[EL] Can we say elections are stolen?

[Stephanie F. Singer]

Lisa, Paul's statement is true. Just because safeguards are in place to counter all the attacks one might imagine, it does not follow that safeguards are in place against all attacks. There is no shortage of demonstrations, by well- regarded cybersecurity experts such as Harri Hursti, Andrew Appel, Alex Haldeman and others, that with the right preparation (e.g., a doctored USB stick or memory card) very brief access suffices to carry out attacks that would not be caught by the Logic & Accuracy tests or any other routines pre-election checks. Ballots that voters mark by hand, whose custody chain is carefully monitored, can provide evidence to either detect tabulation errors or to provide high statistical confirmation that the correct winner was determined. I'm happy to provide specific links. In general, VerifiedVoting.org (an organization I do a lot of work for) is a good place to start.Stephanie Singer, Data ScientistFormer Chair, Philadelphia County Board of Elections
-------- Original message --------From: Lisa Bryant <lbryant at csufresno.edu> Date: 1/8/21  4:17 PM  (GMT-08:00) To: Paul Lehto <lehto.paul at gmail.com> Cc: Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu> Subject: Re: [EL] Can we say elections are stolen? Paul, I don't know that it actually is a "TRUE statement", to say that "it is EASY for an election official or other person with access to electronic voting machines to steal an election."  It would actually be a quite complex task and require the cooperation of multiple actors to pull off. Election officials do not work in a vacuum. Tallies are not updated in a private office without anyone else around. If you have ever observed the counts being tabulated at the end of the night or over days, you know that this happens in groups with multiple participants. It's not as simple as one person switching the numbers. If you believe they could program tabulators to intentionally change the numbers, it also means that the people programming the machines and checking the machines before they go out to the various locations would have to be in on it. These are generally not the same individuals in my experience of observing elections processes and procedures over the past 14 years. Is it possible to get multiple people to help carry it out? Probably. It is EASY? No. Best, Lisa BryantLisa Bryant, Ph.D.Associate Professor, Department of Political ScienceSurvey Director, Institute for Leadership and Public PolicyCalifornia State University, Fresno On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 3:59 PM Paul Lehto <lehto.paul at gmail.com> wrote:Whether we can say elections are stolen can only be answered knowing the context and the evidence for a specific allegation.However, it is nevertheless a true statement that "it is easy for an election official or other person with access to electronic voting machines to steal an election." A large number of video demonstrations can be found, some of which could be considered to be tutorials. Please advise if anyone wants links. This is why transparency is so critical.Here is an example of an electronic election reaching the wrong result because voting machine programming swapped the candidates. Most likely human error but it could have been intentional. https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/politics/20111028_South_Jersey_voting-machine_incident_makes_waves.html It is a good practice to add by who or what an election was stolen when and if this term is justified. We can all think of abuses of the term "stolen" as well. Again, the context and the evidence possessed are critical. Notice pleading standards of information and belief may be relevant.When I talk about this I urge people to realize that regardless of whether the inaccuracy is a glitch, human error, or an intentional criminal act, the damage to democracy is the same when the wrong result is announced. The questions of intent raised by the term "stolen" are relevant mostly to the criminal law and to questions of blame. So long as (which is usually the case) the relevant law does not require pleading and proving intentional fraud, the language of intent can be safely dispensed with. Entire books have been written on the history of election fraud and stolen elections. See Deliver the Vote: A History of Election Fraud, an American Political Tradition. - Tracy Campbell - Google Bookshttps://books.google.com/books/about/Deliver_the_Vote.html?id=v_cJij9bGykCYouTube currently suppresses videos alleging even "historical" stolen elections. This is improper censorship of history. Our country has long prided itself on not having secrets of this type where the truth can never be told. Paul Lehto, J.D. On Fri, Jan 8, 2021, 11:47 AM Margaret Groarke <margaret.groarke at manhattan.edu> wrote:David Becker earlier today suggested that both sides of the political divide drop the language of "stolen" elections. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Is it never legitimate to say that an election is stolen? What would be the conditions that would allow us to call an election "stolen"?If someone engaged in illegal acts which caused the outcome of the election to shift from one candidate to another, would that not be stealing? Would there be legal acts -- passing legislation that served to disenfranchise your political opponents, let's say -- that constituted stealing? Or is that something else? Should the fact, as David proposed, that the courts considered and rejected the allegations of illicit actions make it inappropriate to call an election stolen? I'm thinking, again, of Rick Hasen's discussion of the GA gubernatorial election in Election Meltdown. Clearly, it's a problem when a large number of Americans believe that a legitimately conducted presidential election is not legitimate. Does it reduce the possibility of this if the supporters of Dino Rossi or Stacy Abrams stop calling the elections they lost "stolen"? Do we want to establish a clearer definition of what would constitute a "stolen" election? Was the North Carolina 9th a stolen election? Is there any reason to believe that if Democrats didn't use the language of stolen elections, Trump and Giuliani wouldn't be using it now?      -- Margaret GroarkeProfessor, Political ScienceCoordinator, Community Engaged Learninghttps://jaspercommunityengagement.blogspot.com/Make an appointment to talk with meBronx, NY 10471Phone: 718-862-7943Fax: 718-862-8044margaret.groarke at manhattan.eduwww.manhattan.edu
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