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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Varyk@sh.itjust.works to c/enoughmuskspam@lemmy.world
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[-] qaz@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

This article spreads strong claims about a possible election conspiracy, yet seems to have little interest in verifying any of it and just runs with what they agree with.

The first part “The Data” discusses several statistical oddities, it then ends with the following statement:

One data scientist crunched the numbers: “It’s north of a 35 billion to 1 probability that you could win seven out of seven outside of recount range with less than 50% of the vote.”

It doesn't mention who that “data scientist” is.

The next part "Election Software Compromised" starts off with telling that activists broke into election polling booths and downloaded copies of the software used to count the votes, then states those were hired by the Trump's lawyers. Then it suggests that the source code could be used to create malicious versions of the software. It fails to mention how these would be installed en masse and by whom and just decided the voting machine software is compromised now. They're technically not saying the software on the voting machines was comprised, but they were heavily implying it, and most reader who don't develop software themselves will probably read it as such.

Then we continue “The Hack” (we're just throwing the could haves out of the window now?). It starts with this fantastic quote:

“I think he’s guilty as fuck,” said Spoonamore.

This part kind of sums up the entire article, all claims are based off the writings of Stephen Spoonamore (“hacking and counter-hacking expert, cyber-security adviser, and government contractor" who's apparently so good at cybersecurity that nothing about him can be found except for election interference claims).

Starlink was used to connect the election services to the internet in certain counties. Spoonamore also claims that Musk supplied all seven of the swing states with free Starlink service to make their ePollbooks work faster.

So? We've had HTTPS since 2000, this alone doesn't make it insecure, but it's yet another part that prepares for the following finale:

However, this hack could be deployed using any network connection. With the ePollbooks connected to the internet, it would have been possible to hack into the system and, using voter profiles of each registered voter who had been checked into a polling station, determine which candidate was gaining in each state. In the final hours, it would have then been possible, using the secondary pollbook created by the $1 million sweepstake, to determine which Trump voters had not shown up and mark enough of them on the ePollbook as having voted. These become the bullet ballots. Only 400,000 of them were necessary to tip this election—at one point Musk tweeted that millions had signed up to his pledge.

Spoonamore explains that with the ePollbook data updated to reflect the desired result, votes would then need to be added to the tabulation machines to match the ePollbook. The machines could have been “digitally stuffed” either over a network connection (facilitated by the compromised software on these machines) or via physical access to the tabulation machine. A second possibility involves the same compromise as above plus “human ballot stuffing”. He notes this could be the reason bullet ballots fall heavily in just a few counties.

“It's actually a pretty standard hack,” he said.

The article covers itself quite well with all the could've would've been possible's, but it still presents this scenario as very likely despite the mountain of assumptions leading up to it.

The final ~~disclaimer~~ part, starts with this:

Is this just “BlueAnon”?

Is this just the Left’s version of right-wing conspiracy theories that have played an outsize role in destabilising our institutions? Perhaps. But...

Then it's not very responsible to just spread it wildly in the first ¾ of the article, is it?

[-] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I should have stuck with the original open letter from eight credible ecomputer scientists and election officials, the court-documented testimony, confessions from Trump lawyers and video footage rather than including the article featuring the other scientist that scares everybody.

this is the credibly sourced open letter to Hatris I read first, from eight computer security experts and election officials coming to the same actionable conclusion without extrapolating any numbers:

https://freespeechforpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/letter-to-vp-harris-111324-1.pdf

[-] realtegan@lemm.ee 76 points 1 week ago

Easy enough to disprove. Do the hand recounts in the supposedly affected states. If those hand recounts aren't done, there's going to be a lot of progressives who spend the next four years looking as lunatic as the "stop the steal" people - with the difference being that there was a really easy way to disprove the lunacy that wasn't used, whereas the "stop the steal" was disproven multiple times and even went to court repeatedly.

So, what I'm saying, just do the damn recount so we can put this thing to rest.

[-] Scubus@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 week ago

Nah, harris already threw in the towel. She will not call for a recount, i guarantee it.

[-] Landless2029@lemmy.world 30 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I'm actually pissed off at the Democratic party about just rolling over.

If Harris won you're damn sure we'd be flooded with "investigations", "evidence", lawsuits and recounts. The news would be flooded with it.

Once Trump won all that shit just disappeared even though the reds have been prepping to fight for months.

Harris had a shit ton of money donated to her campaign. Why not hire a shit ton of lawyers and set them loose??

[-] luciferofastora@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 week ago

Democrat Strategy: Beg, then bend over and spread wide.

(Not that there's anything wrong with that in your private life, but when you're in public office, you kinda have a responsibility to be representatively picky about who you bend over for)

[-] realtegan@lemm.ee 8 points 1 week ago

So instead we're going to have to listen to half-baked conspiracy theories for the next few years in addition to everything else. Gah!

[-] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

i remember the gore voters in 2000 who insisted it had been stolen.

and it was.

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[-] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 week ago

true that. exactly.

do the manual recounts since the software was compromised and tons of computer specialists are worried about that and let's put it to rest.

[-] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago

I don't even think they need to do entire states before deciding whether a widespread recount is needed.

IIRC there are even specific counties with headscratching results in battleground states. Grab a handful of those. If there's fire, it will be found, and then we can mobilize for a wider recount. I'm sure that's still a shitload of work, but prob less than recounting an entire state.

I've been hoping that this is their plan, but I'll admit that (especially given her concession) each passing day I have less faith in this.

The AOC "what happened was massive, you all need to just wait a minute while we figure out what we're doing" (paraphrase) video from a few days ago gave me a little spark of hope, but I suspect even that was not her saying anything other than "we're going to do what we can to mitigate the damage."

[-] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 64 points 1 week ago

Sorry friend, but it's time to let this one go: https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/11/21/stephen-spoonamore-letter-harris/

Remember that we're not like the Republicans - when confronted with claims of election tampering, we check whether the claims actually hold water, and it appears that they don't.

Better spend your effort on figuring out how to get better results next election.

[-] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 week ago

you are either being disingenuous or wildly uninformed.

Iit's okay if you don't like that one scientist. because there are dozens of other computer security experts who have come to the same conclusion, that since Trump's lawyers admitted to hiring people to steal voting software used by 90% of voters in swing states, manual recounts should be implemented.

The Republicans have zero evidence of election interference.

democrats have straight up factual evidence of ballot, interference and electoral fraud.

do you know about how W won the 2004 election?

do you know about the fake elector scheme 4 years ago?

have you ever heard of gerrymandering?

voter poll purging?

Republican ballot interference has happened every election for decades, and it looks like it happened on a wider scale this time.

[-] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 23 points 1 week ago

Iit's okay if you don't like that one scientist. because there are dozens of other computer security experts who have come to the same conclusion, that since Trump's lawyers admitted to hiring people to steal voting software used by 90% of voters in swing states, manual recounts should be implemented.

Feel free to source it with concrete probable claims that have been verified by reputable sources.

I think manual counting should be the norm - all votes are counted manually in my country - but it's unlikely that you will be able to get anyone to actually pull the trigger without concrete evidence of interference.

The Republicans have zero evidence of election interference.

Agreed.

democrats have straight up factual evidence of ballot, interference and electoral fraud.

Post it, then.

do you know about how W won the 2004 election?

I know how the 2000 election got stolen by Bush, but I'm not aware of the same thing happening in 2004. Feel free to fill in details.

do you know about the fake elector scheme 4 years ago?

Yes. It was never put into practice. Trump did try to institute a coup, but failed.

have you ever heard of gerrymandering?

Yes, this is a well-known example of legal election interference. Hand-counts won't help in this case.

voter poll purging?

Same here

Republican ballot interference has happened every election for decades, and it looks like it happened on a wider scale this time.

Instances of legal election interference are not proof of illegal election interference occurring.

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[-] Diva@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 week ago

do you know about how W won the 2004 election?

He got more votes than Kerry, winning the popular vote (unlike his first election)

this was because the Kerry campaign failed to meet the moment, running an "I could run this war better" pro-war campaign.

This isn't (and has never been) a democracy because the power is not with the people, institutions like the supreme court, the electoral college, the Senate, and the allocation of representatives make sure of that.

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[-] WalrusDragonOnABike@lemmy.today 4 points 1 week ago

Do you have a better source than the state election results websites? If the premise of the whole argument was bullet votes, but the actually numbers are <2% instead of the claimed amount, what is the evidence?

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[-] AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world 33 points 1 week ago

Enjoy chasing this down to disassociate with what's going on in the country for the next 4 years. Looks comfy, like really comfy.

I may slip on a pair of [conspiracy theory] myself at some point!

[-] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 43 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

We knew damn well that Trump and co. were preparing to attempt to steal the election if necessary. We knew and have been documenting that Trump and co. were installing and/or trying to install sympathetic election officials everywhere they could in the last 4 years. We know damn well that Trump and co. already tried to cheat in the last election, e.g. trying to get Brad Raffensperger to "find me 11,780 votes" in Georgia in 2020. We know that Trump and co. are fighting hard in court anywhere they can to have mail in ballots thrown out, e.g. in Pennsylvania. We know Trump sycophants have been setting fire to absentee ballot boxes. These are not the actions of a campaign expecting to win legitimately.

Even sitting here as a random largely uneducated chump on the internet, not even rising to the level of armchair expert, I can see that the latest election results need to be investigated and validated and verified as thoroughly as humanly possible, on every level, to find where -- not if -- Trump's cronies cheated. Whether or not they cheated enough to actually affect the ultimate outcome if the election is less clear, but let's not kid ourselves. The chances that this was a completely straight and honest election are, without a doubt, zero.

If Dickhead really did win after all that, then he won. But the process must be totally transparent. There is no other way for it to maintain any semblance of legitimacy.

[-] laurelraven@lemmy.zip 1 points 6 days ago

Just pointing out one detail: it doesn't matter how many people voted for him, his second administration will never be legitimate because him serving another term is a constitutional violation after inciting an insurrection against the US government. The fact that the Republicans obviously aren't going to do anything about that, Democrats don't have the spine to do anything about that, and the judiciary is pretty much stacked with Trump cronies, doesn't change the fact that his administration will be an illegal one from the moment he's sworn in.

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[-] Monument 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I feel like the article was pretty tongue in cheek about the reason for the bullet vote statistical anomaly. They went right from the conspiracy theory that. machines were hacked in swing states to Musk’s fake giveaway that incentivized people to sign up to vote in swing states.

It’s like, gee, do you think they’re trying to suggest maybe there’s a reason that people who would only be interested in one race may have skewed things a little? Add a dash of targeting your marketing (to conservatives), and maybe coordination with a PAC that can phone bank, and well, folks who may not normally vote might vote for just the one big election.
And there’s your statistical anomaly. No computer hacking. Just game theory, targeted advertising, and an endless torrent of texts and calls.

Incidentally, my phone number is one that’s, well, kind of fake sounding. It’s 3 sets of 2 (in the same row!), and one adjacent singlet, like (but not actually) 99-77-88-5. And I get a lot of other people’s calls and messages. I let down a lot of teenage boys back when exchanging numbers was how people DM’d. Anyway, a few of the wayward texts this year were from Trump’s PAC talking about this contest. But I didn’t hear shit about it from any of the democratic PAC’s!

So that’s sort of what I think explains what they’re talking about. Shitty and probably illegal, sure? A conspiracy? Meh.

[-] AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

A spear phishing style marketing tactic that worked, spearheaded by 150 million of revenue from a desperate billionaire.

These people who voted the top of the ticket only were Joe Rogan listeners, and people who were duped by the million dollar giveaways. IMO, this is evidence of success, not evidence of foul play.

But honestly, if people are willing to check, I'm willing to let them. I'm just not gonna cry over this spilled mil... country.

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[-] Freefall@lemmy.world 32 points 1 week ago

It literally hurts no one to do some audits to be sure. No whining or streaming "stolen election"...just audits in key places to make sure it is above board. Any argument against it is maga/CCP(.ml)/ork interference.

[-] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago

exactly.

it's bizarre that manual ballot counts with oversight are not the norm, all they can do is establish what happened.

there's no downside.

[-] adarza@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 week ago

some diaper boasted before the election "we have the votes"

[-] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago

diaper? is that what magaheads are called now?

[-] laurelraven@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 days ago

I'm partial to calling them "fascists" myself, since that's what they're clearly supporting

[-] drdabbles@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

It's funny when you can't tell if a post is satire or serious but deranged.

Either way, Musk doesn't have the skills required to do anything involving stealing or effecting the outcome of an election. Dude can't even sway his own piss poor polls on Twitter.

[-] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago
[-] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Stop saying Trump didn't steal the election.

his lawyers literally had the voting software stolen, as court documents show, and it's a historical and statistical stark improbability that this many people only voted for the president on their ballots, only in the seven swing states, and only with just enough of a margin to avoid a manual recount.

you clearly didn't read the article.

these are facts that computer security experts are putting forth as evidence that the election was manipulated.

[-] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

You clearly didn't watch the video (how could you within 1 minute). It references the guy who wrote the first open letter.

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[-] KneeTitts@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Stop saying Trump stole the 2024 election

Yeah the convicted criminal with a clear history of stealing and cheating in every election hes ever been in.. stop saying that guy is a cheater. Sure thing.

[-] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 week ago

Good thing he's not the sole person in carge of the election, then, huh?

Also: not what I said. 🙄

[-] HawlSera@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago

Elon Musk is indeed guilty as fuck, Starlink was used to delete the votes.

Why were the polls right for Down-Ballot votes, but not the Presidency?

[-] the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago

Starlink was used to delete the votes.

Neat trick, doing that on air gapped machines.

Ok, I'll indulge you. How?

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this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
160 points (81.0% liked)

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