Election 2016 endgame: reflections

I have been concerned for years about the rigging of election results, including—but not limited to—voting machine tampering.   That is why I am in favor of an audit and/or recount in the current Presidential election.

Source: NBC News

I do not think there is any realistic possibility of changing the announced election results.   This would require the discovery of discrepancies in all three recount states—Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania—large enough to change the result, and all this before the Electoral College meets on Dec. 19.

What I hope will come out of the audit / recount will be an improved process for national elections—at a minimum, a paper record and a routine audit to verify the paper record.

I didn’t vote for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.   I am not pleased that Trump is President, but I am opposed to going to extraordinary lengths to keep him from taking office, such as trying to persuade members of the Electoral College pledged to Trump to violate their pledges.   I am more concerned with the integrity of the process than which of two candidates won.

On the other hand, I do not care at all whether the recount process undermines “confidence” in Trump’s supposed mandate.  Confidence is to be earned, not granted automatically.

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It would be unfortunate if the audit / recount process diverted attention from all the other ways in which the election process is and has been rigged.

Greg Palast

An investigative reporter named Greg Palast has been reporting on vote rigging for years.  One method is the infamous CrossCheck system, whereby somebody who has approximately the same name as somebody in another state is assumed to be the same person, and the name is removed.

We the people don’t know if voting machines were tampered with.  We do know about CrossCheck.

As Palast notes, the names that are checked are almost always common last names of African-Americans or Hispanics.  Here’s how he said CrossCheck affected the current election:

Trump victory margin in Michigan: 13,107

Michigan Crosscheck purge list: 449,922

Trump victory margin in Arizona: 85,257

Arizona Crosscheck purge list: 270,824

Trump victory margin in North Carolina: 177,008

North Carolina Crosscheck purge list: 589,393

Source: Greg Palast | Investigative Reporter

It’s too late to give back the voting rights that were stolen in this year’s election.   The best that can be hoped for is to fix things for the future.

It’s too bad that the Obama administration did not see fit to investigate this.   I don’t hope for anything from Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump’s choice for attorney-general.   Ending this corrupt and illegal system will depend on citizen activists working on the state level.

Election 2016 endgame: links & updates

This post consists mainly of links to articles about efforts to recount the 2016 U.S. presidential vote.   I never expected the recount to change the  election result.  What I hope is that the recount will make American citizens aware of how easily the voting process could have been tampered with, and of the need for reform..

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Did the GOP Strip and Flip the 2016 Selection? by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman for the Columbus Free Press.

Why the U.S. State Department would not certify Trump’s election as legitimate by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman for the Columbus Free Press.

They link to other charts besides the one above showing the discrepancy between the exit polls and official vote.

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2016 Presidential Election Table by Theodore de Macedo Soares for TDMS|Research. This shows the discrepancy between exit polls and official votes in 28 states.

In 13 states, Trump’s margin of victory was greater than the margin of error in the exit poll; in four states—North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida—the exit poll favored Clinton and the official vote favored Trump. In only one state, New York, Clinton’s margin of victory was greater than the margin for error in the exit poll.

Electronic Voting Machines and the Election by Thomas Cooiey, Ben Griffy and Peter Rupert for U.S. Economic Snapshot.

The No-BS Inside Guide to the Presidential Vote Recount by Greg Palast for Truthout.

A Slow Motion Coup D’etat by David Jay Morris for Cannonfire.

The presidential vote will be recounted

Jill Stein of the Green Party raised enough money to meet the deadline for filing for a recount of the Presidential vote in Wisconsin.

She has until Monday to do the same in Pennsylvania and until Wednesday for Michigan.  I’ll update this post after the filing deadlines.

In order to change the apparent result of the election, the recount would have to show that Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump, got a majority of the votes in all three states.

That’s not likely.  But a recount even in just one state would help to reassure me that the vote count was honest—or confirm my suspicion that it may not have been.

I think that’s Stein’s motivation as well.  She is not a supporter of Clinton and neither am I, but all American citizens have an interest in an honest vote count.

No, I can’t prove voting machines were hacked

If you leave your car unlocked with the key in the ignition, sooner or later somebody will steal it.

If you entrust your nation’s elections to voting machines that can be tampered with, sooner or later somebody will tamper with them.

If your car is still on the parking lot when you come back, that is not a reason to leave your car unlocked and the keys in the ignition.

I think there’s enough circumstantial evidence to justify an audit of the 2016 Presidential election results in certain battleground states.

But if it turns out that there’s no proof that voting machines were tampered with in this election, that is not a reason to have voting machines that can be tampered with.