ricochet: The Election Was Not Hacked

Between jeremiads decrying “fake news,” the mainstream media has created and advanced the biggest fake news story of 2016: That the presidential election was hacked.

• “Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking” New York Times
• “Obama administration unveils retribution for Russia over election hacking allegations” CNBC
• “U.S. Slaps Sanctions On Russia For Election Hacking, Expels 35 Diplomats” CBS
• “Obama sanctions Russian officials over election hacking” USA Today
• “U.S. Sanctions Russia Over Election Hacking; Russia Threatens to Retaliate” Wall Street Journal

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Despite the histrionic claims of the press, the election was not hacked. The Democratic National Committee’s lousy IT security allowed someone to access their emails which were then leaked. Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta fell for an age-old phishing scam that was as believable as getting millions of dollars from a Nigerian prince. Using the spotty media understanding of cybersecurity, they can claim that the DNC and Hillary’s campaign were “hacked,” but the election decisively was not. And the press knows it.

In order to “hack” an election, a nefarious group would have to infiltrate the voting systems of 50 states, plus DC and territories. All of these systems are unique, with completely different architecture, ballot formats, tabulation processes, etc., etc. This did not happen. In fact, some hackers tried breaking into a few different states’ systems weeks before the election, were quickly identified, and prevented from doing so. Likewise, someone attempted to gain illegal access to the Republican National Committee, but since they had a competent IT staff, this too was thwarted.

But even without delving into the technical details, it’s obvious that the election wasn’t hacked. If, say, Russia wanted to elect Trump, they would have given him the popular vote victory along with his electoral victory. They also wouldn’t have left him to squeak out meager wins across the upper midwest and rust belt.

The media is intentionally lying to the public because they want a better excuse for Election Day than the reality. They would rather focus on hacking, the popular vote, FBI Director James Comey, or the minuscule alt-right, instead of accepting that American voters slightly preferred Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton, at least in the states where it counted. People wanted change over the ineptness, cronyism, and stagnation of the Obama era. They didn’t trust the utterly untrustable Clinton and liked her even less.

The harsh reality is this: Hillary Clinton is the worst presidential nominee in American history. And if the media is actually concerned about fake news, they will drop the election hacking lie and just admit that their candidate was a disaster.