Well, now we know why the voter rolls were hacked.

[Tatiana]

U.S. intel: Russia compromised seven states prior to 2016 election

Three senior intelligence officials told NBC News that the intelligence community believed the states as of January 2017 were Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Texas and Wisconsin.

The officials say systems in the seven states were compromised in a variety of ways, with some breaches more serious than others, from entry into state websites to penetration of actual voter registration databases.

While officials in Washington informed several of those states in the run-up to the election that foreign entities were probing their systems, none were told the Russian government was behind it, state officials told NBC News.

All state and federal officials who spoke to NBC News agree that no votes were changed and no voters were taken off the rolls.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/u-s-intel-russia-compromised-seven-states-prior-2016-election-n850296

Federal Government Tells 21 States Election Systems Targeted by Hackers

The federal government on Friday told election officials in 21 states that hackers targeted their systems last year, although in most cases the systems were not breached.

The government told The Associated Press last year that more than 20 states were targeted by hackers believed to be Russian agents before the 2016 elections. But for many states, the calls Friday from the Department of Homeland Security were the first official confirmation of whether their states were on the list.

The AP contacted every state election office on Friday. While not all of them responded immediately, those that said they were targeted were Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Election Commission, for example, said the state's systems were targeted by "Russian government cyber actors."

Only Illinois reported that hackers had succeeded in breaching its voter systems.

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/hacking-of-america/federal-government-tells-21-states-election-systems-targeted-hackers-n804031

They took this voter roll data and matched it up to the profiles and personal information gleaned from Facebook. This is how they targeted the people in Pennsylvania... a state Clinton should have won. This is how the child molester Moore almost won Alabama. I noticed those ads were very targeted. I believe CA continued to work on elections beyond 2016 in this country.

This isn't a data breach. This is the weaponizing of cyber data and social media platforms to steal elections. It's psychological warfare. Remember what Bannon said when he left the White House?

Steve Bannon returns to Breitbart: 'I've got my hands back on my weapons'

“I’ve got my hands back on my weapons,” the former White House chief strategist, who returned as executive chairman of Breitbart News late Friday afternoon, told the Weekly Standard. “I built a f***ing machine at Breitbart. And now I’m about to go back, knowing what I know, and we’re about to rev that machine up. And rev it up we will do.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/18/steve-bannon-returns-breitbart-donald-trump

Well, he certainly tried, didn't he?

[poboy2]

1. PSYOP- Psychological Operations...Psych WARFARE. -nt

[apnu]

2. Yes. This is weaponizing SOCIAL MEDIA. (nt)

[Initech]

65. I'd call it a form of cyber terrorism.

[apnu]

72. Its a bit of that, its also propaganda

That's how I see it. This is propaganda for the Social Media age. Which is, yes, a form of terrorism.

[Squinch]

3. OMG! I bet that's dead right.

[Wwcd]

4. So would the theft of someone's campaign voter data

end up being sold for use in this method of targeting?

Asking for 65 million friends

[Tatiana]

6. Looks like it...

I'm wondering if any of these 50+ million friends would have standing for a class action lawsuit?

[SoCalMusicLover]

5. I Love How Every Single Time They State...."NO VOTES WERE CHANGED"

It's like the Media WHORES are trying to say, SURE....there was all sorts of subterfuge going on, but don't worry....they stayed away from the votes themselves.

Anyone want to buy a bridge?

[mythology]

8. Present even the slightest bit of evidence votes were changed

Until then, it's just as unsupported as Republicans claiming in person voter fraud is a thing. You'd also have to explain how the counties in Wisconsin that hand recounted didn't differ significantly from counties that machine recounted.

Also actually changing votes would be a direct thing, relatively easy to prove the impact. Instead using subterfuge and psyops lets Russia maintain a certain amount of deniability and even if caught, there isn't a direct impact that would run the risk of causing a harsher response. Instead they worked on people who were already open to voting for Trump or against Clinton, but you can't directly prove the impact. People generally don't want to admit to being manipulated, so they will deny it and thus Russia wasn't at fault in their eyes.

[PDittie]

14. +1

The Russians didn't hack the election. I'm willing to be corrected if anyone can step forward with proof.

Facebook trolls from Russia mucked around in the election on social media to some unquantifiable measure, but that relies on a few premises I find laughable:

-- how many voters were really undecided about their choices to begin with?

-- how many were, really and truly, influenced by Twitter and Facebook ads, memes, and group postings about events and rallies, etc.

Not as many as there were people of color who were prevented from voting by mandatory voter ID, long poll lines, and other long-established GOP tactics of voter suppression and disenfranchisement.

YMMV.

[central scrutinizer]

26. I don't think it was about changing people's preferences

Voters who had already made up their minds weren't going to be swayed. I think it was to convince potential voters who aren't political junkies that both parties were corrupt so you might as well not vote. This has been a tool in the Repugnant kit for a long time. Suppress voter turnout by any means in hopes that the rabid anti-immigrant, anti-choice, pro-gun, fundie zealots will turn out and carry the day

[PDittie]

44. This is a fair point, because

there's plenty of science that predicts negativity in elections suppresses turnout. My particular POV holds that most all of that is already baked in to a marginally interested, mostly non-voting-anyway subset of .... let's call them 'potential' voters. Not sure what the pollsters might classify them as.

The most pervasive, negative 'campaigning', for lack of a better word, that I saw on social media and television -- that is, when the corporate media wasn't giving us every utterance, press conference, political rally, etc. of Trump's; the most free media of any campaign ever -- was fear-mongering; "Trump is so awful that ..." and "Hillary is so terrible", blahblahblah. 'Lesser of two evils' arguments don't do anything to persuade me, but I'm not the typical low-information voter.

Lacking sufficient empirical data, I'd be inclined that specific and intentional Republican efforts to suppress the vote was of more influence in the 2016 outcome. There was striking evidence of that in Wisconsin. We know also that GOP election administrators like to send old voting machines that are more likely to break down to minority precincts; something that's more than anecdotal.

Frankly I would believe that bad weather on Election Day depressed voter turnout to a greater degree than did any quantity of social media blathering over any length of time.

[Demsrule86]

56. I disagree. The way the election was won using the electoral college indicates that

there were electoral anomalies. I have looked at the numbers in key states and they are suspect. And now we have the Russians with the ability to shut down our power or screw with nuclear plants...and we have Trump who is compromised by Russia in some way,

[TomVilmer]

18. There are no space for rationel arguments right now...

... but thanks for trying!

[rzemanfl]

76. Gotta wash socks. BBL. n/t

[orangecrush]

20. That history

is still being written.

We do not yet know what Mr. Mueller knows, or is yet to uncover.

Until that time comes, I will not state that "no votes were stolen."

[The_REAL_Ecumenist]

38. I have but ONE thing to say to you, ORANGECRUSH...

[orangecrush]

47. Thanks!

[OhNo-Really]

51. I 2nd that

A healthy dose of skepticism warranted imho

I'm a bit intuitive. I have not fully trused most election results worldwide for a long time.

[Farmer-Rick]

30. That sounds just like those pro Trumpstrs who claim there is no evidence

That Trump colluded with the Russians or obstructed an FBI investigation.

Where to begin? Look at Glenn Greenwald's work. Look at Wire and how to rig voting machines. Look at how the vote counts were changed for W. against Kerry. Look at the race in North Carolina where a total unknown was elected by Dems in the primary. Look at TN where a KKK leader no one heard of got elected in the Dem primary. Look at how Rove behaved when he lost to Obama. Look at how Katherine Harris counted votes for W. And how Gore actually had more votes than did W.

No, changing votes requires a simple radio signal and leaves no trace. It is physically easy but it does require some advance planning and the rigging can get it wrong. You can do it in plain sight if you do enough media obfuscating. Yes, cheaters use other methods not just changing votes to rig elections. They know swapping out numbers has to look a little bit real so they alter counts to a system and sometimes that system fails and can be overwhelmed.

So if you discount all that, then you are correct no one rigged vote counts ever.

[Captain Stern]

41. I'm in North Carolina

Please tell me more about "the race in North Carolina where a total unkown was elected by Dems in the primary"

Thanks in advance.

[Farmer-Rick]

48. Greene in South Carolina

Sorry about that

[PDittie]

45. Somewhat non-sensical

I read and like Brad Friedman (a lot), but the whole conspiracy theory surrounding his premise that no voting machines are to be trusted ever by anyone clings to Luddism a little too closely for my comfort.

But even if you agree with Friedman and disagree with me, there were plenty of bad actors right here at home long before the Russkies decided to fire up the New McCarthyism.

[OhNo-Really]

52. BradBlog always interesting to read

[Demsrule86]

55. Why else would they do it?

[WestIndianArchie]

58. They hacked the votes too

http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/nsa-monitors-target-computers-radar-wave-devices/

[PDittie]

59. Yes, as mentioned

Last edited Thu Mar 22, 2018, 05:49 PM - Edit history (1)

"bad actors right here at home for a long time".

I would like to point out, however, that simply because they can does not mean that they did. They could have, but we need proof.

Correlation does not imply causation. This is the strongest argument supporting a voter-verifiable and auditible paper trail, which I would support as part of every DRE machine used in a United States election. Should be the standard, irrespective of cost.

We need a new HAVA Act.

[Orsino]

62. In states where the votes only existed, briefly, as electrons...

...we don't need evidence to know that They* are changing/discarding as many of them as They* think they can get away with.

Rather than waiting for proof that never really existed and by definition can't be recovered, we ought to be focused on converting back to physical ballots that must be counted by hand, and which can be recounted.



*Depending on who They are.

[TheFrenchRazor]

70. yep; i can't believe that anybody thinks that voting on computers with proprietary software, owned b

by republican criminals (literally), is a good idea.

[TheFrenchRazor]

69. present the slightest bit of evidence that they WEREN'T. oh yeah, there isn't any, because there was

no meaningful, state-wide, complete hand recount, or any kind of forensic examination of the machines, so basically, you're just taking the accuracy of the vote totals ON FAITH. i'm not quite as trusting as you are.

[rzemanfl]

77. The Jill Stein vote was a product of targeting Bernie voters. n/t

[global1]

9. You And I Are Thinking Alike On This.....

every time a Repug says that some states were breached - they always put the qualifier in there - that no votes were changed or affected. I think in the OP it says State & Federal officials say that now votes were changed or affected. I wonder if those State and Fed officials are all Repugs.

I can't believe if the hackers had penetrated the states like they say that they did - why they wouldn't go that extra distance and play with the votes themselves.

I'm distressed with Bannon's comments - about him being back with this weapons. What does that mean for Nov 2018 and will Bannon be prevented from any dirty tricks?

[rainin]

33. It isn't necessary to change votes when you can remove your opponents voters from the DB. n/t

[brush]

40. Bingo. As if we're supposed to believe the hackers went to all that trouble...

of getting into the system just to window shop.

"No votes were changed" is just cya answer because they know the public knows they were warned yet still did nothing to protect the system.

[brooklynite]

54. Maybe they're saying NO VOTES WERE CHANGED because there's NO EVIDENCE THEY WERE?

Hillary Clinton doesn't say it happened.

The DNC doesn't say it happened.

No Party Chair says it happened.

[TheFrenchRazor]

71. THERE'S NO EVIDENCE THEY WEREN'T; some of us aren't as trusting as you are. some of us

would like to see the actual paper ballots counted in front of multiple observers, not just presented with a magic number by some "authority figure."

[magicarpet]

7. Cross check Cambridge Analytica's collected...

.... Facebook data with voter registration info to better target potential voters to enhance the voter tallies to the benefit of tRdump.

The more info you have to work with the better targeted your message can be to achieve the final result you are looking for at the ballot box.

[bettyellen]

10. California becasue they were trying for a Cal-Exit movement? Texas too?

[Tatiana]

11. Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think you have it exactly right.

CALEXIT: THE 'YES CALIFORNIA' INDEPENDENCE BID RETURNS ON VALENTINE'S DAY TO DIVORCE AMERICA

No, President Donald Trump did not inspire California to secede from the union—but he sure made the proposal a whole lot more popular, says the Yes California Independence Campaign leader Marcus Ruiz Evans.

"Suddenly Trump gets elected and everyone wants to hear what we’re saying. Suddenly we're not crazy," Evans told Newsweek. "Trump is not the problem; he is a symptom. We have said this from the beginning. What kind of people elect a man like that? What kind of people allow that person to run? He would never be a candidate and he would never be elected in California."

The push for California's exit from the U.S. started under President Barack Obama when Evans and his co-founder Louis Marinelli realized the California economy was losing a disproportionate amount of money to the federal government. He sensed a schism between the West Coast culture and the rest of America—the kind of "systemic problems" that meant the U.S. government was not good for California.

http://www.newsweek.com/calexit-yes-california-independence-bid-returns-valentines-day-divorce-america-792451

These people are traitors. Our goal should be to crush them and their technology.

[Sophia4]

21. I don't like Cal-Exit, but I do think that if the rest of the country wants to keep

California (39 million residents approximately), Texas, New York and Florida in the Union, it needs to end the electoral college that cheats California voters in particular of a fair vote with regard to who becomes our president.

The electoral college visits injustice on the citizens in populous state and gives enormous power to the relatively few voters in the states with low populations.

That's a recipe for trouble sooner or later. And now we have Trump although, had California's votes counted like the votes in other states, Hillary would now be president.

Think about that. An injustice to a very populated state, namely California, has visited the entire country with the plague that is Donald Trump.

Unfairness is its own punishment.

[Mr.Bill]

25. The so-called Cal-Exit movement

has never gotten close to being on the ballot.

[bettyellen]

28. I know that. Also that Russia connected people were behind it. They sow just enough chaos to

normalize all the other chaos. If they have thousands of people thinking it’s a legitimate thing, they can snowball that into a bigger thing. It’s like they were testing markets to seed with anti-Dem bullshit. If you can’t see all the damage they’re trying to do to the registration of Cali, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s anything but A to B plotting.

[Mr.Bill]

29. Are you saying they have damaged

voter registration in California?

[bettyellen]

36. No one knows what they did to or with voter reg files yet. They pollute the discourse

By faking huge interest in things like Brexit and Calexot that stoke confused voters emotions. Just like they tried to rile up racsists by creating scarier versions of BLM while also lying about BLM.
Basically trying to forment unrest where there was little to none.

Didn’t you know the big backer of Cal Exit was a Russian?
Haven’t you seen all the negative PR about California the past few years? It’s been phenomenal.

[Mr.Bill]

39. He has spent time in Russia, but he was born in New York.

He moved to Russia last year.

I've lived in California since 1961, and there's always been California haters, and they seem to surface when we have a Democratic governor and legislature. They hate us because we are beautiful.

There have always been people who want to split the state up or form a state called Jefferson up north. Few take them seriously and realize it would take more than a vote of the citizens of California to do so.

[poboy2]

32. "insert it into the bloodstream' is the exact words they used. Poison the blood. -nt

[bettyellen]

37. Exactly- they create controversial stuff then have pols point to it as if it is real!

[spanone]

12. All state and federal officials who spoke to NBC News agree that no votes were changed and no voters

All state and federal officials who spoke to NBC News agree that no votes were changed and no voters were taken off the rolls.

PROVE IT.

[peggysue2]

13. Yes, Yes & Yes!

This was weaponization of data, cyber warfare and defrauding the US electoral system.

In a nutshell.

And the recent unravelling is coming to bite these weasels in the ass. The more and more facts we get, the sharper the guillotine becomes. Despite any and all of the Trumpster's vindictive acts and/or rages.

Or Bannon's protestations, for that matter. But the man has moved on to Europe. Fail on one continent, try another.

Just another fraudster I'd like to see in an orange jumpsuit.

[BigmanPigman]

15. We all knew social media was influential but we just didn't know how

and to what extent and now we do. Now let's stop it from happening currently and in the future.

[AllyCat]

16. How do they KNOW the votes werent changed?

[Tatiana]

19. I don't think they **know**

I think it's more like they don't have evidence to prove it happened.

Now this could be because no one is looking for it.

I don't think we can discount the idea that they were just using the information to build a stronger profile for targeted influence of individuals.

[triron]

22. They don't.

The American electorate can't be allowed to seriously entertain that the vote counts were corrupted.
Just like the public must not be allowed to seriously entertain visits by extraterrestrial intelligence.

[PDittie]

24. Because one cannot prove a negative

[AllyCat]

50. Thanks to all the philosophers on the case here

For showing how we could not possibly be misled on vote counting because “double negatives”. Sorry I’m just nawt as shmart as u”

[PDittie]

53. You're welcome!

Hope you learned something from the exercise.

[bearsfootball516]

27. You're asking to prove a negative. A logical fallacy.

[TheFrenchRazor]

68. well then why do people keep claiming they know that no votes were changed? especially when there

there was no meaningful, statewide hand recount or forensic analysis of the machines anywhere. given that there was absolutely no investigation of this issue, they obviously can not say that votes were not changed.

[dchill]

17. K&R.

[pnwmom]

23. Louise Mensch, the unhinged British Witch, has been writing about this since at least April 1, 2017.

https://patribotics.blog/2017/04/01/alfa-bank-trump-tower-and-a-social-media-impeachment/

I believe, in summary:

A Russian spy stole the Facebook data of hundreds of millions of Americans

From that data, Russia crafted propaganda messages via SCL and targeted them by Cambridge Analytica

Both of these were owned by Alfa Bank and Firtash, Russian agent and boss of Manafort;

In order to perfect the social media targeting Russia hacked the electoral voter databases of various key American states:

This information was fed back to Manafort and Cambridge Analytica / SCL via the means of the bank server in Trump Tower;

Manafort and Trump used terrifyingly accurate micro-targeting obtained firstly by Facebook theft but secondly by Russia obtaining the exact demographic profiles of voters through hacks of US state databases and passing it back to Cambridge Analytica.



_______________________________

A summary of her theories and reporting on the topic here:

https://patribotics.blog/2018/03/20/cambridge-analytica-next-their-links-to-russian-propaganda/

[peggysue2]

42. Ahhh, yes

The unhinged British witch who has been more right than she's been wrong and was writing about these very things for. . . a good solid year.

Powerful magic! Mighty Woo Woo. But then maybe, just maybe some very good sources.

LOL

[spike91nz]

31. As NC GOP was using CAmbridge Analytica

I suspect the voter’s data did not need to be hacked. Cambridge Analytica was likely given a key and invited in.

[Mr.Bill]

35. Not sure what you mean by voter's data,

And I can't speak for other states, but in California, everything on the voter's registration form and when they did or did not vote is a matter of public record. There are companies one can purchase this information from. Candidates do so all the time. Nobody needs to hack anything.

[ehrnst]

34. But Michael Moore said this Russia stuff is all just "a distraction"

[poboy2]

49. Very disappointing. Walk and chew gum, Michael. -nt

[backtoblue]

43. Kickin and reccin

Has the Cheeto commented about this yet?

[Tatiana]

46. Nope. But he did congratulate Putin on his **awesome** victory!

It's pretty clear at this point that Trump is an agent of Russia and we must get rid of him.

[TomVilmer]

57. That is what presidents do...

... they don't have to like. After Russia's last "election", President Obama "called Russian President-elect and Prime Minister Putin to congratulate him on his recent victory in the Russian Presidential election." And they "agreed to continue discussions on areas where the United States and Russia have differed, including Syria and missile defense," the statement read. "President Obama and President-Elect Putin agreed to continue their efforts to find common ground and remove obstacles to better relations."
http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/03/09/obama-congratulates-putin-for-election-win/

Now the focus should be more on the hard fact, that this time around Trumps advisors told him NOT to congratulate.

[Amishman]

60. They try to break into everything

As I posted in another discussion recently, Russia and China attempt to break into everything and mine data out if every system they penetrate.

Any sys admin looking at the IPs port scanning their server will see hits from China and Russia hourly. They hit everything to data mine

[Orsino]

61. "Steve Bannon returns to Breitbart: 'I've got my hands back on my weapons'"

He only looks like an impotent old fraud crawling back to the only place that'll hire him, folks.

[poboy2]

63. Yep- That quote/article from the OP is very revealing in this new light. -nt

[Tatiana]

64. He specifically said "weapons."

Which, coincidentally, is also the terminology used by Christopher Wylie.

The New York Times reported on Friday that Facebook knew about Cambridge Analytica's efforts two years ago, but didn't take steps to suspend the firm until recently. Wylie elaborated on that in an interview in which he accused the Cambridge Analytica leadership of waging a "culture war":

"Rules don't matter for them. For them, this is a war, and it's all fair," Wylie told reporters. "They want to fight a culture war in America," he added. "Cambridge Analytica was supposed to be the arsenal of weapons to fight that culture war."

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/18/whistleblower-christopher-wylie-says-hes-now-been-blocked-by-facebook.html

[poboy2]

74. I'll repeat my initial post- PSYOP- Psychological Operations...Psych WARFARE. -nt

PSYOP- Psychological Operations...Psych WARFARE. -nt

[raven mad]

66. I yelled - a LOT - at my polling place in 2016.

The machines were fucked up, to the tune of a couple hours wait or leave and come back, it spit ballots out without tabulating, and we gave up and went hand-written - which the machine initially spit out, so the folks manning the polls collected the ballots for hand counts.

What was neat is that most of the rest of the voters were yelling right along with me.

Our precinct went Dem.

[Tatiana]

67. What state?

If you don't mind my asking?

[raven mad]

75. Alaska - Interior (Fairbanks)

And yes, this was the FIRST time I've ever encountered anything even remotely like it. I'd almost swear some of the poll workers were putting ballots that would go in the machine into the trash cans next to every seat.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

73. Question

Why did the Federal Government have to tell state governments about the hacking of their own systems? The states had no means to detect it? This may be a naive/dumb question and if it is, feel free to ignore it.

[Crabby Appleton]

78. Nonsense

No hacking is required to get the voter rolls

For example, in my state, Ohio you just need to go to the Sec of State website and download the voter rolls.

For the whole state, there are 4 downloads because of the file sizes:


https://www6.sos.state.oh.us/ords/f?p=VOTERFTP:STWD:::#stwdVtrFiles

for individual counties:

https://www6.sos.state.oh.us/ords/f?p=VOTERFTP:HOME:::#cntyVtrFiles

Every state I’ve looked at has some procedure to obtain this info, candidates and parties use this info to create mailing list and walking lists.