We must never forget! Thank you again Seth, for laying out that which must be remembered, if we are to protect our democracy from someone who may be equally as reprehensible, but actually competent in 2024.
Hey Seth, I so appreciate all the work you've done digging up the truth and connecting the dots. Please read on, and if so moved, spread the word.
It now appears that Trump’s claims without evidence of hacking and cheating -- mostly against Dominion and only in states Trump lost -- could be another but this time hugely consequential diversion from possible insider hacking at ES&S, the nation’s largest voting machine company whose board are big Republican donors. Here are just three examples of possible ES&S insider hacking but if you google “problems with ES&S voting machines” and “ES&S Corruption doc”, you’ll see dozens of articles describing their lies, secrecy, corruption, and security issues, some of which disproportionately affect likely Democratic voters and hacking which may have flipped some House and Senate elections into Republican wins. I invite you to share these examples on your Twitter feed and join the call for investigation, recount and reform based on evidence and reality.
The first two are described by Alison Greene’s Dec. 19, 2020 article at DCReport.org titled “Why the Numbers Behind Mitch McConnell’s Re-Election Don’t Add Up”. The first example is the simply not credible results coming from ES&S voting machines in Kentucky. As one of many Kentucy “anomolies”, in the two Democratic stronghold counties of Elliott and Wolfe, Mitch McConnell who had never won in six previous Senate elections somehow won them both in a year Democrats were completely energized by 66% and 64%!
The second example she pointed out was that Susan Collins had lost in every single poll taken by more than a dozen different pollsters per fivethirtyeight.com in the previous four months before Election Day. Yet somehow she also won by a suspiciously large margin -- 8.5%! Of course, without hacking McConnell might have won anyway, nevertheless possible ES&S hacking may have made the difference not only in Maine but in other states where Republicans won by closer margins like Iowa, South Carolina, North Carolina, Montana, California, Florida and Texas.
In fact, Texas is the third example of possible hacking. In a Jan. 12, 2021 DCReports.org follow up article, (preceded by another on Dec. 31,202) Alison Greene, points out that in February 2020, Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughes received a disturbing report about its ES&S election equipment. Secretary Hughes had assigned Brian Mechler, an expert in electronic data communications systems, to certify the equipment. He reported that “There were a few issues with the hash verification procedure,” a critical element that ensures the proprietary software counts votes correctly. With the hash verification procedure having issues, the software could be set, for example, to count every 27th vote for one candidate as a vote for their opponent, without the software detecting or recording it was modified in this way!
Seven months later, Mechler issued a new disturbing report that found there were still multiple hash verification issues, and that “ES&S personnel have performed the hash verification process instead of their customers.” He quite rightly pointed out, “Jurisdictions should always perform this process themselves. To have the vendor perform a required component of acceptance testing creates, at best, a conflict of interest,” If that weren’t bad enough, after multiple exams, Mechler observed that things were getting worse as November approached. In his words, “The ES&S hash verification process has been a growing issue of concern over the past few certification exams…I will not recommend certification of future ES&S releases unless they make substantial improvements to the ease-of-use, reliability, and traceability of their hash verification process.” Whereupon, the examiner went ahead and certified the machines anyway, and soon after, Texas sued Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin for election misconduct!
Because of these suspicious numbers, multiple problems with ES&S’s various machines and the long-time Republican pattern of voter and democracy suppression, the House should write legislation paying for expert investigation and careful recount of at least the 2020 Senate and House elections in the 42 states where 70 million Americans used ES&S machines, if not in all 50 states. They should also eliminate electronic voting and tallying as they’re still hackable from home and abroad!
Finally, they should make Election Day a national paid holiday, make it easier for citizens to vote, vote early, vote by mail, vote from college and abroad, and create a national standard operating procedure and budget for all elections (some of these I see Democrats are already proposing). This would eliminate the inherent irregularities and vulnerabilities to hacking, local voter suppression and budget issues that happen when so many different jurisdictions have different rules and have to pay for their own elections. As Robert Pastor at the Center for Democracy and Election Management described 2004: “We didn’t have fifty elections. We actually had 13,000 elections run by 13,000 independent, quasi-sovereign counties and municipalities.”
I'm going to predict that ~30 million Trump voters will have their own Day of Indignation when they claim that they have been "duped" or "conned" or "misled" or " had enough" of Trump.
I won’t forget...EVER!
We must never forget! Thank you again Seth, for laying out that which must be remembered, if we are to protect our democracy from someone who may be equally as reprehensible, but actually competent in 2024.
Awesome summation, Counselor
Hey Seth, I so appreciate all the work you've done digging up the truth and connecting the dots. Please read on, and if so moved, spread the word.
It now appears that Trump’s claims without evidence of hacking and cheating -- mostly against Dominion and only in states Trump lost -- could be another but this time hugely consequential diversion from possible insider hacking at ES&S, the nation’s largest voting machine company whose board are big Republican donors. Here are just three examples of possible ES&S insider hacking but if you google “problems with ES&S voting machines” and “ES&S Corruption doc”, you’ll see dozens of articles describing their lies, secrecy, corruption, and security issues, some of which disproportionately affect likely Democratic voters and hacking which may have flipped some House and Senate elections into Republican wins. I invite you to share these examples on your Twitter feed and join the call for investigation, recount and reform based on evidence and reality.
The first two are described by Alison Greene’s Dec. 19, 2020 article at DCReport.org titled “Why the Numbers Behind Mitch McConnell’s Re-Election Don’t Add Up”. The first example is the simply not credible results coming from ES&S voting machines in Kentucky. As one of many Kentucy “anomolies”, in the two Democratic stronghold counties of Elliott and Wolfe, Mitch McConnell who had never won in six previous Senate elections somehow won them both in a year Democrats were completely energized by 66% and 64%!
The second example she pointed out was that Susan Collins had lost in every single poll taken by more than a dozen different pollsters per fivethirtyeight.com in the previous four months before Election Day. Yet somehow she also won by a suspiciously large margin -- 8.5%! Of course, without hacking McConnell might have won anyway, nevertheless possible ES&S hacking may have made the difference not only in Maine but in other states where Republicans won by closer margins like Iowa, South Carolina, North Carolina, Montana, California, Florida and Texas.
In fact, Texas is the third example of possible hacking. In a Jan. 12, 2021 DCReports.org follow up article, (preceded by another on Dec. 31,202) Alison Greene, points out that in February 2020, Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughes received a disturbing report about its ES&S election equipment. Secretary Hughes had assigned Brian Mechler, an expert in electronic data communications systems, to certify the equipment. He reported that “There were a few issues with the hash verification procedure,” a critical element that ensures the proprietary software counts votes correctly. With the hash verification procedure having issues, the software could be set, for example, to count every 27th vote for one candidate as a vote for their opponent, without the software detecting or recording it was modified in this way!
Seven months later, Mechler issued a new disturbing report that found there were still multiple hash verification issues, and that “ES&S personnel have performed the hash verification process instead of their customers.” He quite rightly pointed out, “Jurisdictions should always perform this process themselves. To have the vendor perform a required component of acceptance testing creates, at best, a conflict of interest,” If that weren’t bad enough, after multiple exams, Mechler observed that things were getting worse as November approached. In his words, “The ES&S hash verification process has been a growing issue of concern over the past few certification exams…I will not recommend certification of future ES&S releases unless they make substantial improvements to the ease-of-use, reliability, and traceability of their hash verification process.” Whereupon, the examiner went ahead and certified the machines anyway, and soon after, Texas sued Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin for election misconduct!
Because of these suspicious numbers, multiple problems with ES&S’s various machines and the long-time Republican pattern of voter and democracy suppression, the House should write legislation paying for expert investigation and careful recount of at least the 2020 Senate and House elections in the 42 states where 70 million Americans used ES&S machines, if not in all 50 states. They should also eliminate electronic voting and tallying as they’re still hackable from home and abroad!
Finally, they should make Election Day a national paid holiday, make it easier for citizens to vote, vote early, vote by mail, vote from college and abroad, and create a national standard operating procedure and budget for all elections (some of these I see Democrats are already proposing). This would eliminate the inherent irregularities and vulnerabilities to hacking, local voter suppression and budget issues that happen when so many different jurisdictions have different rules and have to pay for their own elections. As Robert Pastor at the Center for Democracy and Election Management described 2004: “We didn’t have fifty elections. We actually had 13,000 elections run by 13,000 independent, quasi-sovereign counties and municipalities.”
KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK SETH!
I'm going to predict that ~30 million Trump voters will have their own Day of Indignation when they claim that they have been "duped" or "conned" or "misled" or " had enough" of Trump.
I don't think Trump did himself any favors with his DIY sendoff. He looked ridiculous.
Compellingly and passionately written. Thank you!
Very good. I will keep this one in case I start to forget.
A missing word here, Seth: "and he golfed his away through an appreciable percentage of his tenure"