Was our election stolen? This expert thinks so

November 16, 2024 9:27 AM

Credible evidence of hacking in swing states Looks like Musk's $1million giveaway was to harvest addresses. The evidence in this article is chilling, If it's true we're facing a huge crisis but might be stuck with you-know-who for 4 years. I'm not a data scientist or a hacking expert but this clearly warrants further investigation to my eyes.
posted by leslies (21 comments total)

This is such a nightmare. I have no idea whether this guy is actually credible, but "election was stolen by directly fucking with the vote" is in fact the worst possible outcome I can think of for this election. I'd almost rather the Supreme Court just stole it for him like in 2000! At least then we can all agree on what happened.

As it stands, I don't think we end up getting the presidency even if the evidence of hacked votes is extremely clear. It just means people have even less reason to show up next time, since their vote literally could not mean less.
posted by potrzebie at 9:49 AM on November 16 [3 favorites]

Interesting theory. But he presents his evidence without a single citation, and it therefore reads as a crank’s complaint.
posted by minervous at 9:50 AM on November 16 [9 favorites]

“people did not vote the way i expected them to” is not evidence of conspiracy
posted by a flock of goslings at 9:52 AM on November 16 [14 favorites]

Circumstantial evidence is a thing
posted by grokus at 9:56 AM on November 16 [1 favorite]

Only skimmed, but the evidence seems to be a bunch of ballots that only voted for Trump? He has a lot of assertions and speculation, though. It’s an interesting (and dire) hypothesis, but seems pretty far from a smoking gun.

Also, claiming a rigged election has real “stop the steal” hopium energy to it that is generally risible. Like… maybe? But maybe voters just don’t like women.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:56 AM on November 16 [3 favorites]

But statistically unmatched numbers of votes for Trump alone and only in swing states could well be evidence. I'm not a conspiracy theorist and wouldn't have thought this feasible.
posted by leslies at 9:56 AM on November 16 [2 favorites]

> credible evidence
> links to a substack

Hmm.
posted by fight or flight at 9:56 AM on November 16 [4 favorites]

Agree with minervous. I started to search for data to support or contradicting his argument, then thought "Wait, why am I doing this?"

Needs at least some evidence to merit consideration.
posted by justkevin at 9:56 AM on November 16 [3 favorites]

Stephen Spoonamore in the Congressional Record (2008):

Stephen Spoonamore, a CEO of a cyber security firm called Cybrinth, put the matter succinctly in the National Journal article. He said, ‘‘By not talking openly about this, they are making truly a dangerous national security problem worse" [congress.gov, pdf]

posted by HearHere at 9:59 AM on November 16 [1 favorite]

I doubt it would matter. Even if it were true, the democrats would do absolutely nothing in response.
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 10:00 AM on November 16 [4 favorites]

This is Spoonamore's thing, right? He's been talking about this for years.
posted by mittens at 10:03 AM on November 16 [1 favorite]

Could certainly be true but who’s to say it was the republicans’ doings?
posted by slogger at 10:05 AM on November 16

I know this is the Blue, but let's not BlueAnon away our energy.

There are better ways to channel your disappointment and anxiety.
posted by the primroses were over at 10:06 AM on November 16 [1 favorite]

what is more likely: musk et al were capable of and did hack the presidential election but didn’t bother to give themselves a better margin in the house race for some reason, OR low information americans turned out in sufficient number and voted in ways that were consistent with all polls except selzer?
posted by a flock of goslings at 10:07 AM on November 16 [4 favorites]

When you compare Trump's raw vote totals in Texas for 2020 to 2024, you see an increase of about 500k. If that was due to "hacking"...it would have been a big, fat waste of time in a state that Trump was going to win anyway.

The primary pattern in the 2024 results in many places, though, isn't an increase in Trump votes, it's Democrats staying home. (Why people would have stayed home has been discussed fairly thoroughly around here? But stay home they did, and in many places without a corresponding increase in the Trump vote.)

"Wait, why am I doing this?"

I've been crunching numbers on my own, but yeah, this write-up isn't motivating me to pursue its claims, or debunk them, either one.
posted by gimonca at 10:09 AM on November 16

statistically unmatched numbers of votes for Trump alone and only in swing states could well be evidence.

I want to see some citations on this; if true this would be the most damning.
posted by corb at 10:12 AM on November 16

well, let's see - first of all, the accusation is that just enough trump votes were added to take the margin of victory just beyond recount territory, which in pennsylvania i believe is 0.5% - but all that means is there wasn't a recount, not that trump didn't have the votes to win

second of all, all those people who pledged to vote for trump in elon's lottery - it is proposed that these people had ballots made in their name that voted for trump only - but they already were voting for trump and although you can't tell who they voted for you can tell if they voted -and those who didn't follow through, which could not be known until the polls closed, could have false ballots placed in their name right at the last minute - that seems rather hard to do

(and if that was the gambit, why only in pennsylvania?)

third of all, where are the publicly available records of these bullet ballots? - surely, he could have linked to this or provided a source - and how does he just happen to know about this if it's not publicly available information?

biden got 81 million votes in 2020, harris 73 million, as of current count - isn't that a lot bigger factor by an order of magnitude or more than these accusations?

on preview, i'm happy to see people aren't buying this
posted by pyramid termite at 10:12 AM on November 16 [2 favorites]

also he's a parks commissioner? and he has a duty to warn?

WhErE waS He WhEn ThEy SnuFfed PnuT tHe SquIrReL???!!!??
posted by pyramid termite at 10:18 AM on November 16 [2 favorites]

So glad “our side” is going to have a bunch of these guys now.
posted by atoxyl at 10:19 AM on November 16 [1 favorite]

JFC, can we just not?
posted by Frayed Knot at 10:22 AM on November 16 [2 favorites]

So wait, the argument is that the hacking added Trump only ballots not complete ones, leading to a number of state where Trump won but not the Republicans Senatorial candidate? And this was done by suborning hundreds of machines across all of the swing states?

Does that sound plausible?

Also, I checked a few races back (2012) and there was a pretty consistent pattern of their being more votes in the Presidential races than in the down ballot ones in individual states.
posted by Galvanic at 10:23 AM on November 16