Computer scientists urge Clinton campaign

[+DieChecker]

10 hours ago, thedutchiedutch said:

Hillary Clinton's campaign is being urged by a number of top computer scientists to call for a recount of vote totals in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, according to a source with knowledge of the request.

The computer scientists believe they have found evidence that vote totals in the three states could have been manipulated or hacked and presented their findings to top Clinton aides on a call last Thursday.

 

The scientists, among them J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, told the Clinton campaign they believe there is a questionable trend of Clinton performing worse in counties that relied on electronic voting machines compared to paper ballots and optical scanners, according to the source.

Link to full article & source : http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/22/politics/hillary-clinton-challenge-results/index.html

 

I thought that several news agencies already looked into this and agreed that even if there was voter fraud, it likely wasn't enough to prevent Trump from winning.

If she wouldn't have won enough states anyway, then there isn't any point in moving forward with recounts.

[Zenith]

It's pretty much too late anyway to ask for a recount... the deadlines have been missed... I think Monday is their last chance for one of the states. So if the Dems were going to go for it they would have done so by now..

[danielost]

there was election fraud.  machines changing votes from trimp to clinton.  but, since he won why bother.

[bee]

12 hours ago, thedutchiedutch said:

Hillary Clinton's campaign is being urged by a number of top computer scientists to call for a recount of vote totals in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, according to a source with knowledge of the request.

 

.

Some Clinton supporting 'top computer scientists' have probably spent the last two weeks preparing to retrospectively 
alter the vote counts in some places to make it it look like there was electronic voter fraud in Trump's favour -

. 

[bee]

3 hours ago, Frank Merton said:

If all people are equal under the law (a fundamental premise of modern civilization), then every vote should have equal weight, count, whatever.  I don't see how anything different can be defended except as a way to preserve unfair leftovers from the past, and this is not defensible.

.

The US doesn't have a Direct Democracy - I don't think any country in the world does now - Libya DID before it was
destroyed by 'the West' - 

But it's nice to know you fully support the Brexit result as referendums are an example of Direct Democracy in action - 

.

[Kurzweil]

Off topic

Can someone tell me what a computer scientist is? I mean aren't they just technicians? When did they get the badge of being called scientists?

[+DieChecker]

9 hours ago, Frank Merton said:

A lot of fiction being posted here.  The plain fact is Mrs. Clinton won the popular vote by over two million, and it continues to rise.  Trump is about the least legitimate President in history.

Fiction? Ignoring our system of election and calling on the ending of 200 years of success is what I'd call fiction.

9 hours ago, Frank Merton said:

Wishful thinking.  It ain't going to happen.  The vote is the vote.

You mean the vote that state by state was won by Trump? Trump wasn't trying to win the popular vote. He knew he couldn't, so he went to win individual states and win the electoral college vote. That Hillary was stupid enough to think she had the election all tied up, was what lost it for her. She did almost the same thing in 2008 when she started WAY ahead of Obama in the polls and lost that vote also.

9 hours ago, Frank Merton said:

Trump did not win the election fairly -- it was stolen by the FBI and Russians and "Wikileaks" inventing false stuff and illegally releasing it just a week before the election, when if it was to be released it should have been done months earlier.  This is obvious voter manipulation.  Also, the constant use of misinformation and mudslinging by Trump, mainly that she was a criminal who should go to jail -- utter lies and he knew it, witness his backing off so quickly.

Finally, of course, there is the real popular vote outcome.

OK, let's make a list....

• Election Unfair - - According to our Constitution, it was fair. = False
• Stolen by FBI - - FBI sent a letter to Congress. Congress leaked the letter. = False
• Stolen by Russians - - FBI said there is no evidence of such. = False
• Wikileaks invented stuff - - They mostly released email. Which was not denounced as fake. = False
• Wikileaks released stuff illegally - - Wait, you just said it was made up. How can it be made up and illegal? However the emails were stolen = True
• Obvious voter manipulation - - Obvious how? I'd say there was manipulation from both sides. = False
• Misinformation by Trump - - You mean Politics as usual. Hillary did the same thing. = True
• Mudslinging by Trump. - - You mean Politics as usual. Hillary did the same thing. = True
• Hillary should go to jail = lies - - According to several rules/laws/statutes, Hillary should be punished for several infractions. Lies = False

8 hours ago, Frank Merton said:

There are two general categories of unfair debate -- what is called propaganda, and, of course, logical fallacies.  It occurs to me that people don't seem to know how to recognize these.  There are web sites that can be found in any search to help.

Basically, propaganda uses non-rational, emotional appeal.  This is often negative (name calling, talking down to people, personal insults, attacking the person and their history rather than what they say, dismissive labeling, and others).  They can also be positive (patriotic symbols and music, religious appeals, quotes of famous people, and others.  Far and away the most effective form of propaganda is the lie -- disinformation -- invented stuff repeated over and over and made to appear legit.  To defend oneself from this sort of thing requires identifying sources of misinformation by being widely read over a broad political spectrum.

One other form of propaganda is "band-wagon," which is what has happened to me here.  It does not work, folks, except for those worried overmuch about what others think.

I won't go into logical fallacies here, although I sure see a lot of those too.  It amazes me, and I have to think that a lot of the people around here haven't had much education or they would know better.

So which is it you were doing in your previous post above? Propaganda or Fallacy? Seems to me you were making a emotional appeal, calling thing obvious that certainly are not. It could also be that you are buying into your own band wagon. You don't like the man, and do like his opponent, so you naturally agree with un-evidenced stories put out by media sources you agree with.

I do hope  you can see that you are also describing yourself, when you describe the failings of others in this regard.

8 hours ago, Frank Merton said:

You are defending the solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.  I see no reason why rural interests should get special protection.  The point is, not that he didn't win the election, but he did not do so fairly and the fact that he lost the popular vote means he has no mandate to do radical things.

The men in the mountains, and how they were going to vote, was know back in June.  This is not what changed -- the two or three percent of undecideds broke for Trump, when the scientific polls indicated they would break for Clinton, and the only credible reason was the trick that was played at the last moments of the campaign.  It was plain and simple dirty politics and stains Trump's legitimacy around the world.

I think I understand the American system and American history much better than those attacking me here.  English and the US has been the focus of my entire life.

I'd say that no Presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan could claim a "mandate". To make that claim, you'd think that you'd need, not just a majority, but an overwhelming majority of the Electoral College and the Popular Vote. Who claimed Trump has a mandate? That is ridiculous. 

However the election was fair. To say otherwise would be Un-Constitutional. It is like if I say that Vietnam's elections are not fair, because only the Party picks the candidates. That is their system, and works for them. This is our system and has worked for us for hundreds of years.

I believe that Hillary was at +4% when the FBI stated they would be reopening the investigation. And she was at +3% the day before the election. I don't agree that the FBI investigation, or the stolen emails really had any meaningful effect regarding the polling. It may be that some undecided voters changed to Trump, but the more likely reason is that the "Weighted", or Adjusted, polling numbers were mishandled. The calculations used obviously had some issues that were not accounted for. Thus, Trump probably was ahead the entire time, and the polling numbers were wrong the entire time.

I've read that there will be a lot of research done on how the polls were wrong, and how to fix the polling results going forward. There hasn't been much, if any, announcements that the polls were correct and somehow 4% of the people switched over on the last day. The conclusion has, since the day after the election, that the polling must have had some kind of issue. I guess we'll find out over the next months, when they dissect the polling calculations and how they adjusted the numbers to reach a "true" percentage.

Edited November 24, 2016 by DieChecker

[+DieChecker]

7 minutes ago, Kurzweil said:

Off topic

Can someone tell me what a computer scientist is? I mean aren't they just technicians? When did they get the badge of being called scientists?

I'd guess a "Computer Scientist" is anyone who has a computer degree of Bachelor or above. Might even include those people with a Associate (2 year) degree, if they are serving in a scientific position.

There can't be more then... a couple million people with computer degrees, so finding a couple to fill out a request for a recount couldn't have been terribly hard.

I was roommates with two "Computer Experts" when I was just out of college, and both of them were so inept, that they constantly had computer viruses, and one got arrested for (unknowingly?) file sharing porn and illegal music files, and illegal movie copies. 

Edited November 24, 2016 by DieChecker

[Kurzweil]

Well I guess I'm a beer scientist then. Didn't even have to go to college for that. Figured it all out on my own. God I'm a genius.

[Vorg]

5 hours ago, Frank Merton said:

If all people are equal under the law (a fundamental premise of modern civilization), then every vote should have equal weight, count, whatever.  I don't see how anything different can be defended except as a way to preserve unfair leftovers from the past, and this is not defensible.

The Electoral College was created for two reasons. The first purpose was to create a buffer between population and the selection of a President. The second as part of the structure of the government that gave extra power to the smaller states.

The first reason that the founders created the Electoral College is hard to understand today. The founding fathers were afraid of direct election to the Presidency. They feared a tyrant could manipulate public opinion and come to power. Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers:  (See All of the Federalist 68)

Hamilton and the other founders believed that the electors would be able to insure that only a qualified person becomes President. They believed that with the Electoral College no one would be able to manipulate the citizenry. It would act as check on an electorate that might be duped. Hamilton and the other founders did not trust the population to make the right choice. The founders also believed that the Electoral College had the advantage of being a group that met only once and thus could not be manipulated over time by foreign governments or others.

 

George Soros had his hand in Hillary Clinton's pocket as well as a few foreign governments via the Clinton foundation. The electoral college is there for checks and balances, and it worked, she lost due to public and political mistrust.

This election was a textbook example of why we have the electoral college.

 

(See All of the Federalist 68)

http://www.historycentral.com/elections/Electoralcollgewhy.html

 

Edited November 24, 2016 by South Alabam

[Lilly]

There's one itsy bitsy little problem with this notion. If one side decides something was not quite on the 'up and up' and pushes for investigation, one has to keep in mind that their own conduct will be under scrutiny as well. And considering what we know about the DNC's manipulation during the campaign (regarding Mr Sanders and getting the debate questions ahead of time) the Democrats might not want their actions regarding the voting process investigated either.

[Vorg]

Yes, challenge the results.

Hillary Clinton won these states:

9 states were no photo id is required
2 states considering adopting voter id laws
6 states where id (non photo) is requested but not required
1 state which requires photo id
18 total

Now you see why they scream "racist" when states try to enact voter photo ID laws?

Edited November 24, 2016 by South Alabam

[GlitterRose]

11 hours ago, Frank Merton said:

Trump did not win the election fairly -- it was stolen by the FBI and Russians and "Wikileaks" inventing false stuff and illegally releasing it just a week before the election, when if it was to be released it should have been done months earlier.  This is obvious voter manipulation.  Also, the constant use of misinformation and mudslinging by Trump, mainly that she was a criminal who should go to jail -- utter lies and he knew it, witness his backing off so quickly.

Finally, of course, there is the real popular vote outcome.

And there were all of the voter suppression efforts that came after the Voting Rights Act was gutted. I keep mentioning those, although actual vetted news from legitimate sources now pales next to whatever bunk Trump, Breitbart, and Alex Jones spew. 

[F3SS]

From J. Alex Halderman, the computer scientist behind this op. 
 

Quote

 

You may have read at NYMag that I’ve been in discussions with the Clinton campaign about whether it might wish to seek recounts in critical states. That article, which includes somebody else’s description of my views, incorrectly describes the reasons manually checking ballots is an essential security safeguard (and includes some incorrect numbers, to boot). Let me set the record straight about what I and other leading election security experts have actually been saying to the campaign and everyone else who’s willing to listen.

------- https://medium.com/@jhalderm/want-to-know-if-the-election-was-hacked-look-at-the-ballots-c61a6113b0ba#.xcxnv6cvd -------

Were this year’s deviations from pre-election polls the results of a cyberattack? Probably not. I believe the most likely explanation is that the polls were systematically wrong, rather than that the election was hacked. But I don’t believe that either one of these seemingly unlikely explanations is overwhelmingly more likely than the other. The only way to know whether a cyberattack changed the result is to closely examine the available physical evidence — paper ballots and voting equipment in critical states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, nobody is ever going to examine that evidence unless candidates in those states act now, in the next several days, to petition for recounts.

 

 

[Kurzweil]

My state actually almost went red. Never have i seen it. Minnesota that be.

[GlitterRose]

1 hour ago, Kurzweil said:

Off topic

Can someone tell me what a computer scientist is? I mean aren't they just technicians? When did they get the badge of being called scientists?

Someone who gets a degree in Computer Science. It's a thing. And it's been called that for many, many years. They didn't just make it up to make someone sound legitimate because they can tell when a system is vulnerable. 

[GlitterRose]

If the shoe was on the other foot, people would be threatening armed uprising if there wasn't a recount. 

The way it stands, dems will just be expected to suck it up.

[+DieChecker]

I was reading an article on this, and apparently Jill Stein has come up with 2.4 million dollars to pay for the recounts. Supposedly in the name of "Election Results We Can Trust.". But, if the results were tampered with once, what is to stop a second tampering. Apparently the three states involved have detected zero evidence of hacking, so if someone did hack the counts, they could easily do it again.

Reading the article, the reasons given for the recounts all (to me) seem flimsy. And the comments of the various state officials seem to carry greater weight.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/11/23/jill-stein-seeks-recount-wisconsin-michigan-and-pennsylvania/gmziuhamGOjDgYitbQpWSJ/story.html

Quote

But one of the computer scientists, J. Alex Halderman, a computer science professor from the University of Michigan, said in a blog post Wednesday morning that the magazine’s article was inaccurate.

“Were this year’s deviations from pre-election polls the results of a cyberattack? Probably not. I believe the most likely explanation is that the polls were systematically wrong, rather than that the election was hacked,” Halderman wrote.

 

[+DieChecker]

3 minutes ago, ChaosRose said:

If the shoe was on the other foot, people would be threatening armed uprising if there wasn't a recount. 

The way it stands, dems will just be expected to suck it up.

 

[F3SS]

There wouldn't be an armed uprising. Talk about propaganda. There would however be another 4 to 8 years of exponential gun sale growth. I suspect with Republicans fully controlling every level of government (a mandate far as I can tell) that gun sales will level off for the time being. Sell your Remington stocks people! 

[Vorg]

16 minutes ago, F3SS said:

From J. Alex Halderman, the computer scientist behind this op. 

You may have read at NYMag that I’ve been in discussions with the Clinton campaign about whether it might wish to seek recounts in critical states. That article, which includes somebody else’s description of my views, incorrectly describes the reasons manually checking ballots is an essential security safeguard (and includes some incorrect numbers, to boot). Let me set the record straight about what I and other leading election security experts have actually been saying to the campaign and everyone else who’s willing to listen.

------- https://medium.com/@jhalderm/want-to-know-if-the-election-was-hacked-look-at-the-ballots-c61a6113b0ba#.xcxnv6cvd -------

Were this year’s deviations from pre-election polls the results of a cyberattack? Probably not. I believe the most likely explanation is that the polls were systematically wrong, rather than that the election was hacked. But I don’t believe that either one of these seemingly unlikely explanations is overwhelmingly more likely than the other. The only way to know whether a cyberattack changed the result is to closely examine the available physical evidence — paper ballots and voting equipment in critical states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, nobody is ever going to examine that evidence unless candidates in those states act now, in the next several days, to petition for recounts.

 

Funny how Fox usually had higher polls than other mainstream media. They were just trying to manipulate the voters into thinking Hillary was ahead, all the time, at least that is my opinion. Election results proved Fox right.

Edited November 24, 2016 by South Alabam

[F3SS]

1 minute ago, South Alabam said:

Funny how Fox usually had higher polls than other mainstream media. They were just trying to manipulate the voters into thinking Hillary was ahead, all the time, at least that is my opinion. Election results proved Fox right.

What else I found funny on election night was how Fox was reporting the state results at first a minute or two before other networks and by the end of the night the other networks and Google just went into a standstill for hours keeping Trump under 270 like they couldn't call states with 99.99 percent precincts reporting.  

[pallidin]

My question is this...

If the "popular vote" has no consequence of election (... All hail the holiness of the electoral college << sarcasm>>), than why does the popular vote even exist?

[aquatus1]

32 minutes ago, pallidin said:

My question is this...

If the "popular vote" has no consequence of election (... All hail the holiness of the electoral college << sarcasm>>), than why does the popular vote even exist?

The popular vote is what determines who the electorates of your state (are supposed to) vote for.

[Dark_Grey]

If Clinton's camp had any cards up their sleeve, they would play them. If they aren't formally challenging the vote, I suspect it's for one of two reasons:

1) They don't want to draw attention to vote rigging as something could surface they would implicate them

2) They legitimately don't have a case and they are finally realizing how unpopular HRC really is