Computer Science Prof & Edward Snowden Explain How Easily Voting Machines Can Be Hacked
By
Arjun Walia
In Brief
- The Facts:
Edward Snowden & J. Alex Alderman, a computer science and engineering professor at the University of Michigan both share how easy it is to hack voting machines and change votes.
- Reflect On:
Have any of the elections in the United States over the past few decades, and possibly more, actually been fair and accurate? How can we truly know?
Exploring the 2020 election aftermath can be confusing. A slew of partisan perspectives, mainstream media holding to a lockstep narrative, and much of alt media sitting on the other end of the extreme. But where can we get election information we can trust? That’s a good question, and one we feel will be answered as a bit more time passes. We are preparing a report on what factual election fraud we’ve found, but for now, we’ll start here.
Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great staffs, both of the old parties have ganged aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them in martialling [sic] to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day. – Theodore Roosevelt (source)
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When Donald Trump won the U.S. Presidential election in 2016, accusations of Russian election interference began to surface and still persist to this day. Many would argue that there was absolutely no evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election, that it was a false claim built by various ‘powers that be’ which control the democratic party, to delegitimize Trump’s win. Others would argue that the evidence was quite clear, and that Russia did somehow influence the outcome of the 2016 election. While observing mainstream media, it wasn’t hard to see that they were strongly pushing the idea of Russian interference, while completely ridiculing the idea that there was no interference. This entire story was built off the existence of what was called the Steele dossier, now known to be a complete fabrication. So indeed ‘Russian interference’ was a mere political ploy, a lie, perpetuated for years. But since mainstream media has such a strong influence when it comes to controlling the perception of the masses, a large number of people were, and still are, completely divided on the issue and many simply just don’t know what to believe.
We are seeing the same issue happen again with the current presidential election, only the exact opposite. Now, the democratic party is ensuring the integrity of the electoral process, and mainstream media is constantly pushing the idea that this election contained no voter fraud, and that voter fraud rarely exists to begin with. A quick look at any mainstream outlet, including official statements from social media giants, will suggest there was no type of interference in any way, shape or form, while simultaneously ridiculing the idea that this year’s election could have been tampered with. This too, we know to be false. There is plenty of evidence for voter fraud, we simply don’t yet know the full scale. That’s what investigations are for.
It’s ironic how two sides can completely flip within a four year period, what was true regarding election integrity four years ago is not true today, but how can that be? Does this simply shine light on the idea that politics has simply become too corrupt a system to deal with and handle the problems our world faces today? Does it really work for the people, or is it a game in which the people are mere pawns? Should we keep giving our collective minds and turning our collective eye to one person who we think can solve, or have some sort of impact on world issues in an effective manner? Do global issues really change depending on who is the United States president? Do domestic problems ever change? Or does our perception of them simply change as a result of ‘leaders’ politicizing every single issue and trying to use them to gain more popularity?
What Happened: You are probably familiar with Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who blew the whistle and shared evidence showing that the U.S. Government not only illegally collects massive amounts of data via a variety of surveillance techniques on its own citizens, but also citizens of many other countries around the world. On July 27th, 2019, Snowden tweeted a video of J. Alex Alderman, a computer science and engineering professor at the University of Michigan who is an expert in the field of election security. In the video he emphasizes how easy it is to hack the voting machines used today during the presidential elections.
In a 2017 hearing, he states the following:
I know America’s voting machines are vulnerable, because my colleagues and I have hacked them repeatedly. As part of a decade of research, studying the technology that operates elections and learning how to make it stronger. We’ve created a tax that can spread from machine to machine like a computer virus, and silently changed election outcomes. We’ve studied touch screen and optical scam systems and in every single case we found ways for attackers to sabotage machines and to steal votes. – Alderman
In the video tweeted by Snowden, he states that “these machines have got to go.” Snowden has also shared in 2016 how easy it is to HACK into a US voting machine with a £24 memory card.
Now corroborate this with the claims coming from one of Trump’s lawyers Sidney Katherine Powell, who is an American attorney from North Carolina. She claims that she knows for certain that voter fraud can be found on voting machines around the country during the 2020 election, and the scale is large enough to overturn the election results.
She claims they will have presentable evidence by the end of the week. There are other supposed examples of fraud that have come to light being heavily denied. The machines in question are made by a company called Dominion and right now, claims by President Trump and supposed evidence of fraud is running rampant from his campaign.
These claims have been heavily denied by Dominion and Smartmatic, and ‘fact-checkers’ are all over these claims heavily denying them and labelling them as false conspiracies.
Why This Is Important: The fact that according to mainstream conjecture, election machines could have so easily been hacked in 2016, but not in 2020 just doesn’t make sense, especially given the fact that the same type of machines were used in both elections.
As mentioned we will produce a more lengthy report on fraud in this election, however, that is not entirely the point here. The point is simply to demonstrate how easily fraud can occur, yet there has been such a denial of possibility from one side.
At the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves how we really feel about the game being played before our eyes. Are ‘the people’ truly cared about and represented? If not, what is our course of action? Is it time to organize a new vision, one where elected (or unelected) officials can’t simply do what they want?
How much longer do we want to hand over our own consciousness and attention to the political system? And how much longer do we want to rely on the political system as a means to represent the collective desire? How much does the political system really represent the voice and the will of the people? Does our political system do more harm than good? Is it even capable of facilitating any real type of change that can actually better the human experience? Are we giving our attention to something completely useless and incapable of looking at important issues, and asking the necessary questions we need to ask ourselves?
As long as our collective eye and our collective mind are turned outward to one person every four years, it will never be turned inward at ourselves, and we will never really recognize the ability we have as a collective to change our society from the story of today to a new one. Humanity needs a change in worldview, holding onto the old is being challenged right before us.
Dive Deeper
These days, it’s not just knowing information and facts that will create change, it’s changing ourselves, how we go about communicating, and re-assessing the underlying stories, ideas and beliefs that form our world. We have to practice these things if we truly want to change. At Collective Evolution and CETV, this is a big part of our mission.
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