on the other foot but nobody is willing to point out the partisan
hypocrisy.

And yes, throwaway account because HN tends to get very uncivil about this
subject.

~~~
rdhyee
Verified Voting the _non-partisan_ umbrella organization that connects many
leading election technology experts (including Halderman the author of the
piece; Ron Rivest and Philip Stark --
[http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/11/22/election-hacking-
audit/](http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/11/22/election-hacking-audit/)) has been
in the business of ensuring the integrity of the voting system since 2003.
[https://www.verifiedvoting.org/about-
vvo/](https://www.verifiedvoting.org/about-vvo/)

------
dotnetisnotdead
I'm surprised to a see a professor of CS be so ruled by emotion. The Clinton
team is likely to ignore this type of advice until actual evidence is shown.
"I think she should have won" or "the polls all said.." is simply not good
enough to overturn the entire process at this point.

~~~
hackuser
What makes you say he is "ruled by emotion"? The article was nuanced,
balanced, carefully reasoned and used unemotional language.

> "I think she should have won" or "the polls all said.."

Those aren't his arguments.

