Election Hack

Recently, there have been rumors of a possible hack by the Russians of the American Elections. Could some foreign entity hack into the elections results and change them? That's an interesting question that's not easy to answer.

First thing we must consider is how the United States elects a president. The fact is that the voters do not elect the president and vice president. Apparently, the creators of the Constitution didn't believe that the people who were able to vote back then were capable of making a rational choice. They were afraid that it would lead to demagogue. They were probably right, and this election system has remained in force since then.

How the Electoral College system works is that each state is assigned representative to this college equal to the number of congressional seats they have. When people vote for a president and vice president, they are actually electing the representatives that will cast the final vote. A majority vote for election is 270 electoral votes. Most states have a 'winner take all' system in which the popular vote winner gets all of the electoral votes for that state. Maine and Nebraska use a more complicated system that involves electing electors to the college based on a district by district popular vote.

The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution requires one vote for president and one for vice president from each elector to the college. If no candidate receives the 270 votes necessary for election then the House of Representatives decides the election with each state having one vote. If the vice president doesn't get enough votes, then the Senate does the job with each senator having one vote. This is all spelled out in the Constitution.

The problem here is that no one knows who these electors are and what they would actually do. And, the wild part is that no electoral representative is required to vote for the candidate they are pledged to represent. There have only been a few occasions where this unwritten rule was not honored. This happened back in 1836 when the entire Virginia caucus voted against the vice president candidate they were pledged to. This is the only time it changed the election results. Actually, this change in pledge happened 22 times, but these were individual cases, not an entire state as in the 1836 election.

Is it possible for hackers to fix the election? The answer is yes, but it won't be easy. It would require hacking into the election systems of several states. Basically, this would be a cyberattack of unprecedented savagery. The reason why this is possible is because of electronic election systems. Everything is digital now. Most states don't use paper ballots anymore. Many have converted over to machines that look like computers stations. If they do use paper ballots, the ballots are read with machines that transfer the data to a computer. Now, there are too many of these machines to be individually hacked. However, the cartridges that contain the voting results have to be read into a computer system and that could be hacked. Actually, there are literally thousands of different systems in use. Some of the machines used could have malware installed on them.

The main problem for hackers is that there are a multitude of computer systems with varying degrees of security in place. There is also the problem with absentee ballots. That's another possible vulnerability. This would require a concerted effort by a foreign government, not some lone-wolf hackers.

All I can say is that anything is possible, and it's up to the government to make sure that the election is not compromised. Good luck there!

Thanks for reading.