How Do We Know Our Elections Are Fair?

[Coyotl]

How Do We Know Our Elections Are Fair?
In any other country, the U.S. State Department would declare the presidential election results a hoax: Clinton won initial exit polls—usually dead accurate—in four swing states.
Alan Gilbert 12.10.16 9:01 PM ET

1. Paper ballots and audits should be routine

Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for president, has done a public service in demanding that the votes be audited in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Even where paper trails exist, most states do not audit elections. It is important to know that the vote each of us casts is counted fairly.

In Wisconsin, Donald Trump’s narrow margin over Hillary Clinton was 0.7 percent, in Pennsylvania 1.2 percent, and in Michigan 0.2 percent. In Michigan, for example, Trump won by 10,708 votes out of 4,799,284. Further, 80,000 submitted ballots with no mark for president, which, at minimum, should be checked by the human eye.

Computer experts like Professor J. Alex Halderman at Michigan urged Clinton to join Stein’s challenge. Computerized voting machines—“touch screens” or DREs (Direct Recording Electronics)—which leave no paper trail, are notoriously unsafe. Both Halderman and Professor Andrew Appel of Princeton have altered their programs quickly—Appel in seven minutes with a screwdriver—and inserted malware. Such machines are used widely in Pennsylvania.

Further, for 2016, Halderman underlines that Russian or other interference has already broken into the Democratic National Committee’s and Clinton campaign chief John Podesta’s emails, as well as into voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona. Others point to a 7 percent statistical deviation toward Trump in Wisconsin counties that use DREs with no paper trail. .................