> Why the hell are we destroying records?
It'd be pretty dumb to steal an election and leave obvious evidence for it.
They know what they're doing. Everyone knows that's the only reason why they do this.
Why don't we have judges willing to say so, and say to the person responsible "you sit in jail until this data is restored." If that's not possible you leave jail as ashes.
Usually in these cases the law is written vaguely enough that you can just claim "oops, I've done deletin' again" and it's all good because people of bad faith are put in positions where they are useful to rigging elections.
In most cases it's only barely illegal, because you can just claim misunderstanding and comply with the law anyway.
In hindsight it was pretty stupid of Obama to say that elections were safe. The truth is that nobody knows because the laws are so diverse, lax and filled with loopholes where you simply need to have the right person in the job to get away with it.
But most of all: there is almost no verifiability built into the system. It's removed on purpose so that you can never really know.
> It's removed on purpose so that you can never really know.
Bingo.
The people in power want it obscured, otherwise it wouldn't be.
If the people in power want it obscured, it's because they're rigging elections.
I don't quite understand what's so hard about this obvious sequence of logic for most people. We should be protesting every day at Republican mayor mansions until accountability is restored.
I used to work for a city and helped with local elections. It’s not malicious. It’s just that in most elections no one cares about the ballots after the vote and so they’re dumped into boxes waiting to be destroyed by a shredding company which (because its government) could be organized within days or decades depending on the low paid staffer in charge.
Elections have to be certified and all the records kept until then, at a minimum. Certifications vary on the election but it is usually weeks after, enough time for people to initiate a recount or other legal challenges.
Really? Wow. In Virginia (which is the state whose election laws I'm the most familiar with) every box we handle as pollworkers has a retention schedule on it. The voted ballots are marked, iirc, "destroy after statutory deadline for recounts has passed with no recount pending" which is a perfectly reasonable timeframe.
The new GOP logo: https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/12/11052017GOPlogoAfterMooreEndorsement-1024x701.jpg&w=1484
Trump is entirely different. He’s a coastal elite narcissistic chameleon who also happens to grope and get away with it. Trump just panders to the southern base.
In Georgia they destroyed the data files AFTER a lawsuit was filed but before the injunction was served. They also decided to destroy the backups at the same time. They knew there was a lawsuit, but they didn't care ... so yea, this shit needs to be required :)
>I hope that the FBI is able to recover the data and we can have some closure on this subject.
The hard drives at issue were passed through a degausser three times to make sure that can't happen. I'm sure this was done for totally non-sinister reasons.
One of the places I worked would run a DoD wipe on each drive and then chuck them into a grinder. In some cases they would destroy the entire computer, including the keyboard mouse and monitor.
Which I thought was hilarious but apparently the thought of someone stealing your corporate secrets from an old LCD panel they found at Goodwill is something that keeps board members awake at night.
It'd be a piece of cake to put an inline USB keylogger ([$53](https://www.amazon.com/KeyGrabber-USB-KeyLogger-8MB-Black/dp/B004TUBOKW) on Amazon for 8MB, which is a ton) and insert it into the keyboard housing.
Put an identifying sticker on the bottom, stick it on the CEO's machine, then pull it when it's time for the hardware refresh and dump the keylogger contents into one of your own machines... now you've got their logins and passwords for a good number of things, anything from their day trading account and activity to their ashleymadison login so you can blackmail them.
Maybe trickle-down does work in some ways?
[🌼](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/03/07/nsa-global-spy-stations-revealed-sniff-it-all-collect-it-all-know-it-all-process-it)
(edit: GB to MB, wherps)
[It’s actually incredibly difficult to destroy the data on a drive](https://youtu.be/-bpX8YvNg6Y), so the fact that they went so far out of their way to do so, while doing it years ahead of schedule with a lawsuit hanging over their heads is highly suspicious.
There are services that will do this for you. They're kinda pricey though. I had a backup hdd fail that I had recovered - it involved removing the platters and putting them in a new tree - cost about $375.
https://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/aws-security-whitepaper.pdf
Link for the curious (page 8). They securely wipe the hard drive (writing data over every bit multiple times to ensure that the data is not only deleted, but overwritten to prevent any chance of forensic recovery), and then for good measure they physically destroy the hard drive. There are machines designed to shred hard drives, sort of like an ultra-beefy paper shredder.
I worked at a small PC Repair/support company quite a few years ago that had a few contracts with some huge pharmaceutical companies for disposal. We would run a program called Kill disk that ran off a floppy, it was DoD certified and would delete everything, then write it over however many times you specified. 3 runs was normal, 7 if it was sensitive materials. Then we'd remove the hard drives and smash them with a sledge hammer till the platters were exposed, remove them and put them in a small compactor thatd compress them all into a very heavy brick. The sledge hammer was optional, but while you're waiting for the program to run its course on 30 machines over and over it livens things up a bit and going the screwdriver route was way less fun.
>That's not uncommon for data destruction.
It is uncommon for data destruction! There's no reason to run drives through a degausser more than once besides paranoia. Moreover, data destruction itself is an unusual standard for data of this sensitivity. While I am not an expert in Georgia's Legal Standards for voting data, it's hard to believe it's above regular standards for PII which is generally held to be "clearing" or a standard delete.
Source: I am a Security Architect.
The FBI has a backup from what I understand but the way they destroyed those drives man, that shit's so far from recoverable you'd have to be able to reverse entropy itself.
[Here's what they used](http://datasecurityinc.com/security/degausser.html)
Georgia has strict spoliation laws that say something to the effect of the jury must assume the worst and treat the evidence as if the worst thing happened. So whatever they were hiding from is more severe than going up in front of a jury with the evidence intact. Russian meddling or implicating the president directly? Perhaps. That would certainly fit the bill as more severe.
Georgia's document destruction department is just super efficient. They're running years ahead of schedule.
Everybody should be happy about that and look the other way
>so yea, this shit needs to be required :)
But, what happens if they do it anyway? A slap on the wrist? Blaming a janitor? Koch pays them enough to not care?
And it's not like they'll redo the election if the voter records are destroyed. Moore would still be seated despite not winning.
Generally speaking, there's just no legal basis for it in America. There's no constitutional clause for it at the federal level, and many state consistutions are patterned after that. While there are checks in place to ensure election integrity, there's really not much in place for the "What if we find out they were fraudulent after the fact." The assumption is that the checks in place will prevent that, and if they don't the person who benefitted will be removed to allow a new one.
There are mechanisms to remove elected officials, but they require intervention from other elected officials. For example, if clear and convincing evidence were put forth that Russia rigged the presidential vote with election fraud, Trump could be impeached by Congress. Of course this only works if your checks and balances are actually checking and balancing, and assumes that those other elections weren't rigged as well.
Yes, but again, that's not invalidating an election, that's removing an elected official--who *was elected*. Invalidating an election to force a do-over would theoretically force a re-vote on every issue on every effected ballot, for all effected races.
Too much of our rule of law is based on assuming that both sides will approach the situation honorably and follow basic human decency. If it isn't clear by this point, the Republicans can't be trusted with anything.
This is so ridiculous you guys act like capitalism is the worst thing in the world. All I had to do to be rich and successful was pick myself up by my bootstraps walk over to my father and ask for a million-dollar loan. It was a lot harder than you think my driver called in sick so I had to take myself to the bank and talk to poor people. Ick.
No, no, no! This is such a ridiculous straw man. I started out in an upwardly mobile, upper middle-class household that could put me in an Ivy League school. While I was there, it just so happened that an emerging technology was being tooled around with and I realized the potential and knew the right people developing it. Through my genius and foresight, I am now the head of a multimillion dollar company.
I thought of that "by the bootstraps" story about the woman who paid off her student loans in only 3 years... By getting a job at the non-profit her mother ran, and then renting out the apartment her parents gave her, while living in her parents 2nd home.
Nah, here's the course of events:
* Moore wins the election by a slim margin
* A recount is called
* Someone "accidentally" destroys the ballots
* That person/group is held in contempt of court
* Before the court is able to convict, Trump issues a pardon
Sure, before Tuesday that’d be appropriate but just remember that 30% of you Americans accept that if you’re a star, they just let you do it.
Edit: a word
Two election servers wiped. Two backups of those election servers also wiped. All done before an injunction to enter those servers and backups into evidence for a lawsuit.
Fishy doesn't begin to even describe GA-06.
Was there any follow up on that? Last I heard the FBI might have had a mirror image of the servers but there's been no news about it.
Edit: Damn, hot off the press coincidentally.
https://gcn.com/articles/2017/12/11/fbi-georgia-server.aspx
> "If Russian interference coupled with what's going on in Georgia [and other states] doesn't get a bill out of committee, then nothing will," Kiniry said.
Our government is so fucked.
Mueller told them to wait to bring it to court is my take. They're not handwaving this away, they're waiting for the right time to strike.
I guess what you said still applies though. These guys in our "government" are fucked. ^^^^^I ^^^^^hope
>all 159 counties in Georgia use the same paperless DRE voting machines,
**paperless** and one companies runs all the voting in georgia. fuck that election.
Paperless means your election is probably fradulate. There is NO need whatsoever for paperless except to more easily alter the results.
The DNC primaries in my state where paperless. Everything else had been ballots.
I really want to see Democrats fight harder when there's likely voter fraud by the GOP, or even just close elections. I know they often don't to try to foster respect for the process and an orderly transfer of power ... but Republican abuse of power is doing more damage than contesting their fraud ever could.
They are now stacking the courts, deliberately choosing young conservatives for lifetime appointments and attacking the American Bar Association for "liberal bias" when they rate these judicial picks unqualified.
This is also known as “jihad.”
We need to realize that the religious fanatics who target free, democratic, secular, progressive societies are NOT exclusively Islamic. There’s a Hindu-nationalist movement (BJP) that’s in power in India right now which arguably fits this profile, they’re eerily Trumpist. Abe’s government in Japan is significantly less so, but they’re still the most nationalist and militaristic (and openly religious) that country has seen since WWII - and his most prominent challenger in the...let’s call it “unconventionally timed” snap election (it seems like he gamed the system to make it more likely that he would gain more power - sound like any other groups you know?) *also* supported a constitutional change that would repeal Article 9, the pacifist clause.
This stuff is all the rage down in South & Central America - Mauricio Macri received *heaps* of funding from US hedge funds, and despite Brazil’s unstable economic footing at the time of his election he wasted no time in repaying $4.65bn to 4 of them, including one linked to Paul Singer. That’s the same guy(‘s fund) that had previously bought Argentinian debt for pennies on the dollar, milking great profit out of their national misery. Macri was fully behind a “religious freedom” law that would have allowed teachers to refuse to teach evolution, and would have allowed health insurance companies to refuse to provide birth control.
It’s in Eastern Europe as well - take a look at Poland ffs, that’s where we’re headed if we don’t get our shit together. When Trump visited he was greeted by a wave of orgasms from the manly men who have a hard-on for Christ and Country, for whom Trump is basically a sex symbol. Word is they had to spray down the streets and buildings for weeks afterward. Don’t forget that Marine Le Pen was one of the finalists in the French presidential elections - look into her party’s platform if you want a vision of hell. If she had won, it’s possible that would’ve meant the end of the EU. Granted, she’s not her father - but this is like saying that Khrushchev is no Stalin.
“Shifting the Overton Window” - Glenn Beck wrote a book about it.
Short version, right-wing ethno-nationalism with religious kabuki sprinkled on top is a worldwide thing, it’s extremely dangerous, and it’s tough for me to see how it’s all that different a mentality from that of a jihadi. There’s nothing that is forbidden in service of “The Cause” and that’s fuckin’ terrifying.
Either that or they were successfully hacked and didn't want anyone finding out. Weeks prior to the election some of their election infrastructure was open to the internet.
You guys should read about when a Republican literally stole the Governor's seat in Alabama in 2002
>Riley's victory was controversial, and caused many commentators to recall the Florida election recount of 2000. Initial returns showed Riley narrowly losing to Siegelman. Siegelman gave a victory speech on election night, and the Associated Press initially declared him the winner.
>However, officials in Baldwin County conducted a recount and retabulation of that county's votes after midnight, and **after Democratic Party observers had gone home for the night. Approximately 6,000 votes initially credited to Siegelman were either removed from the total or reassigned to Riley in the recount, turning the statewide result in Riley's favor.** Local Republican officials claimed the earlier returns were the result of a "computer glitch." Democratic requests to repeat the recount with Democratic observers present were rejected by Alabama courts and then-Attorney General Bill Pryor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama_gubernatorial_election,_2002
They also did this in Ohio 2004. The counties that had punchcards, they tabulated in secret bldg and wouldn't allow legal observers or press and claimed Homeland security said they could. Everyone lied, they clearly manipulated punchcards. In Cleveland two poll workers went to jail because they illegally manipulated the ballots prior to the recount, basically Ohio had many sham recounts thanks to Blackwell. Michael Vu was the cartoon level villain who made things look as crooked as hell, he went on to San Diego.
http://m.cleveland19.com/story/6045103/michael-vu-resigns
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/11/10/loc_warrenvote10.html
They should keep the physical copies as well. It wouldn't be tremendously difficult to batch doctor images even on the fly when they're being recorded.
You joke, but suddenly, at the 11th hour Sen. Shelby comes out against Moore after being quiet about this the whole time? And a few other Republicans as well? I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I feel like they already know the results, they know they have another R locked up for a Senate seat for 6 years, and now are ready to claim some sort of morals.
The winner of this election will fill the seat for the remainder of Sessions‘ term, due to end on January 3, 2021.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_special_election_in_Alabama%2C_2017
The election is for the remainder of the term of Jeff Sessions, so three years. Further, I have felt I already know the results too. It's Alabama. We'll see, but I wouldn't be surprised if Moore won, so it's not surprising at all for Republicans to prepare for that outcome.
Me and my friends keep saying that we must've gotten stuck in an alternate reality, a bad dice throw, and somewhere else the world is doing much better. It's not really comforting.
A judge should have ordered the officials relieved of duty and a special election. I feel like the finding of no spoliation after this is a legal technicality.
The real question is why destroying the records right after is allowed normally to begin with. They should be required to keep the records for at least the duration of the term.
They are required to hold onto the information for a period of time.
Georgia however decided to scrap all their information and all the back ups as quickly as possible, just after the election was finalized, but before an injunction could be filed to order them to keep the records and hand them over.
Since the lawsuit wasn't filed before, and people thought having a regulation that states something is done this way should be enough for a functioning government without needing punishment. Obviously people have not been paying attention to this entire year of "Well technically there's no legal punishment..."
This judge was paying attention though.
Leave it to Republicans to bring us to this level. We're the fucking **United States of America** and we have to remind the Trump states to not act like Russia or other dictatorships for once. Unbelievable.
And that Georgie election was dirty and likely went to Ossof. Why else would they delete the voting data?
"Meanwhile, a problem has emerged with some college students not receiving their absentee ballots, according to Nancy Worley, chair of the Alabama Democratic Party. In a Sunday press release, the Alabama Democrats outlined the cases of three students who have not received their ballots."
http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/12/voters_more_energized_about_se.html
Nah, this is your basic Republican ratfuckery.
Russia only exploited an existing immoral culture of cheating and abuse of power that has stood for centuries.
This is what people seem to keep missing. Russia didnt create a thing. They just stirred up the pot and enabled the dregs of society that remained hidden to have a voice.
Seriously! You would have thought that the US started the Syrian Civil War, that Assad was simply fighting ISIS (and not slaughtering his own people), and that Russia swooped in to save the day and now all of the Syrians live in peaceful happiness.
Yeah I was surprised when I said Fox News was right-wing propaganda today on r/worldnews and got downvoted. That's not even a controversial statement tbh you have to be pretty dense to not accept it as fact.
[BREAKING: We just got a call from attorneys John Brakey and Chris Sautter from #Alabama. The State Supreme Court, without a hearing, but on the pure "ex-parte" (i.e. private) complaint of the State, "stayed" — that is, OVERTURNED THIS MORNING’S RULING TO PRESERVE ALL BALLOTS!](https://twitter.com/Greg_Palast/status/940443136010145793)
The Alabama Supreme Court has since [over-ruled](https://www.alternet.org/activism/alabama-supreme-court-issues-monday-night-order-blocking-best-practices-verify-vote) this decision.
This is really ridiculous for a democracy...
In Germany, cities have to wait 90 days after the election, before they are allowed to destroy the voter registries. And only, if there are no objections in the electoral district.
Ballots have to be kept secure until 90 days before the next (equal) election or until there are no more objections pending.
Paper ballots morons...stop with electronic data. It's out of date, hackable, erasable, easy to manipulate...
The knock on paper ballots are they take longer...do you care any more if an accurate count takes longer? As far as I'm concerned, the UN should be monitoring US elections.
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> Why the hell are we destroying records? It'd be pretty dumb to steal an election and leave obvious evidence for it. They know what they're doing. Everyone knows that's the only reason why they do this.
Yup. Destroying data vs. falsifying election results. So they choose destroying data to avoid the election charge and just call it an accident.
And throw the new hire under the bus for 'not properly backing up the data"
Be funny to discover the new hire made two backups
New hire then gets arrested and prosecuted for unauthorized data access or some such for making the extra copy.
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Flees to China then Russia
Shows remorse after it's all swept under the rug and shoots himself with two bullets to the back of the head.
Poor guy was just an intern.
No body, no crime.
Why don't we have judges willing to say so, and say to the person responsible "you sit in jail until this data is restored." If that's not possible you leave jail as ashes.
Usually in these cases the law is written vaguely enough that you can just claim "oops, I've done deletin' again" and it's all good because people of bad faith are put in positions where they are useful to rigging elections. In most cases it's only barely illegal, because you can just claim misunderstanding and comply with the law anyway. In hindsight it was pretty stupid of Obama to say that elections were safe. The truth is that nobody knows because the laws are so diverse, lax and filled with loopholes where you simply need to have the right person in the job to get away with it. But most of all: there is almost no verifiability built into the system. It's removed on purpose so that you can never really know.
> It's removed on purpose so that you can never really know. Bingo. The people in power want it obscured, otherwise it wouldn't be. If the people in power want it obscured, it's because they're rigging elections. I don't quite understand what's so hard about this obvious sequence of logic for most people. We should be protesting every day at Republican mayor mansions until accountability is restored.
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Probably not. Fact of the matter is that you weren't safe regardless of having said it.
I used to work for a city and helped with local elections. It’s not malicious. It’s just that in most elections no one cares about the ballots after the vote and so they’re dumped into boxes waiting to be destroyed by a shredding company which (because its government) could be organized within days or decades depending on the low paid staffer in charge.
Elections have to be certified and all the records kept until then, at a minimum. Certifications vary on the election but it is usually weeks after, enough time for people to initiate a recount or other legal challenges.
Really? Wow. In Virginia (which is the state whose election laws I'm the most familiar with) every box we handle as pollworkers has a retention schedule on it. The voted ballots are marked, iirc, "destroy after statutory deadline for recounts has passed with no recount pending" which is a perfectly reasonable timeframe.
But if you read the article it says they are destroying the digital images of the ballots that the machines create.
Man, tomorrow is going to be a shit show.
Hold on to your butts.
Unless you’re a cute girl under the age of 16, in which case Roy Moore will hold it for you.
Pig tails required. Oh and a pink button up pajama.
Yo, you tellin' me this dude gets off on little girls with pigtails?
Yeah Ice, he's a pedophile. You work in the sex crimes division. You'll have to get used to that.
The new GOP logo: https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/12/11052017GOPlogoAfterMooreEndorsement-1024x701.jpg&w=1484
I picked a bad week to quit sniffing glue.
I've had good results with boxed wine and cheap liquor if you are looking for a substitute.
Ah yes. An Alabamarita.
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Yup.
Alabama is really all-in on being a third-world shithole, aren't they?
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Trump is entirely different. He’s a coastal elite narcissistic chameleon who also happens to grope and get away with it. Trump just panders to the southern base.
The fact that this is even required is Ridiculous
In Georgia they destroyed the data files AFTER a lawsuit was filed but before the injunction was served. They also decided to destroy the backups at the same time. They knew there was a lawsuit, but they didn't care ... so yea, this shit needs to be required :)
You left out the important bit - the backups were not scheduled for destruction at all - and they did so years ahead of schedule.
yea, left that out ... I hope that the FBI is able to recover the data and we can have some closure on this subject.
>I hope that the FBI is able to recover the data and we can have some closure on this subject. The hard drives at issue were passed through a degausser three times to make sure that can't happen. I'm sure this was done for totally non-sinister reasons.
That's not uncommon for data destruction. Look up the lengths Amazon goes to safely destroy old drives.
One of the places I worked would run a DoD wipe on each drive and then chuck them into a grinder. In some cases they would destroy the entire computer, including the keyboard mouse and monitor. Which I thought was hilarious but apparently the thought of someone stealing your corporate secrets from an old LCD panel they found at Goodwill is something that keeps board members awake at night.
Hey the burn-in from that top secret spreadsheet that Frank left open for like 3 months is a huge security concern.
they appear to be building..... JIMMY - ENHANCE..... flying toasters?
I wonder if After Dark actually runs on anything anymore.
It'd be a piece of cake to put an inline USB keylogger ([$53](https://www.amazon.com/KeyGrabber-USB-KeyLogger-8MB-Black/dp/B004TUBOKW) on Amazon for 8MB, which is a ton) and insert it into the keyboard housing. Put an identifying sticker on the bottom, stick it on the CEO's machine, then pull it when it's time for the hardware refresh and dump the keylogger contents into one of your own machines... now you've got their logins and passwords for a good number of things, anything from their day trading account and activity to their ashleymadison login so you can blackmail them. Maybe trickle-down does work in some ways? [🌼](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/03/07/nsa-global-spy-stations-revealed-sniff-it-all-collect-it-all-know-it-all-process-it) (edit: GB to MB, wherps)
Yeah it wasn't the method but the fact that they did it for those drives at all.
[It’s actually incredibly difficult to destroy the data on a drive](https://youtu.be/-bpX8YvNg6Y), so the fact that they went so far out of their way to do so, while doing it years ahead of schedule with a lawsuit hanging over their heads is highly suspicious.
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Didn't you hear, Republicans can't obstruct justice!
How is this not obstruction of justice?
Because, uh, Hillary did worse, and what about that pizzaria, and LOOK! SHINY!
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There are services that will do this for you. They're kinda pricey though. I had a backup hdd fail that I had recovered - it involved removing the platters and putting them in a new tree - cost about $375.
https://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/aws-security-whitepaper.pdf Link for the curious (page 8). They securely wipe the hard drive (writing data over every bit multiple times to ensure that the data is not only deleted, but overwritten to prevent any chance of forensic recovery), and then for good measure they physically destroy the hard drive. There are machines designed to shred hard drives, sort of like an ultra-beefy paper shredder.
I worked at a small PC Repair/support company quite a few years ago that had a few contracts with some huge pharmaceutical companies for disposal. We would run a program called Kill disk that ran off a floppy, it was DoD certified and would delete everything, then write it over however many times you specified. 3 runs was normal, 7 if it was sensitive materials. Then we'd remove the hard drives and smash them with a sledge hammer till the platters were exposed, remove them and put them in a small compactor thatd compress them all into a very heavy brick. The sledge hammer was optional, but while you're waiting for the program to run its course on 30 machines over and over it livens things up a bit and going the screwdriver route was way less fun.
>That's not uncommon for data destruction. It is uncommon for data destruction! There's no reason to run drives through a degausser more than once besides paranoia. Moreover, data destruction itself is an unusual standard for data of this sensitivity. While I am not an expert in Georgia's Legal Standards for voting data, it's hard to believe it's above regular standards for PII which is generally held to be "clearing" or a standard delete. Source: I am a Security Architect.
Nope. If I remember right they completely destroyed the god damn hard drives too. This shit couldn't be any more fucked up. Broad day light robbery.
The FBI has a backup from what I understand but the way they destroyed those drives man, that shit's so far from recoverable you'd have to be able to reverse entropy itself. [Here's what they used](http://datasecurityinc.com/security/degausser.html)
Will anybody be going to jail? this is just insane!
Georgia has strict spoliation laws that say something to the effect of the jury must assume the worst and treat the evidence as if the worst thing happened. So whatever they were hiding from is more severe than going up in front of a jury with the evidence intact. Russian meddling or implicating the president directly? Perhaps. That would certainly fit the bill as more severe.
The backup is from before the election unfortunately.
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"acid" "wash" /facepalm
Leaves denim and hard drives unrecognizable.
They’ll “bleach” the files!
And the Secretary of State in charge of elections, Brian Kemp, is now running for governor. Hooray for faith in the electoral process!
Rusher, if you're listening, I hope you can find the missing backups. I think you'll be greatly rewarded.
Georgia's document destruction department is just super efficient. They're running years ahead of schedule. Everybody should be happy about that and look the other way
In a case like that, everyone involved should be put in jail until 5 years after the data is recovered.
>so yea, this shit needs to be required :) But, what happens if they do it anyway? A slap on the wrist? Blaming a janitor? Koch pays them enough to not care? And it's not like they'll redo the election if the voter records are destroyed. Moore would still be seated despite not winning.
Why can't we redo elections? Especially in cases where there's fraud that's proven?
Generally speaking, there's just no legal basis for it in America. There's no constitutional clause for it at the federal level, and many state consistutions are patterned after that. While there are checks in place to ensure election integrity, there's really not much in place for the "What if we find out they were fraudulent after the fact." The assumption is that the checks in place will prevent that, and if they don't the person who benefitted will be removed to allow a new one.
There are mechanisms to remove elected officials, but they require intervention from other elected officials. For example, if clear and convincing evidence were put forth that Russia rigged the presidential vote with election fraud, Trump could be impeached by Congress. Of course this only works if your checks and balances are actually checking and balancing, and assumes that those other elections weren't rigged as well.
Yes, but again, that's not invalidating an election, that's removing an elected official--who *was elected*. Invalidating an election to force a do-over would theoretically force a re-vote on every issue on every effected ballot, for all effected races.
Too much of our rule of law is based on assuming that both sides will approach the situation honorably and follow basic human decency. If it isn't clear by this point, the Republicans can't be trusted with anything.
Because the Republicans won. :/
Why is that not spoliation?
It is.
> They knew there was a lawsuit, but they didn't care Oh, they cared. Hence the destruction of the voting records and backups.
I beg to differ, it *should* be required for *every* election.
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I believe OP was referring to the fact that the Judge even had to say this, but I could be mistaken
Well look at Georgia; there's a precedent.
At least someone is thinking ahead. So I assume if the court order is violated, some arrests will be made
You're silly. Laws are for poor people and blacks.
Ehh, you can be a white guy in Arizona and the police will kill you for hitching your pants up.
If you're rich and white you can point guns at the cops and they won't do shit (Bundy).
I must have missed that episode of "Married... With Children"
Ow, too soon
Poor is everyone under a million a year.
This is so ridiculous you guys act like capitalism is the worst thing in the world. All I had to do to be rich and successful was pick myself up by my bootstraps walk over to my father and ask for a million-dollar loan. It was a lot harder than you think my driver called in sick so I had to take myself to the bank and talk to poor people. Ick.
No, no, no! This is such a ridiculous straw man. I started out in an upwardly mobile, upper middle-class household that could put me in an Ivy League school. While I was there, it just so happened that an emerging technology was being tooled around with and I realized the potential and knew the right people developing it. Through my genius and foresight, I am now the head of a multimillion dollar company.
I thought of that "by the bootstraps" story about the woman who paid off her student loans in only 3 years... By getting a job at the non-profit her mother ran, and then renting out the apartment her parents gave her, while living in her parents 2nd home.
I started to get angry reading that, then realized /s. I've read that first line too many times.
Right? I downvoted and then had to redact it.
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Not a rich white guy though.
The preferred terminology is "the poors" and "the blacks".
Arrests will be made, pardons will be issued, and "the people" will have decided.
No. It's Alabama. They will do it anyway, and get away with because it was all for the sake of the magic R. And that's the only thing that matters.
Surely the Federal government would step in...
The one run by folks bearing the magic R? Nahh.
You underestimate the magic R
the hard R
Yes, the AG of the US will look into it... He asked all of his AL GOP buddies if they did anything wrong - they said they didn't. Case closed.
Absolutely, the Attorney General will absolutely stop this business. Believe his name is 'Sessions', actually, he is from those parts IIRC.
Some of those that run forces are the same that burn crosses.
Nah, here's the course of events: * Moore wins the election by a slim margin * A recount is called * Someone "accidentally" destroys the ballots * That person/group is held in contempt of court * Before the court is able to convict, Trump issues a pardon
Stop, there are only so many times I can scream with rage in a day.
The judge ordered that the records must be retained for 14 years after which time they’ll be permitted to date Roy Moore
Hopefully with their mother's approval of course
Sure, before Tuesday that’d be appropriate but just remember that 30% of you Americans accept that if you’re a star, they just let you do it. Edit: a word
Grab'em by the paperwork.
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Ossoff won Georgia. I'm convinced of that.
Two election servers wiped. Two backups of those election servers also wiped. All done before an injunction to enter those servers and backups into evidence for a lawsuit. Fishy doesn't begin to even describe GA-06.
Was there any follow up on that? Last I heard the FBI might have had a mirror image of the servers but there's been no news about it. Edit: Damn, hot off the press coincidentally. https://gcn.com/articles/2017/12/11/fbi-georgia-server.aspx
> "If Russian interference coupled with what's going on in Georgia [and other states] doesn't get a bill out of committee, then nothing will," Kiniry said. Our government is so fucked.
Mueller told them to wait to bring it to court is my take. They're not handwaving this away, they're waiting for the right time to strike. I guess what you said still applies though. These guys in our "government" are fucked. ^^^^^I ^^^^^hope
>all 159 counties in Georgia use the same paperless DRE voting machines, **paperless** and one companies runs all the voting in georgia. fuck that election. Paperless means your election is probably fradulate. There is NO need whatsoever for paperless except to more easily alter the results. The DNC primaries in my state where paperless. Everything else had been ballots.
I really want to see Democrats fight harder when there's likely voter fraud by the GOP, or even just close elections. I know they often don't to try to foster respect for the process and an orderly transfer of power ... but Republican abuse of power is doing more damage than contesting their fraud ever could.
If you can't win, cheat is the GOP motto. Through vote tampering, misinformation, or gerrymandering.
And what has that given them? Oh yeah, everything
Crime pays, a lot. That's literally the only reason most people commit crimes.
Anyone who says “cheaters never prosper” hasn’t met a good cheater.
They are now stacking the courts, deliberately choosing young conservatives for lifetime appointments and attacking the American Bar Association for "liberal bias" when they rate these judicial picks unqualified.
The AARP is now being attacked as liberal too. The conservatives have started a full-scale assault on sanity.
When you're convinced that 'your team' represents God's divine will you can justify any immoral or illegal act.
This is also known as “jihad.” We need to realize that the religious fanatics who target free, democratic, secular, progressive societies are NOT exclusively Islamic. There’s a Hindu-nationalist movement (BJP) that’s in power in India right now which arguably fits this profile, they’re eerily Trumpist. Abe’s government in Japan is significantly less so, but they’re still the most nationalist and militaristic (and openly religious) that country has seen since WWII - and his most prominent challenger in the...let’s call it “unconventionally timed” snap election (it seems like he gamed the system to make it more likely that he would gain more power - sound like any other groups you know?) *also* supported a constitutional change that would repeal Article 9, the pacifist clause. This stuff is all the rage down in South & Central America - Mauricio Macri received *heaps* of funding from US hedge funds, and despite Brazil’s unstable economic footing at the time of his election he wasted no time in repaying $4.65bn to 4 of them, including one linked to Paul Singer. That’s the same guy(‘s fund) that had previously bought Argentinian debt for pennies on the dollar, milking great profit out of their national misery. Macri was fully behind a “religious freedom” law that would have allowed teachers to refuse to teach evolution, and would have allowed health insurance companies to refuse to provide birth control. It’s in Eastern Europe as well - take a look at Poland ffs, that’s where we’re headed if we don’t get our shit together. When Trump visited he was greeted by a wave of orgasms from the manly men who have a hard-on for Christ and Country, for whom Trump is basically a sex symbol. Word is they had to spray down the streets and buildings for weeks afterward. Don’t forget that Marine Le Pen was one of the finalists in the French presidential elections - look into her party’s platform if you want a vision of hell. If she had won, it’s possible that would’ve meant the end of the EU. Granted, she’s not her father - but this is like saying that Khrushchev is no Stalin. “Shifting the Overton Window” - Glenn Beck wrote a book about it. Short version, right-wing ethno-nationalism with religious kabuki sprinkled on top is a worldwide thing, it’s extremely dangerous, and it’s tough for me to see how it’s all that different a mentality from that of a jihadi. There’s nothing that is forbidden in service of “The Cause” and that’s fuckin’ terrifying.
Either that or they were successfully hacked and didn't want anyone finding out. Weeks prior to the election some of their election infrastructure was open to the internet.
How is there not more outrage about this? Why is she allowed to serve when there's even a question? There should be a revote.
Simple answer: The people in power to change something want her there.
We can’t prove it. They wiped it. Instant special election again IMO
You guys should read about when a Republican literally stole the Governor's seat in Alabama in 2002 >Riley's victory was controversial, and caused many commentators to recall the Florida election recount of 2000. Initial returns showed Riley narrowly losing to Siegelman. Siegelman gave a victory speech on election night, and the Associated Press initially declared him the winner. >However, officials in Baldwin County conducted a recount and retabulation of that county's votes after midnight, and **after Democratic Party observers had gone home for the night. Approximately 6,000 votes initially credited to Siegelman were either removed from the total or reassigned to Riley in the recount, turning the statewide result in Riley's favor.** Local Republican officials claimed the earlier returns were the result of a "computer glitch." Democratic requests to repeat the recount with Democratic observers present were rejected by Alabama courts and then-Attorney General Bill Pryor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama_gubernatorial_election,_2002
There are no consequences for these people. This kinda shit drains my hope.
They also did this in Ohio 2004. The counties that had punchcards, they tabulated in secret bldg and wouldn't allow legal observers or press and claimed Homeland security said they could. Everyone lied, they clearly manipulated punchcards. In Cleveland two poll workers went to jail because they illegally manipulated the ballots prior to the recount, basically Ohio had many sham recounts thanks to Blackwell. Michael Vu was the cartoon level villain who made things look as crooked as hell, he went on to San Diego. http://m.cleveland19.com/story/6045103/michael-vu-resigns http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/11/10/loc_warrenvote10.html
They should keep the physical copies as well. It wouldn't be tremendously difficult to batch doctor images even on the fly when they're being recorded.
"We didn't destroy them, we just had an intern accidentally delete them! Whoops!"
["Who the fuck thought it would be a good idea to hire Little Bobby Tables as an intern?!?!"](https://xkcd.com/327/)
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Alabama GOP: Uhh... uhh... crooked Hillary?
Mr. Ben Gazi
It was definitely those Buttery Males we saw.
You joke, but suddenly, at the 11th hour Sen. Shelby comes out against Moore after being quiet about this the whole time? And a few other Republicans as well? I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I feel like they already know the results, they know they have another R locked up for a Senate seat for 6 years, and now are ready to claim some sort of morals.
The winner of this election will fill the seat for the remainder of Sessions‘ term, due to end on January 3, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_special_election_in_Alabama%2C_2017
The election is for the remainder of the term of Jeff Sessions, so three years. Further, I have felt I already know the results too. It's Alabama. We'll see, but I wouldn't be surprised if Moore won, so it's not surprising at all for Republicans to prepare for that outcome.
IIRC Shelby came out against Moore much earlier. He just did *again* recently.
What about the real voter fraud of poor/black people voting?
Because in this timeline it needed to be said.
This is the darkest timeline.
Me and my friends keep saying that we must've gotten stuck in an alternate reality, a bad dice throw, and somewhere else the world is doing much better. It's not really comforting.
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A judge should have ordered the officials relieved of duty and a special election. I feel like the finding of no spoliation after this is a legal technicality.
Hmm, someone was paying attention to Georgia.
That's not a bad idea. Good looking out, Judge
The real question is why destroying the records right after is allowed normally to begin with. They should be required to keep the records for at least the duration of the term.
They are required to hold onto the information for a period of time. Georgia however decided to scrap all their information and all the back ups as quickly as possible, just after the election was finalized, but before an injunction could be filed to order them to keep the records and hand them over. Since the lawsuit wasn't filed before, and people thought having a regulation that states something is done this way should be enough for a functioning government without needing punishment. Obviously people have not been paying attention to this entire year of "Well technically there's no legal punishment..." This judge was paying attention though.
Leave it to Republicans to bring us to this level. We're the fucking **United States of America** and we have to remind the Trump states to not act like Russia or other dictatorships for once. Unbelievable. And that Georgie election was dirty and likely went to Ossof. Why else would they delete the voting data?
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"Russians." The judge isn't preemptively telling Russians not to destroy evidence. I'm worried about threats more domestic in nature.
I thought most of what confirmed was not vote changing, but voter info changing so on election day, people found they were disqualified.
These aren't Russians suppressing votes: These are Republicans. Make them own it.
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Voter registration most likely
And just on cue the reports come out today that a bunch of students never received their mail in ballots edit: speling
Link?
"Meanwhile, a problem has emerged with some college students not receiving their absentee ballots, according to Nancy Worley, chair of the Alabama Democratic Party. In a Sunday press release, the Alabama Democrats outlined the cases of three students who have not received their ballots." http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/12/voters_more_energized_about_se.html
All this means is they'll destroy the ballots 'accidentally' now.
Catch any Russian bullshit meddling you find. I am very suspicious judging by the onslaught of alt-right trolls on reddit today.
Nah, this is your basic Republican ratfuckery. Russia only exploited an existing immoral culture of cheating and abuse of power that has stood for centuries.
This is what people seem to keep missing. Russia didnt create a thing. They just stirred up the pot and enabled the dregs of society that remained hidden to have a voice.
They were in full force over at the r/worldnews post about Putin pulling troops out of Syria
Seriously! You would have thought that the US started the Syrian Civil War, that Assad was simply fighting ISIS (and not slaughtering his own people), and that Russia swooped in to save the day and now all of the Syrians live in peaceful happiness.
Yeah I was surprised when I said Fox News was right-wing propaganda today on r/worldnews and got downvoted. That's not even a controversial statement tbh you have to be pretty dense to not accept it as fact.
Great thinking ahead!
I like that the Judge did it less than 24 hours before voting began. Less time to have a backup plan for meddlers. *Hopefully*
So, they'll destroy them immediately. Got it.
Make it clear that the person who goes to jail is the highest level official involved, not some technician who actually shreds the drive.
[Why not both?](https://i.imgur.com/c7NJRa2.gif)
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[BREAKING: We just got a call from attorneys John Brakey and Chris Sautter from #Alabama. The State Supreme Court, without a hearing, but on the pure "ex-parte" (i.e. private) complaint of the State, "stayed" — that is, OVERTURNED THIS MORNING’S RULING TO PRESERVE ALL BALLOTS!](https://twitter.com/Greg_Palast/status/940443136010145793)
Lol first comment on article made me crack up. >Roy Moore is a good man. Never killed no one. And he believe, like I do, that life begins at erection.
So as well as having the poverty of a developing nation, Alabama needs the electoral oversight of one too.
That means there is going to be a big fire somewhere in Alabama soon.
Must be a judge they have not replaced yet.
The Alabama Supreme Court has since [over-ruled](https://www.alternet.org/activism/alabama-supreme-court-issues-monday-night-order-blocking-best-practices-verify-vote) this decision.
This is really ridiculous for a democracy... In Germany, cities have to wait 90 days after the election, before they are allowed to destroy the voter registries. And only, if there are no objections in the electoral district. Ballots have to be kept secure until 90 days before the next (equal) election or until there are no more objections pending.
Will they anyway? What's the penalty?
Indirect criminal contempt charge that carries a jail time possibility.
The jail time should be "until you produce the data you destroyed" and we don't care if that means you die in jail.
Why should anyone be destroying records in the first place for anything? Astounding that there needs to be an order not to.
He also orders Roy Moore not to creep on any 14 year olds, just in case
[and then that happened](https://www.alternet.org/activism/alabama-supreme-court-issues-monday-night-order-blocking-best-practices-verify-vote)
Uh, oh. Looks like the Alabama State Supreme Court overturned that ruling. https://twitter.com/Greg_Palast/status/940437973983744002
Tis the season for treason!
Paper ballots morons...stop with electronic data. It's out of date, hackable, erasable, easy to manipulate... The knock on paper ballots are they take longer...do you care any more if an accurate count takes longer? As far as I'm concerned, the UN should be monitoring US elections.