No one should comment on election results until the have read both letters in full.

[flashman13]

Links here:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219733251

[Abnredleg]

1. Nonsense

We’ve been dissecting those letters for two days and it’s complete BS.

[Abnredleg]

10. Because it's harmful to the Party

And democracy. We all saw what happened to the GOP in 2020 with election denial and I am not going to sit by idly while people push conspiracy theories. Yes, you are correct in that it will blow over, but if you look at my posting profile, you will notice I am mainly responding to a couple of people who are actually pushing conspiracy theories. That is who I am responding to, not the majority of the members.

And if you don’t agree, just ignore me.

[marble falls]

2. Is that oblibatorily or merely suggestion? Does everybody have read them or can we designate someone ...

... to read and break them down to a sentence or two for the rest of us?

[Think. Again.]

3. I'll go a step further...

Here is the text of the first letter sent by a group of cybersecurity experts...

I removed the citations and footnotes for clarity, but all verification of claims can be found in the original document here : https://freespeechforpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/letter-to-vp-harris-111324.pdf


The Honorable Kamala Harris
The White House
Office of the Vice President
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Vice President Harris,

We write to alert you to serious election security breaches that have
threatened the security and integrity of the 2024 elections, and to identify ways to
ensure that the will of the voters is reflected and that voters should have confidence
in the result. The most effective manner of doing so is through targeted recounts
requested by the candidate. In the light of the breaches we ask that you formally
request hand recounts in at least the states of Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, and
Pennsylvania. We have no evidence that the outcomes of the elections in those
states were actually compromised as a result of the security breaches, and we are
not suggesting that they were. But binding risk-limiting audits (RLAs) or hand
recounts should be routine for all elections, especially when the stakes are high and
the results are close. We believe that, under the current circumstances when
massive software breaches are known and documented, recounts are necessary and
appropriate to remove all potential doubt and to set an example for security best
practices in all elections.

In 2022, records, video camera footage, and deposition testimony produced
in a civil case in Georgia disclosed that its voting system, used statewide, had
been breached over multiple days by operatives hired by attorneys for Donald
Trump. The evidence showed that the operatives made copies of the software
that runs all of the equipment in Georgia, and certain other states, and shared it
with other Trump allies and operatives.

Subsequent court filings and public records requests revealed that the
breaches in Georgia were part of a larger effort to take copies of voting system
software from systems in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Arizona, and
to share the software in the operatives’ network. According to testimony and
declarations by some of the technicians who have obtained copies of the
software, they have had access for more than three years to the software for the
central servers, tabulators, and highly restricted election databases of both Election Systems & Software (ES&S), and Dominion Voting Systems, the two largest
voting system vendors, constituting the most severe election security breach
publicly known.

Combined, their equipment counts nearly 70% of all votes nationwide.
Ninety-six percent of Arizona voters use Dominion and ES&S equipment; 100% of
Georgia voters vote on Dominion machines; 98% of Nevada votes on Dominion
voting machines and the remainder uses ES&S; 69% of Michigan voters’ ballots
are counted on Dominion or ES&S equipment; 89% of Pennsylvania voters ballots are counted on Dominion or ES&S equipment; ES&S counts 92% of North
Carolina ballots; and either ES&S or Dominion counts 97% of Wisconsin votes.

Possessing copies of the voting system software enables bad actors to install
it on electronic devices and to create their own working replicas of the voting
systems, probe them, and develop exploits. Skilled adversaries can decompile the
software to get a version of the source code, study it for vulnerabilities, and could
even develop malware designed to be installed with minimal physical access to the voting equipment by unskilled accomplices to manipulate the vote counts. Attacks could also be launched by compromising the vendors responsible for programming systems before elections, enabling large scale distribution of malware.

In December 2022 and again in 2023, many of us, concerned by the
security risks posed by these breaches, wrote to the Attorney General, FBI
Director, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director outlining the security concerns and urging an investigation. Though there have
been limited, localized investigations,14 there is no evidence of a federal
investigation to determine what was done with the misappropriated voting
software.

Other relevant parties have pointed to the serious risks posed by the
misappropriation of the voting software. Before it was known that partisan
operatives had taken the software, Dominion Voting Systems objected vehemently to providing its software to the same partisan actors who ultimately got copies through voting system breaches, stating that to give its software to biased actors would cause “irreparable damage” to the “election security interests of the
country.”

Before the breaches in Georgia had been confirmed, the Georgia Secretary
of State’s chief information officer testified that having copies of the software
would provide a “road map” to the ways the system could be accessed. The
Georgia Attorney General opposed providing copies of the software to lawyers for the Trump campaign in a late 2020 election challenge, arguing that images of the voting system software would provide “the keys to the software kingdom.”

Notably, U.S. elections are potentially resilient because there are paper
ballots recording the voters’ intent in most states, meaning that even if the voting
system is at risk, the will of the voters can be determined reliably by recounting the
paper ballots by hand (although we are aware that not all paper ballots are verified
by the voter, and not all states take adequate care to protect the ballot chain of
custody.)

Audits will be conducted in some of the most scrutinized states, but in key
states they will not be conducted in a timely way that could reveal any concerns
with the vote count. In addition, in most states the audits are insufficiently rigorous
to ensure any potential errors in tabulation will be caught and corrected, and they
cannot be considered a safeguard against the security breaches that have occurred.
Specifically, Georgia’s audits are non-binding, and Michigan, Nevada and
Wisconsin laws do not provide that the audit be conducted before certification.
Therefore, it would be impossible to know for these critical states if the audits
uncovered errors or miscalculations before the state deadlines to seek recounts.

Among swing states, only Arizona’s audit laws ensure that, if enough
discrepancies are identified, the audit hand count will be expanded to correct a
potentially incorrect result. In other words, aside from Arizona, in contested states,
there is no legal mechanism for the audit to correct the outcome, no matter how
much error the audit uncovers. Given these facts, the only guarantee for rigorous,
effective audits of the vote in the swing states will be through candidate-requested
statewide hand recounts.
(emphasis mine)

The facts around the voting system breaches are not disputed; it is well-
documented that there were severe, multiple voting security breaches before the 2024 election. To ensure that voters can have confidence that the breaches in
security did not taint the results of the 2024 election, we recommend pursuing hand
recounts in, at minimum, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as they
will provide insufficient safeguards against threats posed by the breaches of the
election software and will not provide important information in a timely way.

Thank you for your time and consideration of this important matter.

Sincerely,

Duncan Buell Ph.D.
Chair Emeritus — NCR Chair in Computer Science and Engineering
Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering
University of South Carolina*
David Jefferson Ph.D.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory* (retired)
Election Integrity Foundation*
Susan Greenhalgh
Senior Advisor for Election Security
Free Speech For People
Chris Klaus
Founder
Internet Security System*
William John Malik
Malik Consulting, LLC*
Peter G. Neumann Ph.D.
Chief Scientist,
SRI International Computer Science Lab*
John E. Savage
An Wang Professor Emeritus of Computer Science
Brown University*
*Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only and do not imply
institutional endorsement.

[Think. Again.]

4. And here is the text of the Spoonamore letter...

Duty to Warn Letter - to VP Harris - Re: Election 2024
(Revised 430PM)

Stephen Spoonamore
Nov 15, 2024
November 15, 2024

Honorable VP Kamala Harris

The White House

Office of the Vice President

1600 Pennsylvania Ave

Washington DC 20500

Dear Madam Vice President.

This is my second Duty to Warn Letter regarding hacking of the 2024 Presidential Election. The first letter on November 7 was directed to Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Officials. Both warnings are made per DNI Clapper’s 2015 directive to all agencies and contractors associated with intelligence and financial agency technologies to warn of suspicions of hacking.

Professionally I have worked as the CEO or CTO at seven high technology firms including two which specialized in hacking and counter-hacking operations. My clients have included numerous governments DoD, DHS, Dept. of State, F100 Financials and F500 Industrials.

I am a lifelong Republican who has long placed service and participatory democracy over party. In government, I have twice been invited to SoCom to give lectures on electronic warfare and techniques to find terrorist money laundering and gave a keynote speech of the National Counterintel Summit on this same topic. I served as an after-action reviewer of communications and data failures on 9/11 under the direction of Jim Woolsey and FDNY Commissioner Scopetta, and later co-wrote multiple hacking risk analysis of Smart Grid technologies for the Obama administration.

You should reverse your concession, call for both a full investigation of criminal activity and demand hand recounts in all seven swing states.

In my professional view there are multiple and extremely clear indications the Presidential vote was willfully compromised.

I wholly agree with the public letter of Duncan Buell, et. al. of Nov. 13th stating they believe there is a possibility of hacking and calling for hand-recounts.

https://freespeechforpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/letter-to-vp-harris-111324.pdf

This letter’s clear call to action is commendable, but its cautious tone may belie the severity of what I believe has happened. In my view it is a near certainty the results have been changed at a scale which reversed the US Presidential Election. They imply there is a chance a hand-recount will show you won more votes. I am stating a hand recount will most likely show you did win. Both letters call on you to act.

In my view, a capable and skilled series of exploits, electronic tools and hacks were used to change the Presidential vote in all seven swing states. These activities have reversed the outcomes in at least Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. I will lay out the basics of the attack, starting with unusual elements within the results. I will then outline two processes which could have been followed to insert these false results into the system. Finally I will outline how I would recommend investigating.

Unusual elements within the results.

The results of the attack are improbable in the extreme and well tailored to the sole benefit of your opponent.

Approximately 600,000 votes are for Donald Trump but with no down ballot choices. These are either inserted “bullet ballots” for the Presidential race or manipulated data fields. They are surgically added to totals in limited jurisdictions and within only the seven swing States. This historically unprecedented set of numbers found in the 2024 swing states is absent in every other state. In AZ, MI, NC and WI the effect of these drop-off votes reverses the voters' will and even more improbably always pushes the winning margin beyond the mandatory recount numbers. It is a result too perfect for belief. It is a bespoke and programmed outcome. In other states including PA and NV, removing these strange and bespoke added votes, it appears Donald Trump may have won the cast votes but within a margin which would force recounts. The inserted votes raise his totals, to avoid any scrutiny during mandatory recount results which would have slowed his claim on the Presidency. In GA and FL the same pattern exists with unclear impact on the results.

This attack is not technically difficult. It is modest in scale. It would require:

Modest and common computer programming skills.

Access to 10-100 tabulators or to the handful of facilities programming them in advance.

A credible database of voter IDs of non-voters around which to create false ballots.

Perhaps as few as 1, but more likely 3-5 human program managers.

Access to eBollBook Data during the election to determine who had not voted.

(Possibly) Human access to some tabulators during counting.

If I was asked to lead this hack, I would expect to have a core team of 6-10 people, and operating costs under $10M with a timeline of 3-12 months.

The tell: A historically absurd number of Trump-only bullet ballots or undervote ballots.

There are always a handful of voters who cast a vote in one race which they care about, and do not make other selections on the ballot. These are called bullet ballots. In Presidential Races since 1980, these bullet ballots rarely account for more than 1% of the total votes including in Mr. Trump’s winning 2016 election and losing 2020 election, and when they do it warrants further investigation. In 2024 in the 43 non-swing states, bullet ballots make up a nominal >1%. In the seven swing states the numbers are so high to be unbelievable, unprecedented and demanding of further investigation. Here is analysis from totals as of late Nov. 12th

Here are the unprecedented results of drop-offs in the two western swing states:

AZ - 123K+ 7.2%+ of Trump’s total vote. Enough to reverse the outcome.

NV - 43K+ 5.5%+ of Trump’s total vote. Enough to exceed recount threshold.

It is my belief these two states have illegally added votes.

For comparison, examine Trump’s 2024 results in three states which border AZ and NV. They have equally passionate Trump supporters, but have the normal levels of drop off or bullet ballots.

Secondary source: https://democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1002&pid=19728684

[Fiendish Thingy]

5. VP Harris has commented on election results

She has accepted the results, and conceded the election.

[SoCalDavidS]

7. Is There A Reason You Seem To Comment In EVERY SINGLE ONE Of These Threads?

We all know how you feel.

Nothing is going to come of this anyways. Why do you need to attack anybody who feels that something wasn't right? Their complaints almost certainly won't make a difference.

Just wait for it to blow over. Or do you have an ulterior motive or agenda, because by popping in to EVERY SINGLE DISCUSSION post, it is looking like you do. It's not too difficult to simply skip over these posts.

[Fiendish Thingy]

9. Should I refrain from expressing my contrary, but reality-based, opinion?

Last I checked, this was a discussion forum, not an echo chamber,

[Sympthsical]

12. If insisting on facts and evidence is an "attack"

Don't you think that requires a reconsideration of one's position? If you're holding a position where logic and evidence feel like a negative for the ideas you hold, are those really good ideas to hold then?

(And you've responded in tons of these threads just fine. No need to call out others for same)

I do not want misinformation, false hope, conspiracy theorizing, or narrative over truth to take hold in my party. We just spent four years going after Republicans for this stuff, where they "feel" 2020 wasn't right.

This isn't even kind of hard to understand why this stuff needs to be pushed back against and given zero quarter.

"That's bad . . . unless I do it" isn't an admirable life philosophy to aspire to.

[snot]

6. I've never understood the push toward electornic voting/tabulation.

My SS#'s on the dark web because 2 companies that claimed they could keep it secure couldn't.

[Abnredleg]

11. The trend now is towards paper ballots

Most states are completely or partially paper. This allows you to do hand count audits to check the accuracy of the tabulators.

[snot]

13. For which I'm grateful, but

computer experts have been warning since at least 2000 that these voting/tabulation systems are hackable – I don't understand why it took us so long to get the mesage.

[Abnredleg]

14. Money

It cost a lot of money to switch out voting equipment, and smaller jurisdictions find it a struggle.

[snot]

15. I'm frustrated that

we bought the paperless machines in the first place, despite all the warnings from experts (of which there were plenty).

This was actually a hot topic on DU back back in the day, at least among some members, especially after Kerry's loss.