A group of computer scientists and election lawyers are working to convince Hillary Clinton’s campaign that she should challenge the results of the Nov. 8 election, based on their analysis of voting machine tabulations in three swing states.
In a conference call last week with Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta, the group said it found evidence to suggest that electronic voting machines in some counties in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania may have been manipulated or hacked. Included in the group were voting-rights attorney John Bonifaz and J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society.
A source who was briefed on the call told New York Magazine, that the academics said that in Wisconsin in particular, counties that used electronic voting machines showed that Clinton received 7 percent fewer votes compared to those that used optical scanners and paper ballots, perhaps because the machines were tampered with.
The academics had no proof the machines were hacked. Still, they are suggesting that a potential problem may have cost Clinton up to 30,000 votes, which would more than make up the 27,000 votes she lost the state by, and pressed the Clinton campaign to ask for a recount in these states.
The inconsistencies between counties that used electronic ballots or paper ballots have caught the eye of some journalists, in Wisconsin in particular.
Earlier in the month, the Oregonian’s David Greenwald called attention to the voting numbers in Wisconsin. “Curious stats between paper ballot and voting machine counties need another look,” he said.
Michael McDonald, a political science teacher at the University of Florida who runs the United States Elections Project, raised concerns Tuesday about errors in an unofficial ballot summary report. He said he hoped the mistakes would be fixed during the certification process, but the errors did not “garner public confidence.”
Others have disputed the notion of rigged results in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, including data analyst Nate Silver, founder of FiveThirtyEight. In what he described as a quick analysis of voting results, Silver dismissed the disparities between electronic and paper ballots in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Michigan, he added, has paper ballots everywhere so he could not determine what claim was being made there. The New York Times’ Nate Cohn suggested that in two other states that use paper ballots, Iowa and Minnesota, “the results look exactly like those in Wisconsin.”
Michigan (with its 16 electoral votes) is still too close to call, but if Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were overturned Clinton could still run away with an Electoral College victory. She currently trails Trump’s 290 electoral votes with 232 of her own. But overturn 20 in Pennsylvania and 10 in Wisconsin, throw in the 16 from Michigan, and Clinton would be looking at a 278-260 electoral vote advantage.
But time is short for Clinton to actually request a recount in these states. The deadline in Wisconsin is Friday, while the cutoffs in the other two states are next week.
The threat of hacking attacks loomed large over this year’s election. Federal officials accused Russia of directing attacks to influence the election, specifically the hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee which were then disseminated by websites like WikiLeaks.
Though Clinton conceded the election to Trump in a phone call the night after the election, there have been large demonstrations across the country protesting the billionaire businessman’s victory. Millions of people have also signed petitions to get rid of the Electoral College since Clinton won the popular vote by 1.7 million, according to the latest count.
