Can you Change, Delete, Switch votes on voting machines, in counting offices, in the main DNC or RNC? Not without a contingent of bad actors, who are Republican, Democratic, and Independent. Can fraud of millions of votes take place at any time in any way? The fraud that is perpetuated on a single ballot, or a group of several, sets off a system of conflicts. Lets look at what it would take to create millions of votes from thin air. Then take a look at deleting votes, and then switching votes.
If you had an army of hackers, who all were working independently, over the course of a election cycle, and were inside the voting system, and could in-fact increase votes by tabulation, then yes this could occur. Someone like say, Russia, could in-fact, with access, change votes, add votes, or simply delete votes.
There are 240 million voting age people in the United States. 160 million voted, that were tabulated. Perhaps 80 million were not registered, did not vote, or were disenfranchised somehow. Although this sounds bad, far fewer people voted in other elections, it is not uncommon. 2016 saw interference in the Election process, that has been established.
There is no reason to believe interference was only in the presidential race, there could have been other races. This is not a guess, most experts know that it is unlikely there was not interference in other races.
There are many types of voting machines, some better than others. Voting machines seem to be a focal point. Lets examine one. The standard voting machine is not connected directly to the internet, but can be. For safety it is double blind access. You need a key to enter the machine, a key to access the small computer within the machine. Then you need a a code from the network, a code from the authority, and then you can enter a password. This is basic industrial security. Paper ballots leave a trail, and that is how network uploaded voting is vetted. The paper ballot matches the person, matches the tabulated data, matches the ballot, triple blind. It is next to impossible to change a vote on the voting machine, without a ballot. The computer has a particular programming, without a source (ballot) there can be nothing added. This is why it has been so important that opposition to the election show ballots being brought into elections offices.
If the voting machine is network attached, and that network is attached to the internet, it is vulnerable to attack. What form that attack could take is really pushing the limits of theory versus reality. You must in order to change a vote within the machine, change the programming within the computer, within the machine, and unless someone gives the authority code, and password to the hacker, there is no way to pass the double blind and triple blind security.
It would be unlikely, in the case of millions of votes, that ballots would arrive from any outside destination. Instead they would come from a storage of empty ballots, with security envelops. Hand delivered ballots don’t need a post mark. Then those ballots could be filled out at anytime, in any elections office and tabulated like actual votes, as long as everyone present is in on the scam. Then votes could be fraudulently made, and it could seem like a party received votes or lost votes, whatever the bad actor wanted.
But you must in fact create a person to go with any vote that is forged. Again if you have a large group that are all in on the fraud, a database of unregistered people could in fact be used to create voters, who could then vote. The problem here is that the voter must actually be notified of registration.
This is why it is so difficult, without use of an outside bad actor, similar to Russia, Iran, or China, could an election be influenced. When an opposition calls for a recount, they are matching tabulated votes, built into the programming of the voting matching, from a local source, to a ballot from that same source, to a living person.
If there is a vote, when a person is dead, unregistered, or voting again, after an initial vote, it is flagged as a conflict, and that is entered into the system singularly, the vote is not counted. It can’t be, and the system is built to flag any conflict, even one that is generated by creating a person. You can’t create a ballot, enter a ballot after the final day of counting, when tabulation is complete. The system programming does not allow that. Even if say you breached all that security you would have to enter each vote into the system as a piece of unique programming code. It would take years, for 1 million votes. The access there would be prohibitive and would need to be done by a bad actor at the level of say Russia, China, but probably not Iran.
If they were given the time and necessary access, an outside bad actor could in fact breach a system. The system itself would flag those votes as conflicts and must be approved by an actual random election’s official in the county where the vote took place. They wouldn’t have a ballot, and that would invalidate the vote. It just wouldn’t be tabulated and would probably cause the initial vote origin to be investigated. That is the probable scenarios for changing, deleting, or switching a vote at any level where the originating tabulation is made – actually . . . .
That doesn’t even begin to cover all the fail safes, for tallies of groups of votes.
Gauging how much a person has to gain, by suppression, misinformation, spin, and marketing, you may want to look to some extent at both parties. There needs to be constant vigilance because some of the bad actors are present in our system, usually those yelling the loudest. One person does not create, implement and execute voter interference, in any election. It takes a large crowd of actors doggedly following others, and then fighting to throw suspicions and doubt away from themselves. It’s a very simplistic PR campaign, that does have some results that benefit the bad actors, but bad faith is easily spotted.
But the rule is for any new project or endeavor, start off small and work your way up. There are a number of races for lesser seats in congress that bear looking into, just on the basis of the incumbent being beaten by a small margin, that could have been influenced.
It falls on us to bring out these inconsistencies even if it calls the offices themselves into question. Ignoring signs of problems, because it is better to smooth things over never works. The problems never get addressed, and become institutions, statues, and traditions, that alienate and weaken society as a whole.
https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voting-equipment.aspx
https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/analysis/Fact_Sheet_Voting_System_Security.pdf
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/an-expert-on-voting-machines-explains-how-they-work/
