\u201cWhich is it going to be, that\u2019s all? The conspiracy or the f*ck-up?\u201d \u2013John LeCarr\u00e9, The Honorable Schoolboy<\/em><\/p>\n Not that I\u2019m jaded. Or cynical. In any case, the quotation<\/a> in the headline is not from Lincoln, like so many other quotes from Lincoln that are not[1]; that was the catchphrase that came to hand with \u201cballot\u201d in it. In any case, let\u2019s hope it\u2019s true, provenance aside.<\/p>\n If the legitimacy of election 2024 is to be contested, by either (any) Party, balloting issues and claims are likely to figure largely in the discourse, and in whatever measures each party takes, as they did in 2000, 2004, 2016 (in the electoral college<\/a>), and 2020 [2]. In this post, I will not look in any detail at current ballot-related legal challenges; the numbers exceed my capacity, so it makes more sense to see what shakes out. In any case, many if not most of them are frivolous (and that goes twofold, threefold, tenfold for unauthenticated \u2014 \u201cLook! A truck! By the side of the road!\u201d \u2014 videos on the Twitter. When \u201ccitizen journalism<\/a>\u201d actually becomes journalism, that\u2019s gonna be great, but we are so not there yet).<\/p>\n Instead, to aid understanding the debacle I devoutly hope will not happen on Election Day and days following, I will first look at the inordinate complexity (hence vulnerabilty) of our balloting systems; there\u2019s rather a lot of it. I will then take a cursory, swift look at current controversies in swing states. I\u2019ll conclude with the hope that if there is<\/em> a debacle, we\u2019ll learn from it MR SUBLIMINAL Fat chance!<\/sub><\/p>\n Complexities and Vulnerabilities of our Balloting System<\/strong><\/p>\n First, let\u2019s check in with the spooks, starting with a handy Diagram<\/a> from the Department of Homeland Security:<\/p>\n Let\u2019s not think of this as just a diagram; let\u2019s think of it \u2014 as the spooks probably do \u2014 as a map of attack surfaces, which I\u2019ve helpfully highlighted. At the bottom of the diagram, highlighted in yellow, we have traditional (non-digital) methods, all of which were executed in Ohio 2004: \u201cequipment\u201d (which can be concentrated in favored precincts, thinned out in disfavored ones, or fail altogether, depending), \u201cvoting locations\u201d (ditto), \u201copening and closing polls\u201d (ditto), \u201cprocessing votes\u201d (slow or fast, depending), and \u201cpublishing unofficial results\u201d (as FOX did in Florida 2000, causing Gore to concede, though he later unconceded). At the top of the diagram, in red, I have underlined modern (digital) methods: online registration, voting machines, optical scan voting ballots, DRE machines, Optical Scans, Email, Fax, \u201cElectronically,\u201d and audits (because IIRC some audits simply consist of running the ballots through a scanning machine as a second time.<\/p>\n Past use of traditional attack surfaces proves that, no matter how trustworthy the vast majority of election workers are, wrongdoing still happens (\u201cIf men were angels, no government would be necessary\u201d). <\/p>\n For digital attack surfaces, suffice to day that digital = hackable<\/a>, by definition<\/a> (Edgers Dijkstra: \u201cProgram testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence\u201d, a bug being a potential attack surface for a bad actor. Ken Thompson: \u201cThe moral is obvious. You can\u2019t trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.)\u201d[3]<\/p>\n Now let\u2019s look at the Brennan Center<\/a> (more here<\/a>), who assure us that everything is hunky-dory:<\/p>\n Since 2020, the nation\u2019s electoral apparatus has upgraded its equipment, tightened its procedures, improved its audits, and hardened its defenses against subversion by bad actors, foreign or domestic. Ballot tabulators [but not voting machines?] are air-gapped from the Internet [how about USB sticks] and .<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Let\u2019s stop right there. By \u201cvoter-verified paper records\u201d the Brennan Center means that the voting machine prints out a paper ballot (in essence, a receipt) so that the voter can \u201cverify\u201d a print-out against the choices they made on screen. There are two difficulties with this. First, many people simply trust the machine and don\u2019t do the check at all (do you carefully verify every receipt you are given?). That opens the way for a stochastic process where some altered votes slip through due to a hacked system. There are two additional problems, depending on the architecture used. (1) If, as in the VSAP system<\/a> used in Los Angeles<\/a>, the voting machine transmits results digitally to the ballot counter, and then, in parallel, prints out a receipt for the voter, the real<\/em> ballot is the digital transmission, not the paper receipt. The two don\u2019t have to match, the voting machine could have been hacked, and so there is no verification at all. (2) If the voting machine prints out a receipt and then, in sequence, the receipt is scanned by a digital ballot counter, that simply moves the digital attack surface to the ballot counter.<\/p>\n Needless to say, I don\u2019t find that underlined sentence from the Brennan Center a confidence builder. But let\u2019s go on:<\/p>\n At the heart of that system are nonpartisan election officials at the federal, state, county, and local level who are dedicated to delivering a free and fair election. Poll workers will verify the identity and registration of every person who casts a ballot, in person or by mail. When polls close on Election Day, sooner in some states, election workers will begin tabulating early and mail-in ballots and in-person votes, usually on [hackable] scanning machines. As they proceed, officials will secure counted ballots, compile the results from the [hackable] tabulation machines, and save worksheets and (for 98% of votes cast[4]) paper records for official and public review. The entire procedure is overseen by poll watchers from both parties.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I yield to nobody in my admiration for the church ladies who carefully cross my name off the registration list, hand me my paper ballot, and then give me my \u201cI voted\u201d sticker (and I think hassling them is really vile, and should stop). That said, the key issue is not how the system operates on the whole and on the average. In an election that (almost) universally expected to be close, only a few insiders in a few precincts in some of the seven swing states are required to hack the outcome (and you can bet that there are \u201cblack hats\u201d whose very expensive business it is to know those insiders, those precincts, those states, and, of course, the hack. And very few of them go up in small planes<\/a>). And finally:<\/p>\n No human enterprise that spans tens of thousands of polling places, hundreds of thousands of election officials, and more than 150 million projected voters can aspire to be flawless, says , a former Army intelligence officer who directs the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). \u201cThere could be a ransomware attack on an election office,\u201d Easterly says. \u201cThere could be a distributed denial of service attack on a website, so you can\u2019t see election-night reporting. Somebody will forget their key to a polling place, so they could open late. A storm may bring down a power line, so a polling place needs to be moved.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n (We will see in a moment how disingenuous the Brennan Center is, describing CISA\u2019s Easterly as \u201cformer Army intelligence officer.\u201d The New Yorker played the same trick with FMIC\u2019s Jessica Brandt<\/a>). I also yield to nobody in my admiration for election workers generally, and in my frustration at the enormous number of human errors that get blown up into malfeasance on social media, generally without attestation. More: <\/p>\n What matters, she says, is that election officials have trained for all those contingencies. \u201cThey are prepared to meet the moment and to deal with any disruption,\u201d she says. Easterly and her state counterparts play this message of reassurance on repeat, interview after interview and speech after speech. It has the virtue of being true. they have ever seen happen to an election, and none of those bad things pose a genuine threat to the integrity of the vote.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cEvery<\/em> bad thing\u201d? No. Except for one. Can you guess? Take a moment:<\/p>\n Quis custodiet ipsos custodes <\/em>? (\u201cWho watches the watchers<\/a>\u201c, Juvenal, c. 100 AD).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n 100AD, what would be\u2026 2024 \u2013 100 = 1924 years ago. That\u2019s a lot! And Jen Easterly \u201cwas deployed to Baghdad as chief of the cryptologic services group for the National Security Agency. She also worked for NSA\u2019s elite Tailored Access Operations,\u201d the \u201chacking unit\u201d exposed by Edward Snowden, that infiltrated computers around the world<\/a>. Clearly, if there\u2019s a \u201cwatcher\u201d who, wearing a White Hat, is equipped to protect all those digital attack surfaces, it\u2019s Jen Easterly. Equally clearly, if there\u2019s a watcher who, wearing a Black Hat, is equipped to hack them, it is also Jen Easterly[5]. That would be a Bad Thing. And yet hacking, in general, goes unmentioned both by the Brennan Center and Easterly. Odd!<\/p>\n Now, I would never attribute means (***cough*** Tailored Access ***cough***), opportunity (***cough*** CISA directorship ***cough***), or motive (***cough*** Orange Hitler ***cough***) to Easterly without any evidence. But I don\u2019t have to. We\u2019re talking systems, not persons. The principle to keep in mind here is Akerlof and Shiller\u2019s \u201cPhishing Equilibrium\u201d (see NC here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>), which I summarize as: \u201cIf fraud can happen, it will already have happened.<\/a>\u201d The same principle applies in the famous joke about the two economists walking down the street. One spots a twenty dollar bill lying in the street, and bends to pick it up. The other stops him, saying \u201cIf that twenty were real, somebody would already<\/em> have picked it up.\u201d Every digital attack surface could be that real<\/em> twenty dollar bill. The goal of election security, therefore, should not be to create a three-ring binder with a page for every contingency \u2014 except, naturally, for Black Hat insider attacks, because who knows, we might need them some day \u2014 but to simplify<\/em> the system so the number of attack surfaces is as minimal as possible. Why leave twenty dollar bills on the street?<\/p>\n And speaking of twenty bucks lying in the street, here\u2019s a tweet from Marc Elias, Democrat election lawyer extraordinaire and the cut-out through whom the Clinton campaign laundered its payments to spook Christopher Steele<\/a>, of dossier fame. Democracy Docket is Elias\u2019s website:<\/p>\n NEW: A record setting 200 voting and election cases have been filed in 2024. The states with the most: For a limited time, Democracy Docket is offering $20 off premium membership. https:\/\/t.co\/2Scval9aLm<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) November 2, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n <\/center> <\/p>\n The Harris campaign has a billion dollars and counting, unless they\u2019re lying. Are they paying Elias in such meagre coin that he\u2019s got to hit up the rubes? With that, let\u2019s turn to the Swing States.<\/p>\n Recent Balloting Issues in Swing States<\/strong><\/p>\n Let me caveat once more that I make no attempt to be exhaustive; the tweets that follow are simply the latest Swing State-related froth from my Twitter timeline. However, readers, if you live in any of these seven states and have anecdotes or links you wish to share in comments, please do so!<\/p>\n Arizona<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Curing ballots:<\/p>\n Arizona is a crucial state where we need every blue vote! <\/p>\n Help make sure ALL votes are counted by “curing\u201d ballots that have mistakes (like missing signature). Learn how you can make sure EVERYONE’S voice is heard.#Voterizer<\/a> #KamalaDeliversJoyToUS<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/fasatgTYFg<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 MLS (@Michael90937613) November 3, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n <\/center> <\/p>\n Swell, if it\u2019s non-partisan, which this clearly is not.<\/p>\n Georgia<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cGeorgia judge says voters can hand in mail ballots in rejection of GOP lawsuit\u201d [FOX<\/a>]. \u201cA judge in Georgia on Saturday dismissed a Republican lawsuit that sought to block voters from hand-returning mail-in ballots in the state over the weekend\u2026. A Fulton County spokesperson said on Saturday afternoon that only a couple dozen ballots had been returned to the four open county offices.\u201d \u2022 To me, the same as above. Commentary:<\/p>\n Georgia judge says voters can hand in mail ballots in rejection of GOP lawsuit<\/p>\n Here we come go again! https:\/\/t.co\/iF8gogd43U<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Thomas G (@Thomasguam) November 3, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I understand the point about last-minute rule changes, but I see this as a problem of not being able to determine all the edge cases in an absurdly complex system, rather than as malfeasance.<\/p>\n \u201cRepublicans score victory in Georgia fight over election observers, RNC chairman says\u201d [FOX<\/a>]. \u201cGeorgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said on X, \u2018We\u2019re pleased that Fulton County has implemented our requirement allowing monitors in the spirit of Georgia law. But we are concerned that this was ever a question in the first place.\u2019 The alleged exclusion of poll watchers from the weekend absentee ballot submission hours was not limited to just the GOP. It included all observers, Republicans said. An RNC spokesperson told Fox News Digital having public poll observers through the weekend benefited both Republicans and Democrats but argued their absence would hurt the GOP more in left-leaning areas. The spokesperson said the RNC worked with Georgia election officials to secure access for poll observers.\u201d \u2022 Poll watchers are good, unless and until they morph into a \u201cbourgeois riot,\u201d as in Miami 2000, or similar levels of officiousness.<\/p>\n Michigan<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cSpreadsheet showing Michigan voter data isn\u2019t proof of election fraud\u201d [WTSP<\/a>]. \u201cRecent social media posts alleging election fraud in Michigan have gone viral as millions of Americans cast their ballots. The posts show a spreadsheet with Wayne County, Michigan, addresses and voter ID numbers. In the image, a highlighted voter ID column appears to show the same ID assigned to multiple addressees, suggesting one person has cast multiple votes\u2026. The image is not proof that any individual in Wayne County, Michigan, cast multiple votes. A formatting error in the state\u2019s voter registration database mistakenly made it look like people voted multiple times, Michigan election officials and Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump confirmed. The error has since been corrected and each voter listed in the report only voted once in the election, officials said.\u201d \u2022 Commentary:<\/p>\n Our election integrity team received reports of thousands of duplicate ballots in Michigan. <\/p>\n We immediately investigated and have CONFIRMED that it was a glitch in the system \u2013 these duplicates were not and WILL NOT BE COUNTED. <\/p>\n We are on it and protecting the vote! https:\/\/t.co\/F73rzmsBRL<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Lara Trump (@LaraLeaTrump) October 30, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n <\/center> <\/p>\n Nevada<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cNevada\u2019s high court allows counting of mail-in ballots without postmarks\u201d [Politico<\/a>]. \u201cThe Nevada Supreme Court has turned down a bid by Donald Trump\u2019s campaign to block state officials from counting mail-in ballots that lack postmarks but arrive within three days after Election Day\u2026 The court\u2019s majority said adopting the GOP position could disenfranchise some voters through no fault of their own. The ruling affects only a small number of ballots that arrive by mail but lack postmarks due to what the majority called \u2018random postal service omissions.’\u201d \u2022 The decision looks fine to me \u2014 readers? \u2014 if you accept the proposition that mail-in ballots shold be normalized, and if indeed the omissions are random (\u201csmall\u201d is not relevant. The margins are small!)<\/p>\n North Carolina<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Ballot selfies:<\/p>\n AGAIN, PLEASE.. CHECK TO SEE IF RECORDING, TAKING A PICTURE WITH YOUR BALLOT IS LEGAL IN YOUR STATE! It is illegal IN NORTH CAROLINA to do a “ballot selfie” or recording and can be cause for invalidation..<\/p>\n I DON’T WANT ANY JUSTIFICATION FOR INVALIDATION, PLEASE CHECK YOUR STATE.<\/p>\n \u2014 Olli at the Clock Shop (@llhall2) October 21, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n <\/center> <\/p>\n \u201cElection Day Voting Equipment by County\u201d [North Carolina State Board of Elections<\/a>]. This is an impressive piece of work:<\/p>\n Note, however, that the ADA ballot marking is done digital, and I cannot find what the standard is for voting on paper vs. voting on machine.<\/p>\n Pennsylvania<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cSupreme Court rules Pennsylvania may count back-up votes when mail ballots are rejected\u201d [CNN<\/a>]. \u201cThe US Supreme Court on Friday left in place a Pennsylvania court ruling that is expected to expand options for voters whose mail-in ballots are rejected for technical reasons to have their votes counted, in a defeat for Republicans in a critical battleground state. There were no noted dissents. For Pennsylvania voters who made a mistake in how they prepared their mail-in ballots, it could ensure they have a backup option to have a provisional ballot counted\u2026. It\u2019s unclear how many Pennsylvania voters will benefit because not every county notifies voters of defective mail ballots. But both sides in the appeal before the Supreme Court characterized the dispute as affecting potentially \u201cthousands\u201d of votes at a minimum\u2026. Different counties in Pennsylvania have different procedures for dealing with defective mail ballots, some more forgiving than others. That patchwork of rules makes it difficult to say with certainty how many ballots were at stake in the case.\u201d \u2022 Looks like a mess.<\/p>\n Wisconsin<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cPro-Trump poll watchers primed for Election Day action in key state\u201d [Reuters]. \u201cMany local officials fear the activist action at election sites, while limited, was merely a rehearsal for a much larger-scale event on Nov. 5, when Republican Trump goes up against Democrat Kamala Harris in the fight for the White House. \u2018It was absolutely a dry run for the general election,\u2019 Glendale\u2019s Democratic Mayor Bryan Kennedy told Reuters, adding that police were called to two polling stations by election workers and ordered two observers to leave, when it was decided the ballot challenges were without basis. \u2018They were challenging every absentee ballot with whatever reason they could pull out of thin air,\u2019 Kennedy said. With days to go until the presidential vote, opinion polling shows the election is on a knife-edge, with few places as pivotal as Wisconsin.\u201d \u2022 Thousands of Marc Elias mini-mes? What a prospect. And then there\u2019s this:<\/p>\n MAGA Wisconsin Election Commission director Kimberly Zapata found guilty on all felony counts for falsifying military ballots. She could face 5 years in prison pic.twitter.com\/p1nwgR52Yj<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 KamallaDreams (@KamalaDreams) October 31, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n <\/center> <\/p>\n Life\u2019s rich pageant!<\/p>\n Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n Of course, as I urged here (\u201cThe Organs of State Security Involved in Authenticating Election 2024 (or Not)<\/a>\u201c, and back in 2016, here (\u201cFederalist 68, the Electoral College, and Faithless Electors<\/a>\u201c) the over-riding issue, the change in our Constitutional order, comes from putting the spooks in charge of authenticating our elections. What happens, to invent a not-entirely-implausible scenario, if Trump wins because of a 10,000-vote margin in Pennsylvania, but an anonymous leak to the New York Times on \u201cThe Day After\u201d claims those 10,000 votes were the result of a hack? And then, after a week or so of hysteria, it turns out that the source of the leak is Jen Easterly, late of NSA\u2019s Tailored Access Operations, who assures us it\u2019s all true, really, but can\u2019t reveal intelligence sources and methods? Granted, this is rank speculation. But do we want a system where such speculation is even possible<\/em>? Because that\u2019s the balloting system we have.<\/p>\n The obvious solution is to have elections that are validated by citizens, not spooks (as I wrote in \u201cWhat \u201cOur Democracy\u201d Should Look Like When Voting: A Simple Plan<\/a>). In essence: Ballots should be hand-marked on paper and counted in public. All voting should take place on the same day. Election Day should be a national holiday (with much more detail in the post). Keep it simple, stupid!<\/p>\n Take digital out of the equation, you take the spooks out of the equation, and you save the Constitutional order. What\u2019s not to like?<\/p>\n NOTES<\/strong><\/p>\n [1] Quote.org<\/a> shows that Lincoln used this \u201cbullet\u201d\/\u201dballot\u201d antithesis numerous times \u2014 and no wonder \u2014 but \u201cThe ballot is stronger than the bullet<\/a>\u201d has no cite. Hilariously, Google\u2019s alternative, \u201cTo give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary<\/a>,\u201d has no cite either. \u201cBallots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets<\/a>,\u201d implying the civilization advances, comes from Lincoln\u2019s Message to Congress, July 7, 1861. <\/p>\n [2] It seems to me likely that Democrats, in the event of a Trump victory, would not make the main thrust of their assault within the judicial branch, given the composition of the Supreme Court; see here<\/a>. Republicans might well do so, given the same givens.<\/p>\n [3] One of the most offensive butcheries of Trump\u2019s farcical butchery of the 2020 election challenges \u2014 which may have turned paper ballots into a partisan issue, setting it back by a generation, good job Don \u2014 was his failure to demand voting machine source code. How on earth can we even begin to know it\u2019s secure without examining it?<\/p>\n [4] With election margins as thin as they are, that 98% figure seems a little sus.<\/p>\n [5] Are we really to believe that the NSA\u2019s Tailored Access Operations unit has not hacked voting machines in Color Revolutions abroad<\/em>? Heck, what good are they if they haven\u2019t? But who watches the watchers to make sure those hacks don\u2019t go domestic? Especially when \u201cPresident Hitler\u201d could undoubtedly be framed as a national security issue, say by a \u201cthirty-five year national security expert<\/a>\u201c?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/dhs_election.png\")
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Pennsylvania 27
Georgia 24
Nevada 15
Wisconsin 14
Arizona 13<\/p>\n\n
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Last minute changes in voting rules by Democrat
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It also happened in 2016 and 2020 Presidential elections.<\/p>\n\n
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