It always makes my skin crawl when they’ve got a non-white-male in their sights to light in to.
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Oregon as well.
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I know. But she’s like a textbook case for Whistleblower status - she zeroed in on one thing she saw was injust and untrue and wanted to set the record straight.
Miles from the Eddie Snowden model.
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I didn’t see anyone claiming they’d actually hacked the machines. But I question the value of trying to draw a distinction between trying to hack the machines or compromise the actual results in some other way and the theoretical possibility they’d make it look like they had. The attempt is nearly impossible to doubt, with everything else we know. The situation you suggest of a deliberate “con job” to make it look that way is far less likely, I’d think nearly impossible (why would you?), although sowing chaos no matter what happens is certainly one of their goals. We can certainly both agree we need a much more robust system to keep bad actors out of the voting process.
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I do think that mailing ballots are better by and large than many of the current systems in place, but I do have a couple worries. How do you handle people without mailing addresses (e.g. the homeless)? Without at least some number of physical polling locations, it seems like such people are disenfranchised in such systems.
There also seems to be a bit of a problem with voting privacy. In the voting booth, no one can influence your actual ballot (assuming free and fair elections), but with a mail-in ballot, what prevents the family patriarch/matriarch from making sure everyone “voted the right way” before the ballot is mailed in?
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Remember, Hillary Clinton has a severe case of scoliosis, why else would she be called Crooked Hillary
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I’ve always had my suspicions because Trump calling Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin before voting day is like Tim Tebow being drafted by the Yankees and first up to bat, points a la Ruth where his homer will go and nails it. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were really a stretch for him. Michigan I can believe because they’ve been trending red for a while.
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I wasn’t necessarily intending to imply the con job was the end goal. It could be more along the lines of the consolation prize in the event that the full hacking effort failed.
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“The emails contained Microsoft Word attachments purporting to be benign documentation for VR Systems’ EViD voter database product line, but which were in reality maliciously embedded with automated software commands that are triggered instantly and invisibly when the user opens the document.”
What is bad about this hack (if I understand correctly) is the methodology has been in use since the first viruses in the 90’s. MS Word/Excel command, auto_open --> you’re in.
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I guess the arrest means that this is not the “bomb” that Rogers is supposed to drop Wednesday.
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Can’t entirely dismiss that. Plan B and all that. And the fact that the leaker involved is something of an unusual person raises eyebrows as well. And in general I can’t argue with your advice not to go nuts over the first news you hear of a new wrinkle in this unfortunate deal. I just think Occam’s razor suggests they really would go to the next step once the others were successful. They knew they were close to an unimaginable prize at that point—why not take the chance? I just wondered if you were giving enough weight to that, or being a bit extra-contrarian. I’m something of a contrarian and crowd-argue-with-er myself. 
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From the Intercept article:
The NSA has now learned, however, that Russian government hackers, part of a team with a “cyber espionage mandate specifically directed at U.S. and foreign elections,” focused on parts of the system directly connected to the voter registration process, including a private sector manufacturer of devices that maintain and verify the voter rolls. Some of the company’s devices are advertised as having wireless internet and Bluetooth connectivity, which could have provided an ideal staging point for further malicious actions.
The leaked report is dated May 5th, i.e. is very new. There is no sign that the NSA has investigated the question of the effect of this takeover of the electronic voting systems. For all we know, the takeover was highly effective. We just don’t know one way or the other yet. That in itself is very alarming, since there must be a presumption of efficacy in this field. The burglar doesn’t crack the safe and then leave the contents of the safe alone.
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Leading all the network newscasts right now.
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Russian military intelligence doesn’t seem to me to be just any old hackers.
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This will be known as the first ever US “Mulligan Election”. It was necessary.
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Um, no. Michigan is a gerrymandered state, and democrats are underrepresented.
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Does anyone know which are the 8 states that use VR Systems software?
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Or the close relation: “Nah, I didn’t vote. Both were horrible choices.”
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Fair questions.
The “residential” address determines what ballot the Elections office sends. Voters must also provide a mailing address, which can belong to a friend, relative, shelter or general delivery at a post office. If you use general delivery, you must have an ID to pick up your ballot.
Unlike other countries that have a national holiday to vote, enroll people automatically or have a voting mandate, the United States does not always make it easy to participate in its democratic institutions. That doesn’t stop low-income voters from showing up, however.
Studies on volunteer-led voter drives at welfare offices show that 70 percent of people registered in this way show up to the polls for presidential elections. That’s compared to 57.5 percent of the electorate in 2012 and 62.3 percent in 2008.
As far as preventing family bullies from forcing members to vote the way they’re told … it’s not something I’ve seen discussed. Your ballot comes to you, and you can fill it out whenever and wherever you like.
A source in DOJ confirms that Jared Kushner is being interviewed by AG’s International Criminal Division.
Uh huh. At the same time that same DOJ has arrested a suspected leaker? Not buying that for a second. I know I’m a wet blanket and all, but remember Taylor and Mensch were furiously tweeting just a couple of weeks ago that impeachment activity was already underway.
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