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“The Ballot is Stronger than the Bullet,” So Let the Games Begin!

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“Which is it going to be, that’s all? The conspiracy or the f*ck-up?” –John LeCarré, The Honorable Schoolboy

Not that I’m jaded. Or cynical. In any case, the quotation in the headline is not from Lincoln, like so many other quotes from Lincoln that are not[1]; that was the catchphrase that came to hand with “ballot” in it. In any case, let’s hope it’s true, provenance aside.

If the legitimacy of election 2024 is to be contested, by either (any) Party, balloting issues and claims are likely to figure largely in the discourse, and in whatever measures each party takes, as they did in 2000, 2004, 2016 (in the electoral college), and 2020 [2]. In this post, I will not look in any detail at current ballot-related legal challenges; the numbers exceed my capacity, so it makes more sense to see what shakes out. In any case, many if not most of them are frivolous (and that goes twofold, threefold, tenfold for unauthenticated — “Look! A truck! By the side of the road!” — videos on the Twitter. When “citizen journalism” actually becomes journalism, that’s gonna be great, but we are so not there yet).

Instead, to aid understanding the debacle I devoutly hope will not happen on Election Day and days following, I will first look at the inordinate complexity (hence vulnerabilty) of our balloting systems; there’s rather a lot of it. I will then take a cursory, swift look at current controversies in swing states. I’ll conclude with the hope that if there is a debacle, we’ll learn from it MR SUBLIMINAL Fat chance!

Complexities and Vulnerabilities of our Balloting System

First, let’s check in with the spooks, starting with a handy Diagram from the Department of Homeland Security:

Let’s not think of this as just a diagram; let’s think of it — as the spooks probably do — as a map of attack surfaces, which I’ve helpfully highlighted. At the bottom of the diagram, highlighted in yellow, we have traditional (non-digital) methods, all of which were executed in Ohio 2004: “equipment” (which can be concentrated in favored precincts, thinned out in disfavored ones, or fail altogether, depending), “voting locations” (ditto), “opening and closing polls” (ditto), “processing votes” (slow or fast, depending), and “publishing unofficial results” (as FOX did in Florida 2000, causing Gore to concede, though he later unconceded). At the top of the diagram, in red, I have underlined modern (digital) methods: online registration, voting machines, optical scan voting ballots, DRE machines, Optical Scans, Email, Fax, “Electronically,” and audits (because IIRC some audits simply consist of running the ballots through a scanning machine as a second time.

Past use of traditional attack surfaces proves that, no matter how trustworthy the vast majority of election workers are, wrongdoing still happens (“If men were angels, no government would be necessary”).

For digital attack surfaces, suffice to day that digital = hackable, by definition (Edgers Dijkstra: “Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence”, a bug being a potential attack surface for a bad actor. Ken Thompson: “The moral is obvious. You can’t trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.)”[3]

Now let’s look at the Brennan Center (more here), who assure us that everything is hunky-dory:

Since 2020, the nation’s electoral apparatus has upgraded its equipment, tightened its procedures, improved its audits, and hardened its defenses against subversion by bad actors, foreign or domestic. Ballot tabulators [but not voting machines?] are air-gapped from the Internet [how about USB sticks] and voter-verified paper records are the norm.

Let’s stop right there. By “voter-verified paper records” the Brennan Center means that the voting machine prints out a paper ballot (in essence, a receipt) so that the voter can “verify” a print-out against the choices they made on screen. There are two difficulties with this. First, many people simply trust the machine and don’t do the check at all (do you carefully verify every receipt you are given?). That opens the way for a stochastic process where some altered votes slip through due to a hacked system. There are two additional problems, depending on the architecture used. (1) If, as in the VSAP system used in Los Angeles, the voting machine transmits results digitally to the ballot counter, and then, in parallel, prints out a receipt for the voter, the real ballot is the digital transmission, not the paper receipt. The two don’t have to match, the voting machine could have been hacked, and so there is no verification at all. (2) If the voting machine prints out a receipt and then, in sequence, the receipt is scanned by a digital ballot counter, that simply moves the digital attack surface to the ballot counter.

Needless to say, I don’t find that underlined sentence from the Brennan Center a confidence builder. But let’s go on:

At the heart of that system are nonpartisan election officials at the federal, state, county, and local level who are dedicated to delivering a free and fair election. Poll workers will verify the identity and registration of every person who casts a ballot, in person or by mail. When polls close on Election Day, sooner in some states, election workers will begin tabulating early and mail-in ballots and in-person votes, usually on [hackable] scanning machines. As they proceed, officials will secure counted ballots, compile the results from the [hackable] tabulation machines, and save worksheets and (for 98% of votes cast[4]) paper records for official and public review. The entire procedure is overseen by poll watchers from both parties.

I yield to nobody in my admiration for the church ladies who carefully cross my name off the registration list, hand me my paper ballot, and then give me my “I voted” sticker (and I think hassling them is really vile, and should stop). That said, the key issue is not how the system operates on the whole and on the average. In an election that (almost) universally expected to be close, only a few insiders in a few precincts in some of the seven swing states are required to hack the outcome (and you can bet that there are “black hats” whose very expensive business it is to know those insiders, those precincts, those states, and, of course, the hack. And very few of them go up in small planes). And finally:

No human enterprise that spans tens of thousands of polling places, hundreds of thousands of election officials, and more than 150 million projected voters can aspire to be flawless, says Jen Easterly, a former Army intelligence officer who directs the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). “There could be a ransomware attack on an election office,” Easterly says. “There could be a distributed denial of service attack on a website, so you can’t see election-night reporting. Somebody will forget their key to a polling place, so they could open late. A storm may bring down a power line, so a polling place needs to be moved.”

(We will see in a moment how disingenuous the Brennan Center is, describing CISA’s Easterly as “former Army intelligence officer.” The New Yorker played the same trick with FMIC’s Jessica Brandt). I also yield to nobody in my admiration for election workers generally, and in my frustration at the enormous number of human errors that get blown up into malfeasance on social media, generally without attestation. More:

What matters, she says, is that election officials have trained for all those contingencies. “They are prepared to meet the moment and to deal with any disruption,” she says. Easterly and her state counterparts play this message of reassurance on repeat, interview after interview and speech after speech. It has the virtue of being true. There really are playbooks and backup procedures and well-designed mitigation plans for every bad thing they have ever seen happen to an election, and none of those bad things pose a genuine threat to the integrity of the vote.

“Every bad thing”? No. Except for one. Can you guess? Take a moment:

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes ? (“Who watches the watchers“, Juvenal, c. 100 AD).

100AD, what would be… 2024 – 100 = 1924 years ago. That’s a lot! And Jen Easterly “was deployed to Baghdad as chief of the cryptologic services group for the National Security Agency. She also worked for NSA’s elite Tailored Access Operations,” the “hacking unit” exposed by Edward Snowden, that infiltrated computers around the world. Clearly, if there’s a “watcher” who, wearing a White Hat, is equipped to protect all those digital attack surfaces, it’s Jen Easterly. Equally clearly, if there’s a watcher who, wearing a Black Hat, is equipped to hack them, it is also Jen Easterly[5]. That would be a Bad Thing. And yet hacking, in general, goes unmentioned both by the Brennan Center and Easterly. Odd!

Now, I would never attribute means (***cough*** Tailored Access ***cough***), opportunity (***cough*** CISA directorship ***cough***), or motive (***cough*** Orange Hitler ***cough***) to Easterly without any evidence. But I don’t have to. We’re talking systems, not persons. The principle to keep in mind here is Akerlof and Shiller’s “Phishing Equilibrium” (see NC here, here, and here), which I summarize as: “If fraud can happen, it will already have happened.” The same principle applies in the famous joke about the two economists walking down the street. One spots a twenty dollar bill lying in the street, and bends to pick it up. The other stops him, saying “If that twenty were real, somebody would already have picked it up.” Every digital attack surface could be that real twenty dollar bill. The goal of election security, therefore, should not be to create a three-ring binder with a page for every contingency — except, naturally, for Black Hat insider attacks, because who knows, we might need them some day — but to simplify the system so the number of attack surfaces is as minimal as possible. Why leave twenty dollar bills on the street?

And speaking of twenty bucks lying in the street, here’s a tweet from Marc Elias, Democrat election lawyer extraordinaire and the cut-out through whom the Clinton campaign laundered its payments to spook Christopher Steele, of dossier fame. Democracy Docket is Elias’s website:

The Harris campaign has a billion dollars and counting, unless they’re lying. Are they paying Elias in such meagre coin that he’s got to hit up the rubes? With that, let’s turn to the Swing States.

Recent Balloting Issues in Swing States

Let me caveat once more that I make no attempt to be exhaustive; the tweets that follow are simply the latest Swing State-related froth from my Twitter timeline. However, readers, if you live in any of these seven states and have anecdotes or links you wish to share in comments, please do so!

Arizona

Curing ballots:

Swell, if it’s non-partisan, which this clearly is not.

Georgia

“Georgia judge says voters can hand in mail ballots in rejection of GOP lawsuit” [FOX]. “A judge in Georgia on Saturday dismissed a Republican lawsuit that sought to block voters from hand-returning mail-in ballots in the state over the weekend…. A Fulton County spokesperson said on Saturday afternoon that only a couple dozen ballots had been returned to the four open county offices.” • To me, the same as above. Commentary:

I understand the point about last-minute rule changes, but I see this as a problem of not being able to determine all the edge cases in an absurdly complex system, rather than as malfeasance.

“Republicans score victory in Georgia fight over election observers, RNC chairman says” [FOX]. “Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said on X, ‘We’re pleased that Fulton County has implemented our requirement allowing monitors in the spirit of Georgia law. But we are concerned that this was ever a question in the first place.’ The alleged exclusion of poll watchers from the weekend absentee ballot submission hours was not limited to just the GOP. It included all observers, Republicans said. An RNC spokesperson told Fox News Digital having public poll observers through the weekend benefited both Republicans and Democrats but argued their absence would hurt the GOP more in left-leaning areas. The spokesperson said the RNC worked with Georgia election officials to secure access for poll observers.” • Poll watchers are good, unless and until they morph into a “bourgeois riot,” as in Miami 2000, or similar levels of officiousness.

Michigan

“Spreadsheet showing Michigan voter data isn’t proof of election fraud” [WTSP]. “Recent social media posts alleging election fraud in Michigan have gone viral as millions of Americans cast their ballots. The posts show a spreadsheet with Wayne County, Michigan, addresses and voter ID numbers. In the image, a highlighted voter ID column appears to show the same ID assigned to multiple addressees, suggesting one person has cast multiple votes…. The image is not proof that any individual in Wayne County, Michigan, cast multiple votes. A formatting error in the state’s voter registration database mistakenly made it look like people voted multiple times, Michigan election officials and Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump confirmed. The error has since been corrected and each voter listed in the report only voted once in the election, officials said.” • Commentary:

Nevada

“Nevada’s high court allows counting of mail-in ballots without postmarks” [Politico]. “The Nevada Supreme Court has turned down a bid by Donald Trump’s campaign to block state officials from counting mail-in ballots that lack postmarks but arrive within three days after Election Day… The court’s majority said adopting the GOP position could disenfranchise some voters through no fault of their own. The ruling affects only a small number of ballots that arrive by mail but lack postmarks due to what the majority called ‘random postal service omissions.'” • The decision looks fine to me — readers? — if you accept the proposition that mail-in ballots shold be normalized, and if indeed the omissions are random (“small” is not relevant. The margins are small!)

North Carolina

Ballot selfies:

“Election Day Voting Equipment by County” [North Carolina State Board of Elections]. This is an impressive piece of work:

Note, however, that the ADA ballot marking is done digital, and I cannot find what the standard is for voting on paper vs. voting on machine.

Pennsylvania

“Supreme Court rules Pennsylvania may count back-up votes when mail ballots are rejected” [CNN]. “The US Supreme Court on Friday left in place a Pennsylvania court ruling that is expected to expand options for voters whose mail-in ballots are rejected for technical reasons to have their votes counted, in a defeat for Republicans in a critical battleground state. There were no noted dissents. For Pennsylvania voters who made a mistake in how they prepared their mail-in ballots, it could ensure they have a backup option to have a provisional ballot counted…. It’s unclear how many Pennsylvania voters will benefit because not every county notifies voters of defective mail ballots. But both sides in the appeal before the Supreme Court characterized the dispute as affecting potentially “thousands” of votes at a minimum…. Different counties in Pennsylvania have different procedures for dealing with defective mail ballots, some more forgiving than others. That patchwork of rules makes it difficult to say with certainty how many ballots were at stake in the case.” • Looks like a mess.

Wisconsin

“Pro-Trump poll watchers primed for Election Day action in key state” [Reuters]. “Many local officials fear the activist action at election sites, while limited, was merely a rehearsal for a much larger-scale event on Nov. 5, when Republican Trump goes up against Democrat Kamala Harris in the fight for the White House. ‘It was absolutely a dry run for the general election,’ Glendale’s Democratic Mayor Bryan Kennedy told Reuters, adding that police were called to two polling stations by election workers and ordered two observers to leave, when it was decided the ballot challenges were without basis. ‘They were challenging every absentee ballot with whatever reason they could pull out of thin air,’ Kennedy said. With days to go until the presidential vote, opinion polling shows the election is on a knife-edge, with few places as pivotal as Wisconsin.” • Thousands of Marc Elias mini-mes? What a prospect. And then there’s this:

Life’s rich pageant!

Conclusion

Of course, as I urged here (“The Organs of State Security Involved in Authenticating Election 2024 (or Not)“, and back in 2016, here (“Federalist 68, the Electoral College, and Faithless Electors“) the over-riding issue, the change in our Constitutional order, comes from putting the spooks in charge of authenticating our elections. What happens, to invent a not-entirely-implausible scenario, if Trump wins because of a 10,000-vote margin in Pennsylvania, but an anonymous leak to the New York Times on “The Day After” claims those 10,000 votes were the result of a hack? And then, after a week or so of hysteria, it turns out that the source of the leak is Jen Easterly, late of NSA’s Tailored Access Operations, who assures us it’s all true, really, but can’t reveal intelligence sources and methods? Granted, this is rank speculation. But do we want a system where such speculation is even possible? Because that’s the balloting system we have.

* * *

The obvious solution is to have elections that are validated by citizens, not spooks (as I wrote in “What “Our Democracy” Should Look Like When Voting: A Simple Plan). In essence: Ballots should be hand-marked on paper and counted in public. All voting should take place on the same day. Election Day should be a national holiday (with much more detail in the post). Keep it simple, stupid!

Take digital out of the equation, you take the spooks out of the equation, and you save the Constitutional order. What’s not to like?

NOTES

[1] Quote.org shows that Lincoln used this “bullet”/”ballot” antithesis numerous times — and no wonder — but “The ballot is stronger than the bullet” has no cite. Hilariously, Google’s alternative, “To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary,” has no cite either. “Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets,” implying the civilization advances, comes from Lincoln’s Message to Congress, July 7, 1861.

[2] It seems to me likely that Democrats, in the event of a Trump victory, would not make the main thrust of their assault within the judicial branch, given the composition of the Supreme Court; see here. Republicans might well do so, given the same givens.

[3] One of the most offensive butcheries of Trump’s farcical butchery of the 2020 election challenges — which may have turned paper ballots into a partisan issue, setting it back by a generation, good job Don — was his failure to demand voting machine source code. How on earth can we even begin to know it’s secure without examining it?

[4] With election margins as thin as they are, that 98% figure seems a little sus.

[5] Are we really to believe that the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations unit has not hacked voting machines in Color Revolutions abroad? Heck, what good are they if they haven’t? But who watches the watchers to make sure those hacks don’t go domestic? Especially when “President Hitler” could undoubtedly be framed as a national security issue, say by a “thirty-five year national security expert“?

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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68 comments

  1. AG

    Please forgive me but:

    WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?

    THE INTERCEPT yesterday:

    The Trump Campaign’s Ties to Russia Were No Hoax
    No amount of disinformation can hide the truth about why Putin wants to help Trump win again in 2024.
    by James Risen.

    https://theintercept.com/2024/11/02/trump-russia-putin-election/

    Is this a fucking joke?! ?!

    intro:

    “(…)
    In May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, told Alexander Downer, an Australian diplomat, that Russia had damaging information about Trump’s political rival Hillary Clinton.

    That conversation in a London bar eventually triggered the Trump-Russia case, a sprawling counterintelligence and criminal inquiry into Russia’s attempt to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help Trump win.

    The Russian covert operation included the hacking of emails and related documents from Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic Party, and the spreading of anti-Clinton disinformation on social media.

    The Russians worked hard to try to get Trump elected, and Trump and his campaign knew about it and welcomed the help. Famously, Trump used his platform at a campaign event in 2016 to publicly ask Moscow to provide even more help.

    Today, the U.S. intelligence community believes that Russia wants to help Trump win again in 2024. That means that it is vital that Americans finally understand the truth about the Trump-Russia case, and about the dangerous relationship between Trump and Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin.

    The truth about the Trump-Russia case is outlined in a series of government inquiries and court cases, which when taken together show that Russian intelligence, acting on orders from Putin, launched a cyber war against American democracy. They also show that Trump enthusiastically welcomed the help from Russia, a country where he had previously sought out major business deals and financial support. During the 2016 campaign, Trump hired a campaign manager who had previously worked for a pro-Putin political leader in Ukraine and had also developed close ties to a Russian intelligence agent, with whom he shared inside information about the Trump campaign.
    (…)”

    Please tell me this is a joke which didn´t get!

    I CAN´T BELIEVE THIS!!!!!!!

    Why on Earth should I read another single article either by THE INTERCEPT or Mr. Risen?!
    Why should ANYBODY read another piece by THE INTERCEPT?
    It should cease to exist NOW.

    This is too much….

    1. Acacia

      It seems that James Risen, together with his brother, authored The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys―and One Senator’s Fight to Save Democracy.

      Curiously (or not), the linked Twitter account for journo James Risen doesn’t exist, and there are a bunch of blank pages in archive.org for his Twitter landing page. But searching back in 2023, though, I found this:

      https://web.archive.org/web/20230622033341/https://twitter.com/JamesRisen1

      Scroll down to May 17th, where Mr. Risen is retweeting a job listing at the NSA and commenting “I wonder if they would hire me.”

      What kind of journalist wants to work for the NSA? Perhaps this was irony or … maybe they hired him?

      1. AG

        Yes, I know Risen was among the idiots at INTERCEPT and I wondered how he had ended up there. But Russiagate I considered even too low a bar for him.

        A short detour:

        The NSA ad you point out has been featured by Aaron Bateman of all people whose tweets I know from US and EU WMD-experts´ X communication and exchanges. As such he recently published a book on the history of SDI which is a topice of mine since just recently.

        https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5770/Weapons-in-SpaceTechnology-Politics-and-the-Rise

        “A new and provocative take on the formerly classified history of accelerating superpower military competition in space in the late Cold War and beyond.

        In March 1983, President Ronald Reagan shocked the world when he established the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively known as “Star Wars,” a space-based missile defense program that aimed to protect the US from nuclear attack. In Weapons in Space, Aaron Bateman draws from recently declassified American, European, and Soviet documents to give an insightful account of SDI, situating it within a new phase in the militarization of space after the superpower détente fell apart in the 1970s. In doing so, Bateman reveals the largely secret role of military space technologies in late–Cold War US defense strategy and foreign relations. ”

        Bateman advertising the NSA ad now makes the book a questionable purchase. On the other hand scientists have a way to be honest on past matters. So I assume I will get it. Having grown up in Western Germany in the 1980s SDI played a fascinating role there in terms of high industry investment, state policy and how then chancellor Kohl, and former SoD Franz-Josef Strauß tried to arrange a German share in SDI. Which eventually ended more as a sell-out of German patents to the US.

        Which shows you again that the Germans were mostly intrumentalized by the US but usually profitted magnificently from the RUs…

      3. AG

        re: JAMES RISEN / CIA/ GREENWALD – OMIDYAR

        following your trail for a bit – I looked quickly into Wikispooks which corroborated most of what there is in a long Wikipedia article on Risen.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Risen

        Risen is odd. The fact that he still sells on Russiagate makes no sense.

        He is basically any paper´s CIA senior correspondent.
        He did so for the LA TIMES and the NYT.
        He got subpoenaed twice over a book on the CIA, due to info in there on US attempts to sabotage Iranian research into WMDs.
        Before that he fought against the NYT publishers who wanted to suppress a text on Bush´s various illegal surveillance dealings such as Stellar Wind.

        I don´t have the expertise to ad hoc judge the Wiki article on Risen. Because thinking of Judith Miller from the NYT – she too got into trouble but for what?! And now she is regarded a hero albeit she sold to us that Iraq War including those lies.

        Although I would not see both in the same league out of respect for Risen.

        Wikispooks has couple of articles on CIA stories with footnotes which also contain articles by Risen.
        (my search results on Risen: https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?search=james+risen&title=Special%3ASearch&go=Go )

        e.g.

        1995 Risen for the LA TIMES
        CIA Official’s Posting Sparks Anger in Ranks : Intelligence: Some are upset by Deutch’s decision to award plum job to agent touched by Ames scandal. Defenders say officer wasn’t responsible.
        https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-07-18-mn-25162-story.html
        via:
        https://wikispooks.com/wiki/CIA/European_Division/Rome_Station

        2000 for the NYT
        David H. Blee, 83, C.I.A. Spy Who Revised Defector Policy
        https://archive.is/lW1Kh
        via:
        https://wikispooks.com/wiki/CIA/Near_East_and_South_Asia_Division

        2011 NYT on Risen:
        Subpoena Issued to Writer in C.I.A.-Iran Leak Case
        https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/us/25subpoena.html
        via:
        https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:Green-Light_for_Greenwald:_Government_Duplicity_or_Government_Duality%3F

        The NYT on the Risen Subpoena case (but that is a lenghty subject on Wiki too. So no wild discoveries there I would guess):
        “(…)
        WASHINGTON — With the approval of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., federal prosecutors are trying to force the author of a book on the C.I.A. to testify at a criminal trial about who leaked information to him about the agency’s effort to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program at the end of the Clinton administration.

        The writer, James Risen, a reporter at The New York Times, was served with a subpoena on Monday, ordering him to testify at the trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer. Mr. Sterling was charged this year as part of a wider Obama administration crackdown on officials accused of disclosing restricted information to journalists.

        The subpoena tells Mr. Risen that “you are commanded” to appear at federal district court in Alexandria, Va., on Sept. 12 to testify in the case. A federal district judge, Leonie M. Brinkema, quashed a similar subpoena to Mr. Risen last year, when prosecutors were trying to persuade a grand jury to indict Mr. Sterling.

        Mr. Risen said he would ask the judge to quash the new subpoena, too.

        “I am going to fight this subpoena,” he said. “I will always protect my sources, and I think this is a fight about the First Amendment and the freedom of the press.”
        (…)”

        Now the above 2011 NYT footnote is from this informative wikispooks entry by a – former spook?
        https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:Green-Light_for_Greenwald:_Government_Duplicity_or_Government_Duality%3F#cite_note-7

        Author says there:
        “(…)
        Based on firsthand experience, my intimate knowledge of hundreds of whistleblower cases through my organization and relationships, and a decade of research, study and observation, I could take up hundreds of pages to list and elaborate upon case after case that demonstrate the pattern as consistent when it comes to our government’s response and dealings with its whistleblowers and adversaries. This is meant to be a brief commentary not a novella, so I refrain. However, I will list a few examples to illustrate the pattern, and also to honor those who have suffered greatly as a result of our government’s consistency when it comes to its dealing with the incriminating exposure and the messengers of the truth.
        (…)”

        The author mentions Risen as an example for a major victim in dealings with the CIA.

        “(…)I could go on and list dozens of more known cases where those who challenged our government with disclosing illegal activities have ended up being fired, stripped of all income, persecuted, prosecuted, and or ended up in prison. This government pattern also extends to journalists- For example, in the case of James Risen.(…)”

        In fact he wonders why CIA treated Greenwald with Snowden´s material much more friendly than Risen while latter case was about a story long past and secondary to the Agency.

        A long quotation from this author´s text because it is about Greenwals, CIA, Snowden´s leaks and eventually THE INTERCEPT

        “(…)
        Now, let’s move on, and observe how, suddenly, our government changes its position, completely deviates from its consistent pattern when it comes to whistleblowing and leaking, and acts totally contrary to how it always has acted in response to its adversaries who disclose and publicize incriminating information that exposes its illegal activities and operations.

        Glenn Greenwald has in his possession over 50,000 pages of highly classified government documents. The government comes out publicly and sanctions his possession of the documents it previously claimed to be stolen government properties.

        Holder indicated that the Justice Department is not planning to prosecute former Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald. [15]

        Glenn Greenwald continues his ‘selective’ release of a very few documents. The government takes an entirely new position that says, it is okay, and that it is not going to investigate and prosecute the person who is disseminating ‘some’ of this highly-classified and stolen material.

        After stating that the Justice Department has not given up its efforts to repatriate Edward Snowden, Holder said that the department is not, however, planning to take action against Greenwald.

        ….He said: Unless information that has not come to my attention is presented to me, what I have indicated in my testimony before Congress is that any journalist who’s engaged in true journalistic activities is not going to be prosecuted by this Justice Department… [16]

        Now remember, this same Justice Department, Eric Holder, has been going after New York Times journalist, James Risen on a much smaller case, and for far less significant charges. [17]

        Glenn Greenwald puts some (Less than 1%) of these documents out for auction and invites book publishers to come and bid. He promises to reserve some of these highly-classified documents for the book deal offered by the highest bidder. The mainstream publishers take his invitation and start bidding on it so that they could publish some reserved and exclusive and juicy classified documents. The highest bidder offers millions of dollars and seals the exclusive deal. [18] The government sees nothing wrong or illegal with this, and gives its consent with its silence and ‘go ahead’ nod.

        Glenn Greenwald, the investigative reporter who broke the story on NSA leaker Edward Snowden and the U.S. government’s secret surveillance programs, has inked a deal to write a book on the subject. According to the publisher, it will “contain new revelations exposing the extraordinary cooperation of private industry and the far-reaching consequences of the government’s program, both domestically and abroad.”

        His new book was acquired by Bershtel from Dan Conaway at Writers House Llc. International rights have been sold in Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway and Sweden by Devon Mazzone, a director of Subsidiary Rights at Macmillan.

        Glenn Greenwald puts himself as the holder of the 50,000-page cache on another auction bid. PayPal Corporation’s Billionaire Owner, Pierre Omidyar, bids high, $250 million, in return for only one thing: Getting access and ownership of ‘some’ of these stolen and highly-classified documents. [19]

        A recent Rolling Stone profile noted that “Omidyar came to Greenwald specifically because of the Snowden leaks.” [20] Given that those leaks deal primarily with how government agencies have accessed data from technology companies in the name of law enforcement, eBay’s eagerness to cooperate with those same agencies without so much as a subpoena is troubling. It is notable, too, that aside from his continuing stockholding in eBay, Omidyar has jointly invested in at least one startup (Innocentive) with the CIA’s venture capital fund, In-Q-Tel.
        (…)”

        If everything in this is 100% solid I don´t know.
        From past ba experience on Assange or Russiagate I have become skepctical unless NC or a Craig Murray or a Taibbi or Maté “green-light” it. But I think it´s good info if I have to choose.

        I stop here due to time limits. But may be there is more to be understood.

        However I fear only a serious reader or scholar of Risen´s books and national security issue pre and post Assange could write anything meaningful.

      1. AG

        But I do wonder how conversations of staff played out at INTERCEPT on Russiagate. Argueing would have made no sense. Argueig over what? The exact colour of Hillary Clinton´s sweater when she gave up? It just doesn´t add up.
        Anyway I´ll be moving on trying to leave this episode behind.

    3. Lambert Strether Post author

      This was always my favorite Facebook ad from the dastardly Russki scheme to steal the 2016 election (sourced from the NY Times archive of such ads, in all seriounsess):

      Just imagine that “35 year national security expert” uncovering the scheme….

    4. Not Moses

      Besides showing your hair on fire, the only way to disprove anything is with solid counter evidence. What’s yours?

      The Intercept has proven, in many occasions, to be right on the money.

      1. AG

        This is “Russiagate” not UFOs. Since 2017 at least the pile of evidence has reached Nanga Parbat levels of Russigate being a hoax, lie, deception, disinformation – choose your preferred tem. If you are not acquainted with e.g. Sleuthnews (formerly “FOIA Undead”) on Substack take a look. The one thing unclear still, who exactly in the Democratic Party had the idea for Russiagate. Which is what the team for Sleuthnews tries to find out. Of course Matt Taibbi has been on this for 8 years now. Already by 2016/17 the matter was regarded as “closed” by serious reporters and described as such by people like Aaron Maté and Stephen Cohen in articles for THE NATION. Several of those reporters were ostracized fo saying what was simple truth (“Russiagate”, seriously?). Craig Murray also mocked the entire scheme right away because it was so ridiculous. What is happening here is trying to reanimate an 18th century corpse which has decomposed in ways you cannot ignore. Unless you want to sell a horror-novel.

        Why my hair is on fire (nice expression btw I have to remember) – if this had beend NYT, WaPo or CNN even, I would have shrugged – but THE INTERCEPT! I am aware that INTERCEPT ´s demise is occurring at impressive pace now the best people abandoning, Glenn Geenwald being the first.

        But this was once an idealist project funded as well as could be today and it took about a decade that it would implode. I was never naive about it. But after all it was the result of Snowden! So to see how that very same outlet starts to repeat the most debunked CIA lie since Iraqi WMDs is shocking and sad. And putting my hair on fire.

        p.s. of course when it became public that Omidyar – the purse behind INTERCEPT – had kept 90% of Snowden´s data as pivate bait/bail/compromat? – so far not a shred of those 90% was published – it became obvious something is very fishy. This Risen text is the final nail.

          1. AG

            Thanks!
            I must admit I did not observe the events back when they unfolded closely enough due to some private issues 2013/2014. So I have to acquire some basics now with my old media world unraveling in the past couple of years and reassessing a few things.

      2. pjay

        You’re kidding, right?

        It’s true The Intercept has been on the money with many stories over the years. But the good reporters are few, and they usually leave. James Risen has not been one of the “good” reporters at the Intercept. He’s been one of the most blatant propagandists in fact, spewing and spinning the whole Russiagate tale as if it were fact. Much of that story, indeed, has been shown to be a lie.

        But I’m sure he’s telling the truth *this* time.

        1. JonnyJames

          It’s just another BS distraction from the fact that Israeli oligarchs like the Adelsons can legally give over a 100 million dollars to the DT campaign. Israelis and The Lobby hedge their bets: they bribe both factions; no matter who wins the sham election, the genocide will continue, the corruption will get worse, oligarchy will be further entrenched, health care crisis will get worse. etc.

          But it is more entertaining to forget about serious policy issues and focus on these distractions.
          Risen is also doing his part in maintaining the illusion of choice and to distract from the genocide.

    5. Screwball

      The Russia hoax is alive and well to this day. I didn’t read Risen’s article, but he should somehow get Musk in there if he didn’t. He is one of the Russian vehicles to steal the election – according to my PMC friends. You must vote for Harris because she will take Twitter and Space X away from Musk and jail or deport him because of his ties to Russia and Trump.

      They hate Musk about as much as Trump, and I think part of it is because once Musk bought Twitter the news they didn’t want to hear happened to reach their brains because Twitter – can’t have that – we must live in a bubble of our own making. Reality is only what we want and wish it to be – the rest of you are simply FOS.

    6. pjay

      Risen was one of the most significant pushers of the whole Russiagate story, basically reporting all claims as fact – as he does here. Like many other liberal media “heroes” (he won a Pulitzer for writing about Bush’s warrantless wiretapping and the NSA), Russiagate completely exposed him. I’m not sure I’d call him a fraud, as blitzklieg does. I think he’s worse. He seems to be a blatant mouthpiece for the intelligence community, with which he has long had extensive connections. That’s what makes him so significant here. Does he actually believe this bulls**t? Who knows. I’m not sure it matters.

      1. pjay

        By the way, I think AG’s comment is directly related to Lambert’s excellent overview here. As Lambert says,

        “… the over-riding issue, the change in our Constitutional order, comes from putting the spooks in charge of authenticating our elections.”

        In my opinion, this cannot be emphasized enough. If the last eight years have proven anything it’s that there is NO lie or degree of manipulation that is beyond our intelligence community anymore. Risen is part of that process. To some extent it’s always been this way, but I honestly don’t think a Third-World color revolution-type operation would have been possible in the US a few decades ago, at least not this blatantly. It certainly is now.

        1. AG

          Which would mean that Risen is not – as I might have incorrectly written – just an “idiot”. At least he is part of an agenda and texts as this and as the ones your are reminding of are no coincidence.
          For that to happen you do need an author´s consciousness.

          In the broader picture Russiagate is a piece of the “narrative” created by the people Lambert is warning of.

          However if colour revolutions in the sense we have encountered them on the continent here are reproducable in the US I would doubt. It would be more intricate, unclear, indirect – chaotic in fact. And as such less identifiable.

          Because fact is – Russiagate (and Twitterfiles revelations) have turned out extremely complicated. I am always amazed. To quote a movie “one donut hole placed in another donut hole” and so on.

          And often it seems many elements operate independently from each other, furthering the same cause however (here Russiagate) but not being aware of each other. Risen is one of those cogs.

          But in one regard the colour revolution does apply:
          The chaos of Russiagate networks in the US mirrors the chaos US has created around Ukraine.

          Starting 100 different operations of madness into different directions and probing into how those turn out. Like a dog race where you bet on 7 out of 10. Hardly anyone outside can keep track of that.

          This is certainly an intention in order to keep the conspiracy safe from discovery and scrutiny. Which tells you how bad a reporter Risen is and his colleagues in other places.

          1. Lambert Strether Post author

            > However if colour revolutions in the sense we have encountered them on the continent here are reproducable in the US I would doubt. It would be more intricate, unclear, indirect – chaotic in fact. And as such less identifiable.

            There’s a lot more to write about color revolutions, but my posts are tending towards book length, so….

            Much color revolution thinking depends on seizing a national center, like Maidan, for example. But the United States is so enormous there is no national center.

            So yes, in the execution there would be many differences. But we quite evidently have what we could label the dark triad of color revolutions all teed up: Gene Sharp ideology, the heavy NGO involvement, an election trigger. We would need a color, though: I would suggest pink, like the “35 year national security expert” was wearing.

  2. Screwball

    Great article Lambert – you are a journalistic beast – thank you for this.

    A few observations and comments. I’m not in a swing state but I live in Ohio, so border Michigan and PA. I’m in a small NW Ohio rural town of about 15k I’ll call Cornhole. We are the county seat. I happened to drive down our main street today which goes by the board of elections building. Voting was from 1 to 5 and around 2pm there were probably 30 people lined up outside. I don’t know how to read that.

    This is a red state usually, but we have two colleges in town, so we might not be as red as other counties. One of the professors has been writing columns in the local paper (he went to Harvard) and just yesterday endorsed Harris because of immigration. These are the type who I would expect to early vote. In 2020, we had 26k people who voted, with 14k voting early, and 11.5 on election day. Trump won with 66% of the vote, so it’s a red county even with the colleges.

    Poll workers; I couldn’t agree with you more Lambert. I know several people who work the polls, one is the professor I mentioned above. Another, and I just talked to her last week, is a lady who I was honored to be in her wedding 48 years ago. Wonderful lady and her husband is like a brother to me. She is active in the local GOP, and is not just a poll worker, but a poll worker watcher.

    She will be doing 15-16 hours Tuesday for $150 bucks. Probably one of the first ones there and the last to leave (maybe several places). She said it is a very long and difficult day but did mention they usually don’t have too many problems, if any. I didn’t ask about the machines and how all that works, but the next time I see her I will interrogate her about that. If anything shady would happen, this lady would have no part of it, nor would she hesitate to scream from the rooftops if it did. Honest as the day is long and not afraid to speak up. Thank you.

    Another example, my no longer partner was a local secretary for the local democratic party as well as a poll worker on 3 or 4 occasions. She was also a legal secretary and was always about detail and by the book. While working the polls there were a couple of times they had issues at the polling station. Some were normal voters doing things that are against the rules, and some were other poll workers doing inappropriate things. It sounded like a poll worker with an agenda trying to sway people’s votes. That isn’t suppose to happen, but it did.

    I remember voting when a punch went through a piece of paper and that’s what you turned in. Then the electronic machines came, but I don’t remember how long ago that was. Then, not too many years ago, we got new ones again. I thought that was a waste of money since they had already went electronic, but here we are. I’m surly going to pay closer attention come Tuesday on how this all works.

    As far as the electronic thing goes – and I’m totally on the Lambert paper ballot train. Maybe someone in the commentariat knows, do the voting machines have some sort of a wireless/phone/IP card in them? In a prior life I was in IT and product design. I remember talk of network cards being added to home appliances – because troubleshooting don’t you know. Network cards in a voting machine? All bets are off. I trust nothing, even without network cards in the machines. Files going from one IP address to another isn’t safe either IMO.

  3. AG

    Robert Barnes on THE DURAN:

    TC: 88:00 – he suggests the PN ballot scandal was staged by Shapiro to prove that he would even be willing to commit a crime to help Harris win – only to cover up his true goal of becoming a candidate himself and to cover up that he in fact wants Harris to lose therefore.

    Which means to say: many Dems have no interest in a Harris win since it would end their own prospects. (Why 4 years of Harris would do so, I don´t know.)

    TC 1:53:00 – he speaks about the password-leak of the machines but believes this time the margin for Trump will be so huge that it won´t matter and that there won´t be any serious fraud attempts because those would be detected due to the high margin victory.

    https://theduran.com/high-stakes-us-elections-2024-w-robert-barnes-live/

    1. Mark Gisleson

      I watched the whole thing and Barnes was excellent. Everything he said was informative and to the point and he said a lot. This one will be fresh right up until the returns start coming in.

    2. WJ

      Barnes is, indeed, very intelligent and articulate. However, in the past I have found his domestic political analysis to be colored by what he hopes to be the case—he once seriously propounded that there was a good chance of Trump being named the speaker of the house—rather than what is the case. This is the same sense I get from his discussion of what Shapiro and Whitmer will or will not be willing to do on Election Day.

      1. Mark Gisleson

        I admit that I had to unblock him to follow him on X. Not sure why he was blocked but he definitely must have said something I disagreed with. His comments on Shapiro I dismissed as speculative but again and again he told me things I didn’t know that fit in well with what I do know. He did not say one thing about Minnesota that struck me as off. But mostly he was interesting and not bombastic. He sounded like someone whose side was about to win big. Maybe not, but he certainly thinks so.

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      > I didn’t guess the one bad thing….

      And we’ve known it for almost two millenia!

      I do want to emphasize, however, that I’m only presenting possibilities (but since personnel is policy….). Don’t want to draw the yarn in the yarn diagram too tight!

  5. Hepativore

    How can the ballot be stronger than the bullet when both parties overlap on 95% of policy and many studies have shown that public opinion is mostly ignored by our elected officials in favor of wealthy elite donors and fundraising opportunities?

    Anyway, in addition to the possibility of voting machines being edited to “correct” people’s votes in certain districts, I would not be surprised if voting machines will soon have covert small cameras, and government-mandated facial recognition software installed, along with three-letter agency backdoors to see who is voting for what candidate so they know what potential “reactionaries” to keep tabs on or put on certain secret watchlists. Also I bet such voting habits will also be freely available at request by employers doing background checks on people to see who fits into their “company culture” and who does not.

    1. Screwball

      From the War Games movie; Backdoor

      I am old enough I remember when we didn’t have computers. Then my career warped me into the matrix. I was in awe of the power, not only of the machine, but people who controlled it. Danger, danger, Will Robinson.

  6. rowlf

    [5] Are we really to believe that the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations unit has not hacked voting machines in Color Revolutions abroad? Heck, what good are they if they haven’t? But who watches the watchers to make sure those hacks don’t go domestic? Especially when “President Hitler” could undoubtedly be framed as a national security issue, say by a “thirty-five year national security expert“?

    There was a joke that in the 2020 US presidential election that due to Covid restrictions the US government teams that effed around with other country’s elections had to stay home in the US.

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      > It wouldn’t be the Harris campaign paying for the lawyers.

      Not all of them, certainly. But Marc Elias, certainly.

      I’ve said elsewhere that I don’t think the main thrust of any Democrat assault on the election results would not be the courts, because of the composition of the courtrs. And the Republicans, conversely.

  8. rowlf

    Get some popcorn and watch what drama occurs this year in Fulton County Georgia elections. This county has decades of vote counting hinkyness.

    I’m holding out for a Roald Dahl giant rhinoceros this election cycle interrupting the vote counting.

  9. Acacia

    Re “a glitch in the system”

    The same voter ID with many different addresses is a “formatting error in the state’s voter registration database” ?

    From the WTSP article:

    Samantha May, a spokesperson for the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office, explained to VERIFY that when the report was exported, it included each prior address linked to a voter, causing the same ballot to appear on multiple lines associated with one unique voter ID. That’s why it appeared as if people voted multiple times when that wasn’t actually what happened.

    So, the person with that same voter ID has been registered to vote at 19 different addresses in Detroit and Highland Park City (in fact, at least 19, possibly more, as that’s only what we see in this screenshot) ?

    Yup, sounds legit.

      1. Louis Fyne

        I believe that the “smell” that Acacia is pointing-out is that one person has 19 addresses associated with her.

        No impossible, especially as we don’t know the time-range of this data and some folks are transient….but definitely an outlier.

        I’d assume that some flag shows up for a voter tracker number that has a number of associated addresses (say) 6 standard deviations away from the average, but that is only common sense—so not holding by breath

        1. Not Again

          That address was a homeless shelter. It would make sense for it to have multiple registrations.

  10. AG

    Doug Henwood´s JACOBIN piece is now free to read:

    Trumponomics
    What kind of economic policy could we expect from a second Trump term?

    By Doug Henwood
    https://jacobin.com/2024/10/trumponomics

    Finale:

    “But this is all informed speculation. Trump’s résumé as a manager makes you wonder how much he could get done. His first administration was chaotic. He wasn’t prepared to win, and he improvised his way through his term. There was immense churn in his cabinet: turnover, according to a Brookings Institution tally, was seven times Biden’s and five times the average from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama. A second term could be more stable, with an agenda drawn from the likes of Project 2025 and a staff assembled from seasoned right-wing technocrats and agitators. On the other hand, Trump would still be at the top, so we could have an extravagant drama of imperial decay.”

    Robert Barnes´s “vision” on THE DURAN was slightly different…

    1. JonnyJames

      Henwood’s credibility is pretty thin: his track record during the Crash of ’08 was lacking, if I recall. Ironically, he heavily disparaged and criticized Michael Hudson, but now has egg on his fact as Hudson turned out to be 100% correct. I would like to see Henwood debate Richard Wolff, and Michael Hudson on some of these issues.

  11. marym

    Michigan multiple line items for one voter ID:

    Thread of 5 tweets about the addresses (shelters and churches) and why they would have been changed frequently.
    https://x.com/adamscochran/status/1851765666610643200
    His replies to replies to these tweets have additional information. Here’s one with more info about address changes:
    https://x.com/adamscochran/status/1852321725523939564

    (I try not to post links from accounts I just happen to find on twitter, but there’s enough there if anyone wants to check further into what he’s saying about addresses, Michigan laws, his bio, etc.)

  12. Irritable

    I have probably posted my little bit of anecdata before, but YA “most important election evah!” warrants a re-posting.

    I had an ex-GF, a lawyer, actually switch her party allegiance over her experience. In 1996 she had secured a gig as a Republican poll watcher at a site in Harlem, which in no surprise to readers of NC ran out of paper ballots (the well known trick of under-serving voting needs in minority areas on election Day [even in a blue city!]) So she dutifully called the (Republican) official who could get more sent over. When the official was informed over the phone that this shortage was in Harlem, she told my ex to “don’t worry about it” …. for obvious reasons. To her credit, my ex took matters into her own hands and managed to get more ballots by dragooning a police officer to take her downtown, sirens blazing, and get more ballots back in time.

    That being said, my own feelings on the current situation wherein the Democratic party has turned into the DINO party, and billionaires run things, leaves me agreeing with the sentiment that voting would be illegal if it made a difference.

  13. Samuel Conner

    That it is possible to swing the election by surreptitious interventions in a small number of places exacerbates the problem. Perhaps there should be an especially urgent push for HMPBCiP in the swing states.

    (Aside: me thinks that the Electoral College is itself a meta system problem and ought to be reformed (or worked around, such as via something like the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact), but while we are stuck with it, whatever bits of a genuine Left remain ought to be focusing resources in the swing states, to force both parties to reckon with what those voters [who are more representative of a national popular consensus than are the preferences of the people who actually get elected] actually want policy to be.)

  14. Mark Gisleson

    Fulton County sounds like a win for Republican poll watchers. Simply by having watchers on the outside of those four weekend drop-off locations they were able to thwart any mischief. Fulton Co. officials dismissed the complaints, admitting that only a few dozen ballots were dropped off.

    Had there been a need for these sites, many more ballots would have been dropped off. Given Fulton County’s shoddy recent history, the point of these four drop off locations was most likely to create an opportunity for some ballot box stuffing.

    Hard to count 100s of votes when only a few dozen people went in and out of the polling places. Fulton Co. has been trying to keep GOP poll watchers out of the polling places but this time just being outside was good enough.

    I honestly think 2020 was rife with cheating that would have been exposed had it not been for the way Biden’s folks bullied their judges to dismiss cases. You can’t do that two cycles in a row, at least not to Trump.

    1. marym

      Links to examples of bullying of judges? Does filing dozens of lawsuits that ultimately fail for a variety of reasons, including timing, standing, state law, and absence of evidence, sometimes through one or more appeals, argued before judges with a range of backgrounds, also count as bullying?

      “A Georgia judge on Saturday rejected a Republican lawsuit trying to block counties from opening election offices on Saturday and Sunday to let voters hand in their mail ballots in person.
      …
      The lawsuit was filed late Friday and cited a section of Georgia law that says ballot drop boxes cannot be open past the end of advance voting, which ended Friday. But state law says voters can deliver their absentee ballots in person to county election offices until the close of polls at 7 p.m. on Election Day.”
      https://www.cbsnews.com/news/georgia-judge-republican-lawsuit-hand-returned-mail-ballots-fulton-county/

      I support poll watchers, cctv, and other procedures to mitigate the risk of fraud or error. When poll watching itself becomes a risk of interference, that’s a problem too.
      https://www.propublica.org/article/poll-worker-recruitment-swing-states-true-the-vote-lion-of-judah

      1. Mark Gisleson

        It’s happening. Dick Cheney has belonged to both parties, both parties have sunk to the lowest possible level when it comes to election thuggery.

        I like rough and tumble politics but I don’t like institutional cheating. I’ve spend most of my life as a Democrat and I would like them to play by the rules.

        If I become a Republican due to realignment, I will want them to play by the rules.

        I am also more critical of the Democrats because while Trump “saved” the GOP, when Bernie tried to save the Democrats they crucified him.

        This election SHOULD be about who replaces two-term President Bernie.

      2. Lambert Strether Post author

        > I support poll watchers, cctv, and other procedures to mitigate the risk of fraud or error. When poll watching itself becomes a risk of interference, that’s a problem too.

        I agree. Even gangsters try to avoid whacking civilians, politicians and activists should too.

  15. Janbo

    My Unpleasant, Confidence-Busting Early Voting Experience in Brooklyn, NY
    While the vulnerabilities outlined in Lambert’s great article are clearly more concerning than garden variety lapses of a system built for failure, the latter also deserve consideration. I voted on the morning of Oct. 31 at my central Brooklyn early voting site at Downstate Medical Center on Clarkson Ave. As usual, the site was richly staffed with pleasant poll workers who greeted me, directed me to the appropriate table, and so forth. I was sent to “Table 3,” where I signed in, saw a ballot issue from a printer, and had it handed to me. I then went to one of the cramped stand-up tables, adjoined but with sight barriers on the sides, that long ago replaced “voting booths” in New York City. I filled in my ballot, carefully filling in the bubble to write in a candidate for president, and the same for the congressional representative. I wrote in Jill Stein/Rudolph Ware for the former and Hind Rajab for the latter. (Our genocide-supporting and generally useless long-term congresswoman, Yvette Clarke, is running unopposed, and a group that has been trying to get her to speak out on the Gaza horrors has organized this write-in campaign.) I filled in bubbles for a couple of other candidates and local propositions. I took my ballot to the scanner, where it was rejected. (“Try inserting the other end…your ballot could not be read.”) A poll worker asked me if I had received the ballot from Table 3 and said that those ballots weren’t working in the scanner. I needed to go and line up to speak to someone at another table. As I joined a lengthening line, I found myself opposite Table 3, where the worker was issuing a ballot to a new voter. I repeated what I had been told and asked why ballots destined not to be scan-worthy were still being issued. The worker said that my ballot would be scanned when I got to the front of the line. When I arrived at the head of the line, it turned out that there was no capacity to scan my completed ballot and I needed to hand it to the poll worker and receive a new one. (Only later did I reflect that this, of course, completely undermined the notion of a secret ballot–not that I have personal concerns on that score, but it’s a terrible look, isn’t it?) I once again asked why defective ballots were still being issued at Table 3. I was told, “They’re just telling people what the supervisor instructed them to say. They have to do that. The supervisor isn’t here right now.” Fuming, I went to fill in my new ballot, doing so sitting on a chair out in the open because the line for the “private” tables was now quite long. (One of the reasons I wanted to vote early in the first place was to avoid crowded indoor spaces full of unmasked people, which was exactly how this polling site was beginning to look as a number of people went through the whole process twice.) This time, my ballot scanned. (“Your vote has been recorded.”–wow, great confidence-builder there.) The next day, I called the Board of Elections and described my experience. A very nice, apologetic young man told me that “we’re encountering that problem across multiple locations.” He said that it was the vendor’s fault. It was turning out that about a third of the sheets of paper used weren’t printing correctly. The ink barrels would have to be replaced. “We expected a 10% failure rate, but it’s much higher than that.” (Why on earth did the Board of Elections “expect” a 10% failure rate and consider that satisfactory?) I pointed out the problem with potential disclosure of ballot contents and he said that the worker is supposed to fold the ballot in half without looking at it (ballots are printed on both sides) and write a “V” for “voided,” but “people are only human, so it’s possible someone could look.” He added that part of the difficulty was that early voting was heavier than ever before; as of Friday morning, Nov. 1, 250,000 people had already voted in Brooklyn. I’m thinking: fabulous. So now you’re telling me that a system designed for a 10% rate at which people will need to fill out a ballot twice and possibly lose the secrecy of their ballot is also designed to be unduly stressed if a lot of people want to use it. I will simply add that, while I am white, almost everybody else at my polling site was Black. Gentrification is rampant (I had to negotiate my way through a dusty, noisy high-rise construction site to get there), but it’s still a largely working-class and Caribbean community. My neighbor who voted at the much sleeker Brooklyn Museum site, which serves upscale neighborhoods in the vicinity, reported no problems–make of that what you will.

    1. expr

      Nassau County NY
      10/26 first day of early voting I had a Dr appt across the street from a polling place so thought to vote after appointment traffic jam getting to Dr turns out it was people trying to get into the parking lot gave up
      1029 ; tried again at 10 AM opening time still jammed trying to park and long line bailed
      10/31 got there just before 9 AM opening line not bad got in line and out in about 15 min I saw no problems with any miss printed ballots
      Maybe the got the glitches out by then or maybe they shipped all the bad pritners to Brooklyn
      BTW I did not get arrested for wearing a mask

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      > It was turning out that about a third of the sheets of paper used weren’t printing correctly. The ink barrels would have to be replaced. “We expected a 10% failure rate, but it’s much higher than that.”

      So one in ten failures is the baseline? Does anything work in this country?

  16. jefemt

    Lets say we have 360 Millions people in the US. Lets say half are adult age and able to vote. Lets say 60 percent vote.
    I have a hard time fathoming that volume of ballots can be counted in a day, physically. Might be doable in bumphuc flyover, but in larger metro areas (east coast, west coast, rocky mountain coasts like Colorado’s front range or Utah’s wasatch front– physically an impossibility.

    I don’t believe that a hand count can happen within 12 – 24 hours of polls closing, if we were to go to in-person, one election day voting.

    I’m thinking we will see ballots and bullets – both- this year.

    1. Jokerstein

      It happens in the UK with tens of millions of votes being counted in an area smaller than WA state. It has done for decades, and you don’t hear about the shenanigans that go on every time in the US.

      The fact that you declare it physically impossible, notwithstanding.

    2. Mark Gisleson

      Your polling place is too large then. More polling places is better. The rigging of our elections almost always involves not enough polling places some of which always mysteriously have problems resulting in super long lines.

      If you cannot hand count, you did something wrong upfront.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > If you cannot hand count, you did something wrong upfront.

        The rest of the world does it just fine. Perhaps we’re just wildly corrupt. Still, I’d rather corruption was forced to deal with physical objects like paper rather than hide away in hackable IT.

        1. umuntu

          I read a very ironic remark recently on a telegram channel:

          The US exported so much democracy they have only this much left.

          Since they are very busy abroad right now, perhaps todays election has a chance …

          I wish you the best.

  17. Not Moses

    Fuzzy Bear/s must be salivating for the chance to cause havoc. Just from the few responses above, we can see how vulnerable elements of the population are to run away with “Fuzzy Bears” into the abyss of chaos.

    That said, it also seems the case that both parties don’t want to find as 100% safety-proof system of guarding voter integrity since it gives them room to litigate unwanted results.

  18. Not Again

    Election Day should be a national holiday

    Nope. Because us ‘deplorable” and garbage” voters don’t get holidays. We get “Special 4 Day Election Day Sale” that opens at 7 am and runs till 11 pm.

    This will turn into a 4 day Caribbean vacation in November for the PMC who all got their doctors to sign them up for Mail in Ballots. The stores don’t close for Thanksgiving, why would they close for Election Day?

  19. doug

    Here in a small NC town, we had two under 30 female D’s show up in the driveway while we were outside. They encouraged my spouse to vote for Kamela. Spouse said she had already voted for Stein. ‘Cool’ they replied, ‘do you want to come to Kamela’s party?’ Spouse was puzzled after they left. I suggested they thought she meant the D gov candidate, Josh Stein, and that they had never heard of Jill Stein. We will never know.

  20. JonnyJames

    Much ado about nothing. The policies will continue, no matter what the outcome of the sham, just like always. Millions engage in the same activity, yet expect a different outcome – but that is irrational. The pathetic excuses from both the D and R side are laughable. The same nonsense every four years, it got boring and predictable along time ago.

    And the genocide continues, the media is largely ignoring that and focusing on the Election Derangement Hysteria. If the media ignores it, it the genocide does not exist.

    Ed Bernays would be in awe: millions are directed to act against their interests, and do so willingly and with enthusiasm! and continue to do so. This will expedite the Decline and Fall of the USA. Many in other parts of the world can’t wait. But many more thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese will be slaughtered in the meantime.

  21. Tom Stone

    It’s Kamala, “The Great White Hope” VS “Orange Hitler” in these last few crucial rounds.
    Will Harris be forever known as “The People’s Choice” or “Didn’t she used to be somebody? ”
    Will that Ferret wearing, Cheeto faced Shitgibbon triumph and lead the World into a hopeless Dystopia…or will Harris’ Donors feast on the corpse of Empire as she does the same with much better manners?
    Stay tuned for the next episode, and now a word from our sponsors…

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