On today’s BradCast, my exclusive interview with Dr. Jill Stein, the 2016 Green Party Presidential candidate, on her announcement earlier today that her campaign plans to file for hand-counted paper ballot “recounts” and forensic audits of the Presidential election results in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. [Audio link to show and full interview posted below.]
“We have to move really fast in order to basically verify the vote and be confident our votes were actually counted,” she tells me, citing the many concerns brought to her by computer scientists and voting systems and election integrity experts, all questioning whether paper ballots were counted accurately by error-prone and easily-hacked computer tabulators in WI and MI, and whether touch-screen systems were manipulated in some fashion in PA.
Across those three states alone, as we have been reporting, just 50,000 votes flipped from Trump to Clinton — out of more than 13 million ballots cast in those states, where a number of anomalous results have been found — could change who becomes the next President of the United States.
There is plenty of reason to question whether the results as reported are accurate. And not only because of the surprising results. As I note again on today’s show, University of Michigan computer science and voting systems expert J. Alex Halderman, one of those urging the candidates to call for a hand-count, has cracked many electronic voting systems in recent years. He offered still more reasons to examine both the reported results and the systems used in WI, MI and PA earlier today.
Stein, explaining that some $2 million must be raised to meet the deadline to file in WI by Friday (and another $4 million or so for the other two states next week), tells me that it’s an “outrage we have to go to extraordinary lengths to verify the vote,” adding she is doing so, due to her “interests as a citizen, as a person in America, that the vote be valid.” (The campaign has set up a fund raising page for the effort right here.)
“Why would anyone in their right mind not want to have a secured and verified vote?,” she asks. “It’s long been demonstrated that our system of voting, relying on these machines, has virtually no security. They’re hack-friendly [and] tamper-friendly.”
“People have felt such anguish during this election,” Stein notes. “This is a joint effort, and there are many election advocates who are involved. A lot of the grassroots election integrity experts. If ever there was a time to stand up and demand an accountable and secure vote, this is the time to do it. If we don’t do it now, when exactly, what would be the cause to do it?” She also details the attempt by the scientists and advocates to encourage the Clinton campaign to take up the effort as well. (I can confirm that effort happened and that the campaign was still considering doing so as of earlier today.) She says she welcomes other campaigns, such as the Libertarian Party and independent candidates with standing, to join the effort as well.
“It feels really good to be standing up right now,” she tells me. “It’s time for us to take control of our democracy to start with. To give ourselves a gift on this Thanksgiving.” We discuss all of that and the many concerns about the reported results, take a few calls afterward, and actually find a bit more to be thankful for on today’s harrowing program — including, believe it or not, today’s Green News Report with Desi Doyen!…
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[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_JillStein_RecountExclusive_112316.mp3]
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I put in a good word for you on our little blog, Brad.
Thank you.
Eagerly waiting for the anticipointment. 🙂
The GOP governor of North Carolina, who trails his challenger wants a recount. Why not do a bipartisan audit in North Carolina and check the presidential vote count at the same time?
Hoping Jill Stein could add North Carolina and perhaps Florida to her list of states, if there is enough money.
Forgive me Brad. I was going to donate my usual amount, but something’s come up. 🙂
At this rate, Jill should be able to kick in for you after this has settled down.
If JS is successful in getting audit in those states, will all the votes for all the candidates get to be re-counted or just the votes for President? Would think with those $$ filing fees should buy re-count on all votes of all candidates.
Thanks!
RB
Anybody have any clue where Bernie Sanders stands on all this? Nice to have some support from the darling grump. Looks like we got funding for Wisconsin and are about halfway to Michigan so far.
Wonder why Hillary is not taking a more active role in this…. Could she have made some sort of deal?
For those interested in anticipated difficulties that Stein will face after she files for a hand count of the paper ballots in Wisconsin — especially with respect to chain of custody — I would recommend reading our Special Coverage of the 2011 hand count with respect to the questionable re-election of WI Supreme Court Justice David Prosser.
Every time they steal an election, they make it easier to steal the next one. This one may be the last one we have the chance to take back.
If the American people don’t understand that, it’s already too late.
I’m so excited this finally may be happening. Two days of fundraising. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania recount/forensic audits funded. Next up Michigan. Guardedly euphoric.
Why don’t we have a national election system that is open source, reliable, tested, secure, and verifiable? The technology to use encrypted keys is available, and would not only allow for fast, hard-to-hack recounts, but could give each voter a way of verifying that their vote was counted the way they submitted it through an only private key verification form. Why don’t we do this? We have the capability and the wisdom and the need… Thanks Jill Stein and donors for supporting this recount effort, however it turns out. I feel better just knowing people cared enough to search for the truth.
BH writes:
There’s a very simple, inexpensive means for achieving a verifiable count. It doesn’t require encryption. It’s called Democracy’s Gold Standard: hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots that are publicly tallied at every precinct on election night.
It is a system that is legally mandated by the German constitution because all e-voting technologies — including op-scan central tabulators which can be hacked by using a few lines of computer code — lack transparency. It is a system that has also been deployed by a number of New Hampshire towns who complete their transparent hand-counts more efficiently than many of their machine counting counterparts.
Computers with or without encryption are the problem not the solution. Thus we find the apt warning CIA cybersecurity expert Steven Stigall provided to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in 2009:
I had an unsatisfying email back and forth with Josh Marshall 8 years ago after the NH primary so unexpectedly went for Clinton. He heard not a word that I said about possible problems with the machines.
So I thought it was very good news this week when I saw the recount/forensic audit efforts mentioned at TPM. Reading comments after the article was a bit unsettling because so many of us are still so woefully ignorant on this subject. On the other hand there were commenters who obviously had done their homework. All in all pretty encouraging.
Today I see another little article(the first one was not by him) by Josh about the recount efforts and, sadly, it seems that he, at least, still has not bothered to inform himself on this subject. He basically asserts with no evidence that the announced results are correct. And he says that Stein raising the funding requests twice is very fishy. Sigh…..If he’d bothered to do an ounce of homework, he’d know what we know–that there were always increasing funding goals cuz there were always three recounts with three filing dates we’re pursuing.
You can do better than this Josh Marshall. I’m so goddamn tired of hearing that there has been no proof demonstrated that an election was hacked. It’s such a stupid thing to say. Whether there might be proof to be found or not, the only way to know for sure is to look. Duh. There’s so much resistance to our little but vital movement. I’m so very pleased that we’ve grown enough to be actually getting to do a little real investigating. I so hope it happens.
Larry Bergan said @1 and @3:
Thank you, Larry! For all!
Gotta admit I LOL’d at that one! 🙂 So thanks for that too. Needed a smile this weekend!
Daniel asked @2:
While I support the abhorrent McCrory’s call for a “recount” (as noted over a week ago here), a coupla responses to the above. 1) Unless he gets a court order for a hand count, it looks like North Carolina simply runs the same ballots (where they exist) through the same faulty op-scan systems again, according to their “recount” laws. 2) Such counts, whether by hand or machine, generally focus only on a single race. So, as much as I’d be delighted to see a real, public count of the Presidential race in NC as well, it won’t happen as part of McCrory’s process, to my understanding. It would need to be an entirely separate process…if Stein was interested and/or could afford to do it. 3) While I support McCrory’s call for a “recount”, he sure is peddling a lot of BS concerning “voter fraud” that is, happily, largely being dismissed by the GOP-majority County Boards of Election in the process.
RB asked @4:
Just the votes for President (unfortunately). See my response to Daniel above on a similar-ish note.
Jon Zweig asked @ 6:
With who? And for what??
BH asked @10:
For one reason, the Constitution leaves the means and manner of elections to each state. So, that removes the idea of a “national election system” in that sense. As to the other things you cite, “open source” means its still a computer system with the counting not overseen by humans. Moreover, even if the computer source code is checked on Monday, there is no guarantee that same source code has been used on Tuesday (Election Day). What makes it “secure”? And what good is “verifiable” if it isn’t actually veriFIED? The only way to do that is to hand-count count the hand-marked paper ballots. Begging the question of why we want computers — “open source” or otherwise — to do in the first place.
First, that same technology you described also gives the voters a way to sell their votes. So, no good. Secondly, no citizen should have to “trust” in computer scientists and their encryption anymore than we should have to simply “trust” in privately or publicly own computers that tallly votes without human oversight.
Hope the above offers at least some of the many answers to that question.
Me too. Moderately.
Brad, Got any info or sense of what the timeline for the audits might look like? When we might hope to learn anything?
….and now that the fundraising seems to have slowed down and we’re much closer to the $6 million than the $7 million that we were told it’s likely to cost between, where does the chance for Michigan stand?
They shut Stein out of the entire process and now she’s waving a banner for our democracy? I smell a payoff.
… Eric f said…
A payoff? From whom? And why? Is it that you yourself believe that people won’t support “our democracy” without a payoff?
The Green Party, for all it’s flaws, has a verifiable track record of supporting election integrity efforts.
After all, such efforts are in the best interests of any democracy.
Why would anyone be against counting all the votes?
Because it’s too hard (whine)
Because we don’t seem to care if we got it right or not. It’s just politics.
BTW
If nothing comes of these recount attempts, it will be even harder to get a recount next time. See Wisconsin’s ever growing obstacle course for getting a recount.