From FiveThirtyEight: According to a report
Tuesday in New York Magazine, a group of computer scientists and
election lawyers have approached the Hillary Clinton campaign with
evidence they believe suggests the election might have been hacked to
make it appear that Donald Trump won the Electoral College when Clinton
really did.
The hacking claim appears to be based on concerns about
tampering with electronic voting machines. We’ve looked into the claim —
or at least, our best guess of what’s being claimed based on what has
been reported — and statistically, it doesn’t check out.
There’s no clear evidence that the voting method used in a county —
by machine or by paper — had an effect on the vote. Anyone making
allegations of a possible massive electoral hack should provide proof,
and we can’t find any. But it’s not even clear the group of computer
scientists and election lawyers are making these claims. (More on this
in a moment.)
The New York article reports that a group that includes voting-rights attorney John Bonifaz and computer scientist J. Alex Halderman
presented findings last week about Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania
to top Clinton campaign officials to try to persuade them to call for a
recount. Exactly what those findings were isn’t clear. The New York
article includes just one example, a finding that Clinton did worse in
counties in Wisconsin that used electronic voting machines instead of
paper ballots.1
It’s not clear what data the group was using to call for a recount in
Michigan and Pennsylvania, or if it was looking at data at all: It could
have chosen those states because they were the ones besides Wisconsin
that Trump won with the smallest margins. Bonifaz, Halderman and the
Clinton campaign officials mentioned in the article didn’t respond to
requests for comment or more detail about the study.
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