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You are here: Home / Politics / domestic terrorists / Voting Systems Hacked?

Voting Systems Hacked?

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The answer to the question is that we just don’t know. And Congress cares not at all.

Or perhaps I should focus that to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan care not at all. Or Republicans care not at all.

The New York Times has an article about suspicious problems with voter roll books, particularly in North Carolina. It points out that it’s not clear that the problems arose from hacking, but one of the software companies involved is known to have been hacked.

This is why the screwing-around by the Republican leaders and the idiot Freedom Caucus is so evil. Not only are they threatening damage to their voters and all American citizens, but they are not dealing with things that need attention. I could provide a long list of those – fixing the problems with immigration laws, bringing police forces back to the rule of law, improving the ACA, limiting monopolies, you get the idea.

John McCain makes the point more politely to his colleagues. You can call your members of Congress.

Reader Interactions

152Comments

  1. 1.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    Senator McCain’s article looked promising until this: “We all know spending levels for defense and other urgent priorities have been woefully inadequate for years.” No Senator, spending levels for defense are woefully inadequate when compared to domestic spending.

  2. 2.

    d58826

    Was just about to link to this. But Congress DOES have concerns about Hillary’s e-mails and when James Comey may or may not have drafted a memo. We little people just do not understand the priorities.

  4. 4.

    The Moar You Know

    The only state that can say with any reasonable assurance at all that their election systems are secure is California. Thanks to former Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who forced anyone who wanted to sell them to CA to submit to an independent audit. A lot of manufacturers chose not to participate, which should tell you something right there.

    She deserves a medal for this. And yes, Republicans don’t give a shit about this, but neither do Dems. We have quite a few blue states out there who have ZERO excuse for not doing what CA did, and they won’t do it. Not “can’t” – won’t. No excuse, that’s gotta change immediately.

  6. 6.

    Cheryl Rofer

    It’s easy to pick out parts of McCain’s op-ed that you may not agree with, but he’s closer to what Congress should be doing than the leadership. We need to amplify the good parts.

    Also, if you’ve trained animals or children, you know that positive reinforcement works.

  7. 7.

    d58826

    @Cheryl from Maryland:

    woefully inadequate for years.

    I am old enough to remember the muckrakers Drew Person and Jack Anderson. They made a career out of ripping Pentagon fraud and waste. Even then the estimates were that 25% of the DOD budget was wasted. It hasn’t changed much since then. If there is a difference today it is that the weapons systems are even more overbudget/behind schedule and fail to live up to spec. See F22/F35 and USS Ford among many others. Can you imagine what the DOD could buy if they could reclaim even half that 25%? Or the number of school lunches. The kids could have crab imperial and filet mignon every day

  8. 8.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    Sorry, I meant not. My proof-reading skills are shot. Also, system wouldn’t let me edit.
    Senator McCain’s article looked promising until this: “We all know spending levels for defense and other urgent priorities have been woefully inadequate for years.” No Senator, spending levels for defense are NOT woefully inadequate when compared to domestic spending.

  9. 9.

    rikyrah

    The answer to the question is that we just don’t know. And Congress cares not at all.

    Or perhaps I should focus that to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan care not at all. Or Republicans care not at all.

    Uh huh
    Uh huh

  10. 10.

    Amir Khalid

    To the extent that it is the Republican party that benefits from any such hacking, the party’s Congressional leaders might be less than fully motivated, let’s put it that way, to get to the bottom of the matter, or to do whatever is needed.

  11. 11.

    Brachiator

    These dopes don’t seem to understand that a system that can be hacked to hurt Democrats can also be hacked to hurt Republicans.

  13. 13.

    Oatler.

    “The thing I like about Republicans is that they’re no damn good at all. I know, I’m one of them. A Republican just wants to get rich, buy oceanfront property, dump the old wife and get a new blond one who’ll listen attentively while the Republican talks about unfunded mandates over the arugula salad.”
    PJ O’Rourke

  16. 16.

    germy

    Kenya’s Supreme Court annuls presidential election result for irregularities, orders new vote

    NAIROBI — In a decision hailed as the first of its kind for Africa, Kenya’s Supreme Court on Friday annulled the president’s Aug. 8 reelection victory, citing irregularities, and ordered a new vote within 60 days.

    The reversal of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s win stunned East Africa’s economic powerhouse, a country that is a key U.S. ally and pillar of stability in the fragile region. It also showcased an independent judiciary willing to stand up to a powerful executive branch.

    The 4-2 court ruling came in response to a petition filed by challenger Raila Odinga, 72, who alleged widespread fraud in the election, including the hacking of the electoral commission’s computer system.

  17. 17.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @d58826:

    Can you imagine what the DOD could buy if they could reclaim even half that 25%? Or the number of school lunches. The kids could have crab imperial and filet mignon every day.

    The modern GOP would use that money to either fund school vouchers (one way of looting), or provide more tax cuts to the rich (another way of looting). No way that money would go to kids…especially brown ones.

  18. 18.

    cmorenc

    The Republicans will start caring about the vulnerability of voting mechanisms the next time they lose a close key election, especially if the jurisdictions suspected of being hacked are lost by close margins. Their focus on alleged voter fraud will cease the first time the targeted minorities provide a significant portion of their margin of victory in a close key election.

    They are only interested in taking measures to facilitate GOP-leaning voters, and handicap DEM-leaning voters.

  19. 19.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    It’s easy to pick out parts of McCain’s op-ed that you may not agree with, but he’s closer to what Congress should be doing than the leadership. We need to amplify the good parts.

    Plus, lots of voters/constituents respect the man, so when he says something that we agree with on the broad strokes, it matters.

  20. 20.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @schrodingers_cat: The last week has been kind of weird, so I haven’t been consistent about putting the vests on them. I’m also contemplating taking them outside when I put the vests on so that they can see the benefits.

    @germy: I saw another report that Cambridge Analytica was part of the Kenya campaign. Not saying there’s a connection, but it’s good to look for commonalities. That’s something a Congressional investigation might do.

  21. 21.

    satby

    @Amir Khalid: and a lot of Americans don’t seem to care too much either. Some because even if their team wins ugly, it’s still a win. Others, because it just seems so far-fetched, though if beter evidence comes our about it they may start caring a lot.

  23. 23.

    MomSense

    @rikyrah:

    The 2016 election was not free and fair. We were attacked by a hostile foreign power who interfered with our election.

    The trump administration is illegitimate. I want them all out and Gorsuch, too.

    We shouldn’t have our democracy stolen from us.

  24. 24.

    Adam L Silverman

    The issue is not changing vote totals, though that should be a concern. The issue is, as I’ve been writing here since Jun 2016, that hacking into these systems in 39 states allowed the Russians to do any of the following:
    1) Scarf up all that personally identifying information to both better micro target social media active measures, as well as just for criminal misuse (identity theft and fraud).
    2) Manipulate the voter registration and rolls. Specifically change people’s registration, delete registrations, change some of the personally identifying information that could effect a person’s ability to vote, etc. By doing so it increases disenfranchisement on voting day.
    3) A combination of 1 and 2, which is I think what likely happened. However we won’t know until someone actually does a legitimate investigation.

    Until then @joel hanes: is absolutely correct. All voting needs to be done on hand marked ballots. Those hand marked ballots, whether cast absentee/mail in or cast in person need to be hand counted. Until such time as we can implement and deploy a secure electronic solution low tech is the most secure way to conduct an election.

  25. 25.

    Kay

    that the trial court found Texas engaged in intentional racial discrimination in passing its voter id law and substitute,

    There have been a few of these lately. Not quite a “string” yet but just let that sink in- intentional discrimination against their own citizens. These lawmakers, people who are elected, carefully crafted laws to stop people who don’t vote for them from voting. It’s incredible when you look at it like that, self-protection for politicians. Voters come dead last in these schemes- they aren’t even considered. It’s “what’s best for Texas Republican incumbents?” then they write the law.

  26. 26.

    germy

    from the Washington Post:

    But Trump sometimes defies — and even resents — the new structure. He has been especially sensitive to the way Kelly’s rigid structure is portrayed in the media and strives to disabuse people of the notion that he is being managed. The president continues to call business friends and outside advisers, including former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, from his personal phone when Kelly is not around, said people with knowledge of the calls.

  29. 29.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Rethuglicans do not seem to care, but they do. They benefit from this, and want to ignore the problem.

  30. 30.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @germy: He is not being “managed”. He’s being “baby-sat”. As a Marine officer, Kelly has plenty of experience baby-sitting alleged adults. When I was in the Army officers often spoke of “adult supervision” of soldiers.

  32. 32.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Until such time as we can implement and deploy a secure electronic solution low tech is the most secure way to conduct an election.

    But but but that will cost money and cause the deficit to rise and the only good reason for that is tax cuts for the rich

  33. 33.

    Kay

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    The legal remedies are stronger with a finding of “intentional” but I can’t help but think the political ramifications of “intentional” are untapped and could be exploited. It’s outrageous behavior.

    Incumbents shouldn’t be stopping people who want to throw them out from throwing them out. That’s a problem. They’re abusing their power and they’re doing it because it benefits them personally.

  34. 34.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @d58826: Heck, they might be able to raise the pay of their most important asset: the enlisted soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine.

  37. 37.

    Kay

    @germy:

    I laughed out loud when I saw Trump and political media were back on the emails today. Forever. They will litigate the server forever. You can’t even get mad anymore- they’re ridiculous.

  41. 41.

    clay

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    It’s easy to pick out parts of McCain’s op-ed that you may not agree with, but he’s closer to what Congress should be doing than the leadership. We need to amplify the good parts.

    I’ve said this before, but we need every ally we can get, on any issue, for any reason, for any length of time.

    John McCain’s been a useless a-hole before? Okay, fine. He can still do good on this issue.

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Villago Delenda Est: Actually the military is getting a 2.9% pay raise this year. Civil servants were supposed to get a 1.9% increase, but the President informed Congress, through a memo to the Speaker of the House, that given that the US is facing both a national emergency and the negative economic climate that he has cancelled, via his authority as president, the raise for civil servants as America cannot afford to give it to them because of the national emergency and negative economic climate we are facing.

    No one is quite sure what the hell the President is talking about in referencing both a national emergency and a negative economic climate.

  45. 45.

    Jeffro

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And this

    2) Manipulate the voter registration and rolls. Specifically change people’s registration, delete registrations, change some of the personally identifying information that could effect a person’s ability to vote, etc. By doing so it increases disenfranchisement on voting day.

    didn’t even have to happen on a large scale to affect the outcome. Do it to just 5% of Democrats, especially in close states, and you’re in. Heck, do it to just 10% of the occasionally-voting Dems and you’re in. Add it to the social media targeting done to both sides and there you go.

    I’m still convinced that some of the hacking was late-in-the-day GOP votes added in (from occasional GOP voters who had, to that point, not voted). But the points above are more likely and produce the same effect.

  46. 46.

    Jeffro

    @Adam L Silverman:

    No one is quite sure what the hell the President is talking about in referencing both a national emergency and a negative economic climate.

    Stuff Obama did, duh.

  49. 49.

    The Moar You Know

    Heck, they might be able to raise the pay of their most important asset: the enlisted soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine.

    @Villago Delenda Est: Every one would be better off, financially and career-wise, working behind the counter at a Starbucks. They get taught in basic how to apply for food stamps, now. That shit’s gotta change. It’s a fucking outrage.

  52. 52.

    Brachiator

    @schrodingers_cat:

    .We are a banana republic with rigged elections and generals in charge. Winning.

    Kenya’s supreme court recently nullified a contentious presidential election and ordered a new vote to be held within 60 days.

    Funny how countries conservatives look down upon are doing better than the US with respect to justice and fair elections.

  55. 55.

    d58826

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Manipulate the voter registration and rolls

    Given the narrow margins in PA/WI/MI, I have suspected this all along. You can shave a few votes her and there across a state but never in a large enough amount in any one make it obvious. Shave 20-30k votes in the right places from Philly and Pittsburgh and the state goes red. The D’s always depend on big turnouts in those cities to offset the red middle of the state. Now it’s true that the voters could file a provisional ballot but they would have to go to the board of elections the following week to confirm it. For the elderly, folks w/o transportation or folks who can’t take the day off then is a nonstarter. The result is the provisional ballot is thrown away.

    This kind of hack might be beyond what the run-of-mill hacker can pull off but Putin has the time/talent/resources available to him to try it. And if the hack didn’t flip the election, well lessons learned and better luck next election.

  57. 57.

    Adam L Silverman

    Why are the Exxon Mobil repair people wearing faux military and/or police uniforms in Beaumont, Texas?

  58. 58.

    germy

    One way to clear this up once and for all:

    According to The Hill, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), who recently met up with Assange in London where he is holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy, is leading a push for Trump to pardon the Wikileaks founder — much to the dismay of intelligence officials.

    No charges have been filed against Assange over the theft of thousands of U.S. intelligence documents, however it is believed that the Justice Department is considering them.

    What makes talk of a pardon more troubling is Rohrabacher’s assertion that the Wikileaks founder would provide “firsthand” evidence he showed the lawmaker during the meeting that he claims proves there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia before the 2016 election

  61. 61.

    rikyrah

    Donna NoShock @NoShock

    Everyday this horrible person in the WH proves that elections have consequences. Don’t let anyone tell you that your vote doesn’t matter.
    3:47 PM – Aug 31, 2017

  62. 62.

    Kay

    I think the court cases Republicans are losing really matter apart from the individual remedies, because with every finding of intentional discrimination they lose credibility on WHY they’re passing these laws. The decisions will have a cumulative effect larger than the total of the individual loss, which is as it should be. If these laws are found to be intentionally discriminatory in Texas and then North Carolina, it makes it harder to argue the same laws are not discriminatory in Pennsylvania or Kansas. They went too far. If they had stopped with ID where there are numerous ways to satisfy the requirement they would have been fine, but they pushed it so far it became impossible to believe it was about “ballot security”

    They got greedy.

  63. 63.

    Adam L Silverman

    @d58826: Combine that with targeted social media to depress turnout for one candidate, which we know the Cambridge Analytica folks/Trump campaign folks did and you’ve moved the margins just enough.

  64. 64.

    Timurid

    @Adam L Silverman:

    So Trump will try to make Harvey into his Reichstag fire, justifying all sorts of monkey business with the need for unity in a “national crisis?”
    The fucking balls on that guy.

  66. 66.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    “Negative economic climate”?! But the president regularly talks and tweets about how many jobs are being created, how many factories are moving here, how the stock market is at an all-time high, how great he’s doing at making America great again!

  67. 67.

    Kay

    @germy:

    It’s so gross that Assange is confident he can offer Trump a quid pro quo for a pardon. They’re so corrupt they don’t even think they have to hide it anymore. ” I will offer you the FOLLOWING for my pardon!”

    It’s a complete and utter ethical collapse.

  68. 68.

    germy

    “As a minority and member of the Jewish faith, I sincerely apologize for my disrespectful and offensive comments. These comments are inexcusable and I do not stand by them. Now, as a public servant, I hold myself to a higher standard, and I will work every day to better the lives of all Americans.”

    William C. Bradford’s resignation.

    ‘How else can a Kenyan creampuff get ahead?’ is just one of the disturbing tweets sent by this Trump Energy Department agency head

  69. 69.

    d58826

    @Adam L Silverman: yep. They get more people for as Michigan state or Penn state football game than the combined margins in the three states. What was it something like 80k votes. And from Putin’s perspective if you are going to meddle in the election then GO BIG and try an flip the outcome. And we have seen he is paying no price for what he did. In fact it looks like he has co-opted the entire GOP (or at least the leadership) in the process.

  70. 70.

    Waratah

    @Adam L Silverman: The small town I lived in had the paper ballots organised. The volunteers knew the voters even people new to the area, at the voting stations they had up to date lists of eligible voters and did not take long to verify if you forgot your voter registration card. They and the volunteers that counted were proud and honored to do this. The first time they used computer voting it was a mess. The system was not simple and the day I was there it was slow because they had to help all the people that did not have computer knowledge. I know that paper ballots in larger cities would not run as easy but if they have enough volunteers I think it could be done.

  71. 71.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Timurid: Doubtful. No one is quite sure what he’s referring to. But we need to be honest, he clearly does not have the ability to call out a large, violent mob. Even the white nationalists, after weeks of organizing and promotion and publicity only got a few hundred knuckleheads to show up in Charlottesville. And in the wake of the response to Charlottesville not even that in the few follow on attempts.

  74. 74.

    Kay

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    I think it is slowing down and I genuinely worry about how completely insane Trump will get when that happens. They will have to hire more liars- whole departments. This President is not mentally stable enough to handle an economic downturn. He’ll have a raging temper tantrum and they’ll all have to deny it’s happening.

  75. 75.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Waratah: We have managed to do it several times in Iraq and Afghanistan under non permissive (translated from military speak: combat) conditions. We can do it in the US.

  76. 76.

    Bill Arnold

    I am thinking seriously about how one would deploy large numbers of invisible (stealthy) packet sniffers (can be done pretty cheaply) deployed randomly in the (highly decentralized due to America distributing election responsibilities) election infrastructure, to increase the odds of getting caught from close to zero to something well above zero. (The idea being that this would discourage attempts, particularly by nation-state actors.) Does anyone know of any such efforts?
    There’s the risk that people might inject traffic that looks like hacking, e.g. to provide grounds for casting doubt on election results, or as chaff to hide other hacking attempts.
    Thoughts?
    ( e.g. old 2008 article askapache.com/hacking/sniffing-ethernet-undetected/ )

  77. 77.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kay: Harvey’s impact is going to cause a major disruption. It will take a bit to work through the system, but once it does it will be a big, negative impact. If Irma doesn’t turn into a fish killer storm churning around in the Atlantic till it fades, then its impact added to Harvey will make a real mess of the economy. Combined that with the reality we don’t have an appropriations bill passed, don’t have a debt ceiling waiver passed, don’t have a sequester waiver passed, and there is no indication we’re going to get anything but a 3 month continuing resolution then the impact from Harvey combined with the impact of the GOP majority Congress being incapable of doing anything, and a potential follow on impact from Irma and we’re looking at real damage. And real pain.

    Given all the petrochemical and chemical contamination in Houston, combined with the other damage in the greater Houston area and beyond into Beaumont and Port Aransas and other effected areas in coastal Texas I think it is entirely likely that Houston as a major city is done. It will take too long and const too much to get it back up and running. The petroleum and chemical companies will relocate because they will have no choice but to find a place where infrastructure is working not in the process of being condemned. The negative economic impacts of this will be with us for a very, very long time.

  78. 78.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Kay:

    I think the “coasting on Obama’s momentum” is definitely slowing down. Saw some item last night that last month’s job creation numbers were lower than expected. Trump won’t like that, especially after taking credit for the previous numbers.

  79. 79.

    frosty

    @d58826: But Philly and Pittsburgh turned out better numbers for HRC than for Obama, IIRC. My understanding is that PA was lost because of higher turnout of rural occasional or first-time R voters. MI was screwed because Detroit didn’t get enough voting machines, and WI because of voter ID.

    Please correct me if this is wrong.

  81. 81.

    Betty

    @germy: This shows the “value” of election monitors. John Kerry assured the world that this was a free and fair election. What does John have to say today?

  82. 82.

    Jeffro

    @Waratah: We have large ‘Scan-tron’ type machines here in NoVA…you fill in the bubbles with your #2 pencil, you go over to the machine and in it goes, with the vote electronically recorded and the paper ballot in a secure bin at the bottom of the machine. Works.

  85. 85.

    sdhays

    @Adam L Silverman: The national emergency is that Trump is President and the negative economic environment is the coming Trump economy due to start next year after we work the Obama economy out of our system and start to deal with the fallout of the multiple disasters (Houston being one) that the aforementioned national emergency is unable to cope with.

  86. 86.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Kay: A pardon from Donald does nothing to deter the Swedes from tossing Assange into prison (with no internet access) for life.

  87. 87.

    DCrefugee

    John McCain makes the point more politely to his colleagues.

    Paraphrasing Cole’s description of the problem when considering compromise with the R team:

    When ordering a pizza, how can you compromise with someone when you want sausage and pepperoni and they want tire rims and anthrax?

    ETA: Fck John McCain and the horse he rode in on.

  88. 88.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Jeffro: Same system as Oregon’s except the ballot is mailed to you and you return it at your leisure. “GOTV” in Oregon is reminding people to search that pile on the dining room table and open and fill out the ballot, then mail it in.

  89. 89.

    Betty

    @Adam L Silverman: Not to get too far ahead of things, but there is already another storm getting started off the African coast. This could be like 1995 when there were multiple storms, one right after the other. This could get very bad.

  92. 92.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Waratah: All voting tabulation in the UK is done by hand at the local level. They get results just as fast as we do with computers.

  93. 93.

    TenguPhule

    Putting Assholes in Charge has Consequences

    In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, more than 150 countries offered volunteers, supplies and cash to the United States.

    Impoverished Bangladesh, suffering a not-so-slow-motion climate catastrophe, promised $1 million and rescuers. Thailand offered 60 doctors and rice as a “gesture from the heart.” Germany sent high-speed pumps; the Dutch offered levee reconstruction experts. “Very large cash” donations came from Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Canada sent navy ships, helicopters and about 1,000 helpers.

    Mexico’s convoy of soldiers, all-terrain rescue vehicles and drinking water was followed by food, medical workers, water-treatment facilities and a kitchen that could feed 7,000 people daily.

    After Harvey?

    Not crickets exactly, but close. Few countries have publicly offered aid.

    Fuck the Freedom Caucus with a Rusty Chainsaw

    The leader of an influential group of House conservatives warned GOP leaders Thursday not to attach aid for victims of Hurricane Harvey to an increase in the federal debt limit, a stance that could constrain Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) as he tries to win support over the coming weeks for several controversial must-pass measures.

  94. 94.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Villago Delenda Est: They’ve already dropped their charges. There is nothing preventing him from leaving the Ecuadorian embassy except for the British arrest warrants for him, which are still extant despite Sweden dropping their charges.

  95. 95.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Betty: Yep. And, unfortunately, Atlantic and Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico water temperatures are running in the mid 80s Fahrenheit, which is the perfect breeding ground for what are being called super storms for lack of a better term.

  97. 97.

    d58826

    @Adam L Silverman: Oh yea of little faith. What with the magic of the unregulated market place and a bit of dynamic scoring the entire problem will be solved hugely. As a icing on the cake everyone one in Houston will get a new flying car so they don’t have to fix those pesky old freeways with all of the pot holes. :-) :-) ;-)

  99. 99.

    Adam L Silverman

    @d58826: Unlikely:
    bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-01/world-s-most-important-chemical-made-rare-commodity-by-harvey

    Few Americans care about ethylene. Many have probably never heard of it.

    As it turns out, this colorless, flammable gas is arguably the most important petrochemical on the planet — and much of it comes from the hurricane-stricken Gulf Coast. Ethylene is one of the big reasons the damage wrought by Hurricane Harvey in the chemical communities along the Gulf of Mexico is likely to ripple through U.S. manufacturing of essential items from milk jugs to mattresses.

    “Ethylene really is the major petrochemical that impacts the entire industry,” said Chirag Kothari, an analyst at consultant Nexant.

    Texas alone produces nearly three-quarters of the country’s supply of one of the most basic chemical building blocks. Ethylene is the foundation for making plastics essential to U.S. consumer and industrial goods, feeding into car parts used by Detroit and diapers sold by Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

    With Harvey’s floods shutting down almost all the state’s plants, 61 percent of U.S. ethylene capacity has been closed, according to PetroChemWire. Production may not return to pre-storm levels until November, according to Jefferies.

    Much more at the link.

  100. 100.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jeffro:

    Southern California is also primarily Scantron (Inkavote). They also have a few electronic machines at each polling place for people who need or prefer them — the Scantron can be difficult to operate for some disabled people, especially motion and vision impaired people.

  101. 101.

    d58826

    In addition to Irma and the tropical wave coming off of Africa, the WAPO is reporting

    There were early indications that yet another tropical storm may form in the western Gulf of Mexico next week. On Friday, the National Hurricane Center described it as a tropical wave that had the potential to strengthen as it drew moisture from the Gulf. “If this system does develop, it could bring additional rainfall to portions of the Texas and Louisiana coasts,” the National Hurricane Center said.

    Maybe God isn’t so happy with Der Fuhrer after all.

  102. 102.

    Mnemosyne

    @TenguPhule:

    I would say that part of the reason for Katrina assistance was that W and Rice knew who to call internationally to ask for help. For better and for worse, they had those contacts.

    The only people Tillerson knows are other oil guys.

  103. 103.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    They got greedy.

    Republicans? Greedy? Noooooo, that can’t be it can it?
    What I like is that haven gotten that greedy, their entire chain of discriminatory laws then becomes suspect, in a way that it wouldn’t have if they hadn’t been so obviously greedy. And chickenshit.

  105. 105.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    We also do paper ballots in CA. It isn’t hard nor difficult, and doesn’t even appear to be all that time consuming. You get a card, at the polling place or in the mail, and the card is optically scanned. It has a serial number on it but no other identifying info. Not political party, name, location, whatever. It’s relatively easy peasy and has a paper trail, which can be counted by and confirmed by people if necessary.

  106. 106.

    FlyingToaster

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Those hand marked ballots, whether cast absentee/mail in or cast in person need to be hand counted. Until such time as we can implement and deploy a secure electronic solution low tech is the most secure way to conduct an election.

    Ahem.

    Massachusetts already does this. We use paper ballots, that you feed into a scanner at the precinct. At close of balloting, the scanner/ballot cabinet is loaded onto a van and trucked down to [town/city hall for everybody but Boston; Election Commission for Boston] with a police escort. The flash drive is unloaded from each machine and the vote totals loaded into the Elections Computer. The machines are NOT hooked up to the internet; the drive is zeroed out before it’s loaded into the machine on Election Day.

    Generally, each larger (>10,000) town will then choose a precinct to recount, and re-run the ballots through the spare scanner. If the numbers are identical, the results of all precincts are uploaded to the Secretary of the Commonwealth.

    When they DON’T match is when it gets interesting; they can either re-count that precinct’s ballots again, recount ALL of the municipalities ballots again, or notify the SoC that there’s a problem and opt for a hand recount (one small town in MA had a problem and got their totals in the next day after a hand recount).

    If an election for an office is under 0.5%, the challenger gets a recount for the asking. When I still lived in Somerville, a ward race was decided by 8 votes, and they recounted the ballots by hand, live on SCATV, on the HS Gym floor using the basketball cam and handhelds. And the votes tallied exactly.

  107. 107.

    Adam L Silverman

    @d58826: Its all those perverts and deviants who live in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida panhandle.

  110. 110.

    catclub

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    they might be able to raise the pay of their most important asset: the enlisted soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine.

    Well, they SAY that is their most important asset. Not sure they believe it. I mean, have you seen the beauty of a long term, cost plus maintenance contract for the B1B?

  111. 111.

    rikyrah

    Michael S. Schmidt‏Verified account @nytmike

    EXCLUSIVE: Mueller has letter Trump wanted to send Comey that WH counsel blocked Trump from sending. w/@maggieNYT

  112. 112.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Its all those perverts and deviants who live in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida panhandle.

    If that was actually the Standard, Utah would be one giant smoking crater by now.

  113. 113.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ruckus:
    @FlyingToaster:

    I’ve seen some people say that the Scantron software could theoretically be hacked to mess up the count, but that’s the beauty of the Scantron — if something like that is suspected, you can still hand-count them because each “bubble” has a number that can be tallied by hand.

  115. 115.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Bill Arnold: Flooding is one thing. Significant contamination combined with never seen before flooding with the possibility for several more tropical storm type events to reimpact the same areas is something else. Houston as it existed/was known before last Friday no longer exists.

  117. 117.

    catclub

    @Betty:

    This could be like 1995 when there were multiple storms,

    I was thinking 2004 and Florida. Bush made sure Florida got plenty of recovery support that year.

  118. 118.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Significant contamination combined with never seen before flooding with the possibility for several more tropical storm type events to reimpact the same areas is something else. Houston as it existed/was known before last Friday no longer exists.

    So what happens to the port and shipping?

  119. 119.

    rikyrah

    Trump sets pay rate for federal workers
    08/31/17 06:31 PM EDT

    President Trump sent a letter to Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Thursday announcing 2018 pay rates for civilian government workers.

    In the letter, Trump cited his authority in times of “national emergency or serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare” to make adjustments to the 2018 pay schedule for federal employees.

    If Trump had not acted, workers were scheduled for an across-the-board pay raise of 1.9 percent while those in expensive urban areas stood to get as high as a 26 percent raise, based on an old formula that presidents have routinely circumvented.

    Trump will use his authority to lower across-the-board pay raises to 1.4 percent, with an average additional raise of 0.5 percent, depending on what city the worker lives in.

    “We must maintain efforts to put our nation on a sustainable fiscal course,” Trump wrote.

  121. 121.

    TenguPhule

    @clay:

    Betty Cracker is a bit wild, but I don’t know if deviant is the right word

    She raises chickens, Nature’s vermin with feathers. //

  122. 122.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:
    Exactly. There is a paper trail. And if I remember correctly there are eyeball counts to verify the machines as part of the standard counting.
    This idea that machines are better than independent, hand counting by numerous individuals as a back up is bullshit at it’s finest. Yes people can be and are fuck ups. That is of course why you use more than one crosschecking. And a machine with perfect software and no access by anyone might be OK. But that doesn’t exist. And never will, because the machines are designed and built by, wait for it, people. And as always, people with flaws, intentional or not. So even machines build by other machines will always have that flaw, there are people involved somewhere. We don’t become perfect, we cancel each other out and crosscheck.

  123. 123.

    clay

    @rikyrah:

    “We must maintain efforts to put our nation on a sustainable fiscal course,” Trump wrote.

    I sincerely doubt Trump did anything but sign his name to a piece of paper while half-listening to his aides explain it. But I hope a reporter asks him to square this statement with all the bragging about the economy he does on twitter.

  126. 126.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule: The companies in combination with their insurers will do a cost benefit analysis and determine what to do. My semi informed estimate based on my experience with disaster management and emergency response for national security is that the insurance companies are going to refuse to underwrite and this will require the companies and their facilities to relocate. Regardless of what Scott Pruitt may believe or not believe. Regardless of what members of Congress may believe or not believe. Regardless of what Texas’s elected officials believe or not believe, the insurance companies have begun climate change impacts into their underwriting models. The ability to get insurance is what is going to drive reconstruction versus relocation. My expectation is their will be relocation. Especially if Houston and SE Texas takes a second hit this hurricane season.

  127. 127.

    catclub

    @Brachiator:

    These dopes don’t seem to understand that a system that can be hacked to hurt Democrats can also be hacked to hurt Republicans.

    I think they understand perfectly well that as long as the hacks only hurt Democrats, they are willing to go along with it.

  128. 128.

    Mike

    This feels like healthcare all over again…we’re debating a thing that is well settled with a variety of different systems and approaches, all across the democratic world. Surely there must be a model which can be adapted to our peculiar flavor of representative democracy? The Federal Gov’t needs to set standards, the States can then implement solutions as they see fit. But transparency, audit, paper trail, appeal process etc must somehow be in place and be enforceable under something akin to the Voting Right Act, but for everyone. Will it take an Amendment to the Constitution? (I fear it will)

  131. 131.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    All voting tabulation in the UK is done by hand at the local level. They get results just as fast as we do with computers.

    There’s a huge difference. In the UK, there is just one thing on the ballot. You’re electing your MP, full stop. Or you are electing your local council member, full stop. Or you are voting on whether to destroy the most effective peacekeeping entity Europe has ever known, full stop. Nothing else. This means that you can have one piece of paper as your ballot, and then sort them into piles for each candidate. Those are then easy to count.

    You can’t do that in the US, because you have an election in which you are voting for president, a senator, a U.S. representative, a state senator, a state representative, a mayor, a city councilman, several dozen judges, and a ballot initiative or two all at the same time. You either need to have a separate piece of paper for each election, and hope that they don’t get mixed up, or you can’t sort them. In either case, there is no way to count them quickly, efficiently, or accurately. Hand marked paper ballots are not a feasible solution to ending election chaos given the way we run things here.

  133. 133.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @Adam L Silverman:

    They’ve already dropped their charges. There is nothing preventing him from leaving the Ecuadorian embassy except for the British arrest warrants for him, which are still extant despite Sweden dropping their charges.

    My understanding is that the Swedes could reinstitute the charges whenever they want, and that there is speculation that they “dropped” them primarily in an attempt to get Assange to come out. It’s been a while since I read on that, though, so I could be wrong.

  134. 134.

    FlyingToaster

    @Mnemosyne: If you hook the Scantron up to the ‘Net, it’s vulnerable. No doubt about that. If you hook up its flash drive, which holds the database, rather less so.

    I can only speak to Watertown and Somerville, where voting scanner machines are never hooked up to anything but a power supply. There’s a dedicated computer for vital records that only talks to the SoC and Public Health. And it’s only turned on and talking on a fixed schedule. It takes a few weeks for things to percolate from town up to the State offices — try getting a birth certificate for a newborn in your town instead of the town with the hospital ?.

  135. 135.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    My semi informed estimate based on my experience with disaster management and emergency response for national security is that the insurance companies are going to refuse to underwrite and this will require the companies and their facilities to relocate.

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but one does not simply relocate a major salt water port that handles a lot of international trade cargo and the accompanying road network needed to get that cargo transported within anything less then a decade these days?

    The words economic catastrophe come to mind.

  137. 137.

    Bill Arnold

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Regardless of what Texas’s elected officials believe or not believe, the insurance companies have begun climate change impacts into their underwriting models.

    This is a key point, thanks. The faster it happens the better, probably. Do you have any pointers to understand how underwriters are influenced e.g. what they religiously read? Would like to see what is being discussed among them. (I don’t know any underwriters socially.)

  139. 139.

    Ruckus

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:

    Hand marked paper ballots are not a feasible solution to ending election chaos given the way we run things here.

    As a number of people have pointed out we can do this well in the US. Some states indeed do, with a paper trail and hand counting. Is it as easy as you credit the UK with? I’d say no, for all the reasons that you gave. But to say it’s impossible because we vote on more than one issue at a time is not reality. I can think of a few ways off the top of my head. It involves more people but it is not a difficult task in the least. A bit time consuming sure but not unreasonable at all. It works in CA and it’s not like we don’t have a few voters. It works in other states as well, CA is not alone in insuring a reasonable voting program, with a paper trail and hand counting.

  140. 140.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Bill Arnold: I do not. I have just seen some references to the major commercial insurers of this type of company and industry pricing these things in and becoming stingier in regard to what they’ll underwrite and where.

  141. 141.

    catclub

    @TenguPhule:

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but one does not simply relocate a major salt water port that handles a lot of international trade cargo

    True. I think Adam S was referring to things like refineries and chemical plants in areas that are subject to flooding. But even then, you want those plants near to those international ports – which means the same flood prone areas are always the first choice. There is also the aspect that these plants are located where rich people are NOT located ( but poor people are) and I bet relocating them NOW, will be pretty expensive and difficult, while leaving them there, and either actually upgrading safety and security features – or just pretending to do so – will end up being the least difficult option.

  145. 145.

    FlyingToaster

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Hand counted doesn’t work for municipalities with tens of thousands of voters. And you CAN secure them. Massachusetts does. It looks like California and Oregon do.

    You can’t secure an electronic voting system. DefCon 2017’s Voting Machine Village proved that. Scroll down in that article, and one of the experts (Hursti) states that scanners are securable.

  146. 146.

    J R in WV

    @germy:

    Here Assange and his tame R-nincompoop skip the obvious problem. It is logically impossible to prove a negative. Therefore Assange cannot have proof that no election tampering occurred.

    This is why in America the legal system is required to prove guilt, that defendants are assumed to be innocent at the beginning of the legal process. Because you cannot prove a negative, it can’t be done. I suppose it just shows the limits of their poor education. Or their intellect, unable to remember things they were taught long ago…

    But I remember my logic class from 1971…

  147. 147.

    J R in WV

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The plants in SE Texas and southern Louisiana are worth trillions of dollars, far more than the cost of repair, unless damage is far worse that we have seen so far. They had time to shut those plants down by the book to minimize destruction from units going runaway during the storm.

    What looks like unrecoverable damage is to the housing stock… people on the edge of monetary success with a big mortgage and no resources to repair their totaled house, which needs months of expensive work to rehab. And no work to earn money to pay for the rehab, because the offices, shops and stores where they work are also trashed.

    Those folks will be inclined to move somewhere they can rent a place to live and get a job. So the economy of common people will fail long before the petrochemical business will fail. Those plants don’t require 5 million people to maintain and run them. The folks working in the oil bidness will have to get by without the good food, shopping, night life provided by the rest of the Houston economy. That’s my take anyway. Those plants will be back up soon, if the staff is still willing and able to work there, if the spare parts show up, and Irma doesn’t show up in two weeks, which is a big if given the persistent highs over North America all summer.

  148. 148.

    Bill Arnold

    @J R in WV:

    What looks like unrecoverable damage is to the housing stock… people on the edge of monetary success with a big mortgage and no resources to repair their totaled house, which needs months of expensive work to rehab. And no work to earn money to pay for the rehab, because the offices, shops and stores where they work are also trashed.

    Have you seen any informed attempts to quantify this? (The Pollyanna thought is that many neighborhoods have seen other flooding recently and that the higher-elevation neighborhoods are perhaps wealthier and more likely to be insured and [string on other Pollyanna-ish bead-thoughts])

  150. 150.

    J R in WV

    @Bill Arnold:

    I did see what seemed to me to be well-informed numbers, but I’ve been scouring so much I don’t have any recollection where… duh. Specifically estimates from people who have rehabbed flooded homes that it was at least a 9 month destruction/construction project. That’s expensive just for the labor! Let alone renting industrial recovery dehumidifiers for inside your walls.

    Obviously if swarms of volunteers show up to tear out drywall, etc. that would speed things up somewhat. But that means tearing out most of your electrical outlets, cabinets, shelving, trim baseboards, etc. Carpets are all gone, hardwood floors probably also gone. Mold is already started inside wet walls.

    If you were flooded by shallow water in Rita, and rebuilt from that, this new flood would be a real blow, both emotionally and financially. If you had insurance, will they write another policy? Will the bank offer a construction loan w/o prospects of insurance? Esp. if the insurance companies tell the banks they won’t write coverage for cause?

    There are higher neighborhoods, like most places more costly homes. Do those folks work in commercial shops/stores, restaurants, etc? nope. Management, finance, analysts, industrial sales, IT shops, etc. Upper class jobs. Where will the middle class folks live?

    I’m just saying that the plants’ investment is so huge that tearing it down and moving it, remediating the contamination, etc is so large a cost that building flood protection just for the plants may be well worth that trade. I’m sure analysts are drawing up budgets for just such a rebuild AND for relocating whole plants for comparison. But where do you relocate to… You need to move a huge tonnage of feedstock AND product in and out. Pipelines from ports to plants many miles inland and uphill?

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