5 ms·
There is no proof of either yet. What makes everyone think this is suspicious is there is proof of election meddling from overseas in the past. So there is pr
by ProAm 7y ago
There is no proof of either yet. What makes everyone think this is suspicious is there is proof of election meddling from overseas in the past. So there is proof elections can be modified and I doubt the IT skills groups like these to realize or adequately stop tampering. Without evidence everyone is assuming everything.
- colejohnson66 7y agoDid Russia actually meddle with (read: modify) the election? Or did they just buy ads? I thought it was only the latter.
- protomyth 7y agoThere is no evidence of changing votes by any other nation. Ad buying and fake advocacy accounts have been shown to exist for multiple nations. Also, multiple countries have given money to organizations in the US for non-election work that seems to end up on elections. The DC advocacy culture is a wonder to behold from money both domestic and imported.
- ProAm 7y agoI read there was unsuccessful attempts and not only by Russia, but if foreigners are willing to do it I absolutely would not put it past interested Americans to try either. The ads were meddling but in a different sense, just like the Russians meddled in Brexit with ads.
- elicash 7y agoMost people consider the illegal hacking and distribution of emails as "meddling" with the election and believe it had a greater impact on how people voted than the ad buys did. If you're just arguing that it's irrelevant because vote totals weren't hacked, fine. That's a dispute over word choice of what it means to "meddle." Russia also hacked into and downloaded data from voting registration systems, which should cause us to re-evaluate our voting systems, but again, that didn't impact vote computations or anything like that.
- colejohnson66 7y agoI’m gonna break a rule, but, honestly, HN confuses me. I asked a genuine question and I’m being downvoted for it because (I assume) some people mistake it as trolling. Anyways, I never said they didn’t do anything. I said, “here’s what I thought: x. Was I wrong?” My use of “(read: modify)” was to clarify that when I said meddle in that instance, I meant actual modification; I was referencing what the parent comment had said.
- elicash 7y agoI didn't downvote you (I promise!). And I hope I answered your question. For those who did, I think what happens is that it's hard to tell which people are and are not operating in good faith and sometimes people mistake one for the other. But it sounds like you genuinely weren't sure whether Russia had actually hacked into the voting machines. Only into the Podesta, the DNC, and into voter registration systems. There's no evidence to suggest they changed tabulations (and by that I mean they almost certainly didn't), so that's why people haven't made that claim.
- colejohnson66 7y agoThank you. I like HN because the community is a lot nicer than others, but it’s frustrating being drive-by downvoted when you just asked a genuine question. It reminds me of other online communities where people just downvote because you said something they disagree with.
- elicash 7y agoThe only thing I want to add to this discussion is that even though there's no evidence any nation has ever hacked into our voting machines, we still need a paper trail. It could absolutely happen. We have over 3000 different voting systems - one for each county. Some counties are staffed better than others. They use different types of machines. In some ways, that's a strength. But in others, it's a weakness. There should really be much more discussion of the issue nationally and what needs to be done.
- solarkraft 7y agoNot only that, the party itself has a history of meddling against this election's likely winner.