Was the Election Hacked?
Probably. Does anyone care?
As I feel into our bizarre new circumstances (it was an unprecedented 80 degrees yesterday in New York yet we are about to surrender our country, rights, and freedoms to a climate-change denying sociopath), I keep flashing back to some of my favorite paranoid conspiracy films from the 1960s and 70s, such as The Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor, Soylent Green, and Chinatown. These films posit a malevolent “Big Other” that the hero inadvertently encounters, has to do battle with, seeks to evade and tries but often fails to overcome.
One of my favorite all-time directors is Roman Polanski, canceled long ago for a sex crime (interesting LA Times article about this here). In Chinatown, The Tenant, and Rosemary’s Baby, Polanski offered a fatalistic vision appropriate for that time, and, now, ours as well. His protagonists get unwittingly drawn into a dark conspiracy they are unable to stop. All they can do, in the end, is bear witness to its horrifying machinations.
Rosemary Woodhouse learns, at the end of Rosemary’s Baby, she gave birth to the Devil’s progeny; her husband sold his soul to the Devil for better acting jobs. Jake Gittes discovers he can’t win against the plutocrat Noah Cross (played brilliantly by John Huston), who not only controls the water supply in Los Angeles but enjoys imprisoning, raping, and impregnating his female descendants.
Control of women’s bodies is one of the main themes of our current descent into the underworld. Nick Fuentes a young White Supremacist who dined with President Trump, Tweeted, after the election results, “Women: Your Body. Our Choice. Forever.”
He elaborates in this video:
Matt Walsh, a Right Wing Christian blogger, Tweeted yesterday: “Now that the election is over I think we can finally say that yeah actually Project 2025 is the agenda. Lol.” It pains me to say I have friends who voted for Trump / Project 2025 (for a deep dive into what Project 2025 means for the US and, if you live here, your future, listen to this interview).
Today, I plan to indulge a tragic “thought experiment:” I am going to explore the hypothesis that the 2024 election was fixed — hacked and stolen—via digital technology and the Internet. If this is likely, the sensible thing would be for the Democrats in power to meet, right away, with the leaders of the military and the intelligence services and suspend the results until a thorough, meticulous investigation takes place. There would be some kind of public hearing. Biden can use the new powers given to him by the Supreme Court to issue executive orders, before we surrender our Constitution and the republic.
Do I anticipate this happening? I admit it seems very, very unlikely. It would certainly lead to a degree of civil unrest. I don’t think the Democrats/liberals have the fortitude for this — certainly nothing has indicated they do, up to this point in time. They have already capitulated — morally, psychologically, in every sense. However, the military might be concerned about Trump’s dangerous impulsiveness, along with the number of former defense secretaries who consider him dangerous and unfit to serve.
Perhaps the level of complicity goes deeper than this, as the excellent journalist Sarah Kendzior wrote last year:
That Biden was a placeholder president — a stop gap to streamline an aspiring American autocracy into an entrenched one — was obvious by mid-2021. The first, rather large clue was the lack of urgency toward sedition.
Under Biden, the United States became the first country to face an attempted coup and not only fail to punish the coup plotters but allow them to hold office and make laws. There is no parallel in world history. Even Hitler had a prison interlude between his putsch and his presidency. The only thing approaching an equivalent lies in the American past: the refusal to punish confederates and instead let them regroup under new names, leading to the decimation of Reconstruction and the birth of Jim Crow.
But that effort took decades. The backtrack of the Biden administration — and its accomplices, the Vichy Democrats in Congress — took months. Policies that voters feared the Trump administration would enact were often enacted by Biden.
The Biden administration falsely proclaimed the pandemic over and blocked public health data from view as millions died or became disabled. They abandoned the tenets of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in favor of Cop City. They greeted the reversal of Roe as a fundraising opportunity, not even offering meaningful rhetorical opposition. [So true and so painful]
They continued the migrant abuse that took place under Trump and let the abusers remain at large. They sanctioned Russian oligarchs while letting their proxies fund campaigns in both parties. The most egregious offender is the DOJ. Under Merrick Garland, the best friend of Jared Kushner’s ethics lawyer Jamie Gorelick, the DOJ refused to prosecute Trump administration crimes even after the criminals confessed. They let the statute of limitations run out on the Mueller probe, ignored the repercussions of Trump’s network of mafiosos gaining classified intelligence, disregarded blatant criminality on the Supreme Court, and slow-walked a response to the theft of stolen documents containing nuclear secrets.
This is not a serious country, but a country in serious crisis. This is not a sovereign country, but a country under the tyranny of the minority regardless of who is in charge. We have elections, but we do not have choice.
Every word of this rings true to me. Kendzior also writes: “The 21st century's most desirable currency is impunity. Impunity, the sadist's conception of freedom, mainstreamed and marketed as the new American Dream.” Trump’s “victory” gives him and his criminal cartel the blanket immunity to do whatever they want.
Given all of this, does it even matter if “the people” actually showed up for the election only to have the vote obscured or not counted? It really does seem, reading between the lines of The New York Times, CNN, and other mainstream news coverage, there was a long-term plan in place to normalize Trump’s extremism, to ready the country for autocratic control. Perhaps eventually we will understand why this was done. It may be — engaging my inner sociopath — that enough people among the ruling minority realize that accelerated climate change is not only real but is soon going to lead to mass starvation and mass migration. I am already seeing videos that reveal plans to construct large camps to imprison immigrants and refugees along the Southern border.
Our world is on fire. It doesn’t seem we will be able to stop or even slow down the fire raging through our human and nonhuman worlds at this point. Perhaps the best we can do now is to help ameliorate the suffering as much as we can, but also allow this fire to burn itself out, wherever that takes us. One option is a Taoist response:
The softest thing in the universe
Overcomes the hardest thing in the universe.
That without substance can enter where there is no room.
Hence I know the value of non-action.
I admit I am trying to stake out my position in this new situation. I can’t surrender that part of me that wants to fight back against this. I am prepared for a reversal of fortune or a sudden overturning, at any moment. I seek to impel, inspire, both inner and outer transmutation.
We are in free fall. Anything can happen next.
Samantha Powers, co-director of the Biofi Project, just wrote on the need to transition from nation states to “nature states,” She writes:
America is a story. And one that is rapidly losing its power. A more beautiful and, I would argue, more true (from a scientific and anthropological perspective) story is gaining traction in its place. This is a story about a diverse tapestry of ‘nature states’ nested within the lands we have identified for nearly 250 years now as a ‘nation state.’ As the nation state and its systems show how brittle they are, as they continue to perpetuate harm and destruction beyond belief, as they stop short of meeting our most basic needs, as they fail to provide us with nourishing food and clean water, as they fail to inspire or connect us, and as they pull us more deeply into the myth of separation, many of us are feeling called to ‘reinhabit a separate country’ (as bioregional trailblazer Peter Berg laid out in his 1978 bioregional treatise)…
There are many nations within the geographic area known as the United States and on the continent of North America — right beneath our feet. There are living and diverse geologies, hydrologies, ecologies, and cultures that form a rich tapestry of layers across this stunning continent. And from this tapestry, relationships, communities, identities, and ways of seeing and being emerge…
Over the past several years, bioregionalism or ‘bioregioning’ has had a resurgence after a quiet period from the late 1990s to the early 2020s. And Native nations have been steadily continuing to build their economic and political power in the US — through long and hard-fought battles. And these movements are joining forces like never before. They are weaving together to create new, beautiful, hopeful stories… Through reinhabitation and recreation, we will begin to see the space for beauty to grow in the ruins of what is collapsing around us.
I appreciate this perspective. I suspect a Taoist, non-confrontational approach to social change — via bioregional financing, or local community-building — will be the only one available for the near future, if Trump takes power. Directly fighting, or stridently protesting, against an extremely well-armed, hyper-militarized autocratic apparatus that seeks any opportunity to demonize its enemies will not be advisable.
Was the Vote Hacked?
So, let’s back to the voting issue: My suspicion is that, along with the massive ten-year, multi-dimensional PsyOp using Right Wing media and the finest Russian “political technology” to expertly disintegrate the American Psyche, funded by Russian oligarchs and American plutocrats, there were a number of other mechanisms and techniques employed to guarantee this election for the autocrats. Rachel Maddow does more than hint at this here. Trump always tells us what he intends to do, knowing his most outrageous statements won’t be believed or assimilated.
We also know, from the Fascist playbook, that the “Big Lie” — as well as the “Big Steal” — is the easiest to defend. The Big Lie and the Big Steal often go totally unnoticed. We can also see, from this vantage point, one of the many brilliant tactics of the Right is to loudly accuse their enemies of doing exactly what they plan to do, will do soon, or have already done.
What I propose is the entire, ridiculous “Stop the Seal” campaign that went on, and on, after the 2020 election was a preparation for actually stealing the vote this time around, as a final chess move in an orchestrated takeover. In 2023, PBS published “Voting experts warn of ‘serious threats’ for 2024 from election equipment software breaches.”
According to the article:
An effort to access voting system software in several states and provide it to allies of former President Donald Trump as they sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election has raised “serious threats” ahead of next year’s presidential contest, according to a group of experts who urged federal agencies to investigate.
The letter sent by nearly two dozen computer scientists, election security experts and voter advocacy organizations asks for a federal probe and a risk assessment of voting machines used throughout the country, saying the software breaches have “urgent implications for the 2024 election and beyond.” The breaches affected voting equipment made by two companies that together count over 70 percent of the votes cast across the country, according to the letter…
The letter sent this week outlines what is known publicly about the efforts to access those voting systems, which began in the weeks after the Nov. 3, 2020, presidential election won by Democrat Joe Biden. It cites a Dec. 18, 2020, meeting in the Oval Office in which Trump allies, including lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, discussed a desire to access voting machines in presidential swing states Trump lost, according to congressional testimony. It also details subsequent efforts to secure that access.
Powell, Giuliani and Trump were among 19 people charged this summer in Fulton County, Georgia, where state prosecutors have alleged they were part of a conspiracy to overturn Trump’s loss in the state. That included the unauthorized breach of voting systems in rural Coffee County, Georgia.
Powell has since pleaded guilty to reduced charges and has agreed to testify against her co-defendants. Prosecutors alleged she had conspired with others to access election equipment without authorization in the county and hired a computer forensics firm to copy software and data from voting machines and computers.
…
In addition to Georgia and Michigan, the letter mentions voting system breaches or attempts to access voting-related systems in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada and Colorado as well as various individuals involved in the efforts. It stresses that possession of voting system software could enable people with ill intent to practice how to meddle in the 2024 election, allowing them to identify vulnerabilities and test potential attacks.
According to The Washington Post in “Trump-allied lawyers pursued voting machine data in multiple states, records reveal”:
A team of computer experts directed by lawyers allied with President Donald Trump copied sensitive data from election systems in Georgia as part of a secretive, multistate effort to access voting equipment that was broader, more organized and more successful than previously reported…”
“The breach is way beyond what we thought,” said David D. Cross, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, who include voting-security activists and Georgia voters. “The scope of it is mind-blowing.”
It seems highly likely that Trump operatives used these breaches to study how to tamper with the electronic voting machines to ensure their desired outcome. In The Bucks County Beacon last year, Jennifer Cohn wrote, “Trump And The GOP Blocked Election Security Bills, But ‘Stop The Steal’ Made Everyone Forget”. The Hill reported in 2021, “Senate GOP blocks three election security bills:”
Democrats tried to get consent to pass two bills that require campaigns to alert the FBI and Federal Election Commission (FEC) about foreign offers of assistance, as well as legislation to provide more election funding and ban voting machines from being connected to the internet.
(R-Tenn.) opposed each of the requests. Under the Senate’s rules, any one senator can ask for unanimous consent to pass a bill, but any one senator can object and block their requests.
In fact there is still a pending case in Georgia against Trump for election interference that will probably be dismissed now, unless some kind of sanity and willpower arises, like a miracle, among the spineless Democrats.
According to a 2024 article in Cyberscoop, "Georgia election officials withheld evidence in voting machine breach, group alleges”: “A filing accuses county election officials of withholding records related to unauthorized copying of voting software by Trump allies in 2021.” The 274-page filing can be accessed here.
As of this writing, although The Washington Post and other news organs noted there was historically high turn out for 2024, equal to 2020, there appear to be millions of votes missing from what would be the Democrats’ likely totas. Many are discussing and investigating this on Twitter, asking the government to look into it. So far, no response.
While I do admit in my extended network, there was more of a pull toward Trump than I have seen in previous elections — largely due to RFK and, for some, seeking unfettered support of Israel — my sense is that there was increasing enthusiasm for Harris and a fast-growing awareness, nationwide, of the threat posed by Trump and Vance to democracy and women’s rights, among other subjects. In the last stretch, Harris’ support was increasingly robust while Trump’s support seemed to be waning.
On election day, women and college kids lined up for many hours, in unprecedented numbers. Protecting Democracy was one of their main motivations for voting, according to exit polls, as well as protecting women’s reproductive freedom. If these people wanted to protect Democracy and women, they certainly weren’t voting for Trump.
It appears that millions of votes are currently missing from the popular vote. As I write this, the totals are 68 million for Harris and 72.6 million for Trump. There are still votes to be counted in a few states including California. But the final tally in 2020 was 81.2 million for Biden and 74.2 million for Trump. It still seems that around ten to twelve million votes are missing, considering that the turn out was said to be equal or greater than the 2020 turn-out. In the end, I suspect people felt the urgency of protecting women’s rights and the Constitution. Were their votes stolen from them?
In the end, as we know, the election was only decided by a few hundred thousand votes in two swing states. This would be quite easy to fix if you had access to the software. Cohn explored this in a 2022 interview with Steven Hassan:
In 2016, James Comey testified to Congress: “The voting system in the United States .. is very, very hard for someone to hack into…Those things are not connected to the Internet, but the voter registration systems are.” Thomas Hicks, who has served as chairman of the US Election Assistance Commission (EAC) — made similar statements and assured Congress that voting machines do not connect to the Internet.
However, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Indiana all use wireless cellular modems in some or all of their precinct ballot scanners. County election officials use cellular modems to transfer unofficial results from the precinct scanners to the county central tabulators. Cybersecurity experts have confirmed that cellular traffic goes through the Internet.
Even states that do not use cellular modems can still be susceptible to internet hacks. According to election security experts, most election management systems are sometimes connected to the Internet. The data that is programmed into them often passes through a system connected to the Internet.
Some people have argued that it would be impossible for hackers to change the outcome of a presidential election because our election system is decentralized: counties count and report their election data independently. While it is true that our election system is decentralized, in a close election, hackers would only need to change the results in one swing state — perhaps only several immediate precincts in a swing state.
Furthermore, only a handful of private vendors account for most electronic voting systems in the US. If somebody hacks one of the top vendors, they could theoretically spread malware to voting systems across the country.
To sum up: the 2024 election was certainly manipulated through a long-term, coordinated PsyOp led by Right-Wing media and enabled by Russian “political technology,” with backing from powerful oligarchs. Trump's 2020 "Stop the Steal" campaign, primed the public for election mistrust and set the stage for genuine electoral interference in 2024. We know that breaches of voting system software across several swing states, accessed by Trump allies in 2020, allowed them to identify vulnerabilities — and steal the actual voting software — for future manipulation. These breaches, coupled with the strange voting numbers and the GOP block on election security enhancements, indicate the election was rigged. Or at the very least, all of this must be thoroughly investigated and explained before a transfer of power occurs.
Despite the universally reported high voter turnout, there are serious unexplained discrepancies in the Democratic vote count, suggesting a large number of missing votes. Cohn and others have identified critical gaps in election infrastructure: many voting machines use cellular modems or pass data through internet-connected systems, allowing for potential tampering. Given that a handful of private vendors control the majority of electronic voting systems, a targeted breach could theoretically impact election outcomes, especially given the narrow margins of swing states.
Or I could be wrong and everything may be totally fine.
Please let me know what you think in the comments. And feel free to share.
I don't even know how to respond to this as I can't firmly plant my feet in the ground. My initial reaction was, et tu Daniel? Unfortunately, I don't read anything in your piece that seems truly defensible around the hacking hypothesis. The trends were so uniform over the entire country ... moving towards Trump... almost every county. That would be a supreme hacking job. Not possible. You mention that more of your community has tended towards Trump. These data points align.
I'm sure what you're saying is theoretically possible, but it does sound quite a bit like how maga responded to the last election. I don't think this election was stolen (other than all the psyops and propaganda that has led to a surplus of inert brains).
It's not at all inconceivable that the main thrust of people's votes were a middle finger to the system. Everyone here, I would guess, feels that way. This moves people in different ways. It moved me to put aside strong opinions I have about establishment dems to support Kamala even though she's just another plug in the leak plagued dyke of our system. But it seems like more people think that Trump is the wrecking ball.
Other influences: Billionaires, specifically Musk, propagandizing to prop up the oligarchic status quo. People voting radical self-interest. I heard an interview this morning of a laid off auto worker, she voted for him entirely for self interest thinking he might save her job and not caring about the collateral damage. She liked RFK and while she thought Trump rallies were "Reichy" she voted for him anyway.
If we're in Kali Yuga ... if that's even a thing ... this feels like a reasonable way for it to unfold.
As I said a few weeks ago here, the tech bros cheat. As to men owning my body, 🤮 this emoji may not be verbally as eloquent as your post, but it is expressive of my feelings. Once again thank you for a wider context other than my own disgust. What now?