US Election Recounts In ‘Hacked’ States?

Jill Stein, the Green party’s presidential candidate, is preparing to request recounts of the election result in several key battleground states. (2016 Electoral College Votes By State; pictured)

Stein launched an online fundraising page seeking donations toward a multimillion-dollar fund she said was needed to request reviews of the results in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The drive has already raised more than $4.5m, which the campaign said would enable it to file for recounts in Wisconsin on Friday and Pennsylvania. The fundraising page said it expected to need around $6m-7m to challenge the results in all three states. Stein said she was acting due to “compelling evidence of voting anomalies” and that data analysis had indicated “significant discrepancies in vote totals” that were released by state authorities. 

“These concerns need to be investigated before the 2016 presidential election is certified,” she said in a statement. “We deserve elections we can trust.” Stein’s move came amid growing calls for recounts or audits of the election results by groups of academics and activists concerned that foreign hackers may have interfered with election systems. The concerned groups have been urging Hillary Clinton, the defeated Democratic nominee, to join their cause.

Donald Trump won unexpected and narrow victories against Clinton in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin earlier in November and may yet win Michigan, where a final result has not yet been declared. 

A loose coalition of academics and activists concerned about the election’s security is preparing to deliver a report detailing its concerns to congressional committee chairs and federal authorities early next week, according to two people involved.

A second group of analysts, led by the National Voting Rights Institute founder John Bonifaz and Professor Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan’s center for computer security and society, is also taking part in the push for a review. In a recent blogpost, Halderman said paper ballots and voting equipment should be examined in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. “Unfortunately, nobody is ever going to examine that evidence unless candidates in those states act now, in the next several days, to petition for recounts,” he said.

Clinton’s defeat to Donald Trump followed the release by US intelligence agencies of public assessments that Russian hackers were behind intrusions into regional electoral computer systems and the theft of emails from Democratic officials before the election. 

Curiosity about Wisconsin has centred on apparently disproportionate wins that were racked up by Trump in counties using electronic voting compared with those that used only paper ballots.

Use of the voting machines that are in operation in some Wisconsin counties has been banned in other states, including California, after security analysts repeatedly showed how easily they could be hacked into.

However, Nate Silver, the polling expert and founder of FiveThirtyEight, cast doubt over the theory, stating that the difference disappeared after race and education levels, which most closely tracked voting shifts nationwide, were controlled for.

Still, dozens of professors specialising in cybersecurity, defense and elections have signed an open letter to congressional leaders stating that they are “deeply troubled” by previous reports of foreign interference, and requesting swift action by lawmakers.

Guardian:           Fears Of Hacked US Election Ebb Away:      Was Donald Trump's Surprise Victory Hidden In The Data?: