Trump: Why should my supporters be under investigation? This is not constitutional. Very Bad.
I fully agree, but I’m guessing this investigation is already well underway by FBI, NSA, CIA, etc…
Everybody wants the FBI to investigate Russian tampering with US elections.
Trump should just ask them to stop for a few months.
I’m sure it is, and Reid knows it. But I think the key here is making this request official and public. Glad Reid did this.
Good. I’m guessing there’s some GOP/Teatroll operatives out there who might sweat this big time, but maybe that’s just my tinfoil hat talking.
it’s annoying that our voting system is so vulnerable. Why is that? Where I vote, we mark a paper ballot that gets fed into an optical scanner that counts the votes. This machine is not hooked up to a network. I think the precincts just report the totals at the end of the day. I guess I don’t know the process they use to do that, but it doesn’t seem very prone to a foreign hack. So what are the voting systems that are being used that are vulnerable to hacking, and why are we using them? We honestly don’t need anything more sophisticated than the optical scanner style in my experience… it works well and counts the votes in a timely manner while also leaving a paper trail. It bugs me so much that we’ve computerized the process in some places to the point where it is now not secure.
That’s why I always use the optical scan instead of the totally unsecured Windows machines heavily promoted at my polling place.
Now, my polling place is small enough that anyone would be hard-pressed to add 50 or 100 votes to influence the total, but the shot to the election’s legitimacy would be the biggest problem.
And I agree with the upstairs comments - why the hell isn’t every member of Congress, every statewide and local elected official, every newspaper, out there calling for an in-depth investigation? And why did Yahoo News find this out instead of the Almighty NYT, which apparently has plenty of time to troll through old emails and iinterpret Clinton’s SoS days in favor of promoting a non-scandal scandal?
Reid has become the same vapid dolt that are the other idiots condemning Russia for something they are most likely innocent of. This is all more political b.s. from the despicable liars and cowards running the so called government. Reid should shut up and resign for his PC mirroring of Obama’s and Hillary’s identical b.s.
Even optical scan machines are vulnerable if you have physical access (which you need to change the software for each new ballot). But the part where you download changes from the manufacturer’s (supposed) web site for convenience just seems like an invitation.
Hey there everyone! Not a single piece of evidence points to Russia or Russians for performing these many hacks. Got it yet? Or, if you have a link to evidence, post it here or shut up and try consider not committing yourselves to ignorance for the remainder of your sorry self-deceived lives.
It’s more than annoying, I would suggest. It’s downright worrying.
If indeed Russia is interfering with our elections, this can’t stand. I wonder what options Obama has in terms of countermeasures against Putin…because no doubt this is state sanctioned.
I think it would be more interesting if they investigated the ties between Deutsche Bank, Trump, and the Putin family. Article only goes as far as saying that the bank is the only one that will lend to Trump.
Optical scans can be relatively tamper-proof but this requires doing random audits of the paper ballots at a polling place with the machine tabulations.
Putin thanks you for your support.
And why, precisely, do you find working for secure voting methods so problematical?
Sorry. The FBI is more trustworthy than you are. Hacking the DNC and getting caught means that any voter in his right mind will, rightly or wrongly, suspect Russia of this.
Putin is busy turning his paranoid nightmare of being surrounded by enemies into reality.
We have known for years that our election records and computerized voting machines were vulnerable. Anyone with any understanding of how the machines are made can change the votes with a TV remote and close access. Our registration records are all computerized and hacking by real computer professionals, not teenagers who are bored, has been a real concern within the government at all levels for over two decades. Russia has gotten sloppy, possibly, by getting caught at the DNC and HRC campaigns, but this hacking of election records creates the potential for a Constitutional crisis of monumental proportions - and make no mistake, Trump will make it one if this problem is not addressed and fixed before November. Every state should be considering using optical scanners or paper ballots to create paper trails, and no longer rely on computerized voting machines. Early voting using the mail would require paper ballots like we use here in Oregon, and that would also bypass the computerized voting machine issue.
What is of greater concern is not the things that will happen at the local level, but rather what happens at the state election boards when the votes are transmitted. Those records, whether paper or electronic, are all computerized to generate a wealth of data about the vote, and it is that system that is most vulnerable to attack from an outside source. With Trump already screaming about voter fraud and rigged elections; his call for Russia to find e-mails from Clinton; and his general self-induced paranoia about losing, this kind of incursion by a foreign power becomes a very real concern. We have already seen Trump call on Russia to hack our computer systems to find dirt on Clinton and his pal, Paul Manafort, has strong ties to pro-Putin groups overseas. A Constitutional crisis in this election could well result in the American public being thrown into a mindset that makes future elections a joke and at that point, Trump and his 1%er friends win no matter who is President because they will have driven people out of the process because of corruption.
The states have an obligation to protect their election systems, and they have been given a wake-up call, regardless of the outcome of any investigation, that they are in danger of being disrupted and compromised in a major way. If the Russians have been successful in actually doing this hacking, then they have done us a huge favor by showing us where we are vulnerable in time to correct the problem before November. Let us all hope that the states take this seriously enough so that on November 9th we know who the next President will truly be based on actual votes, rather than be facing a Constitutional crisis caused by a foreign power and encouraged by that maniac Trump.