Collusion?

The word “collusion” is much in use today, not because it is a crime (it is not), but because it sounds sinister. It has generally been used in attempts to investigate whether Trump colluded with Russia in a way that would be grounds for inpeachment and removal of Trump from office. That would not put Hillary Clinton in that office. It would put Mike Pence there, and Trump would undoubtedly continue to rule by telling Pence what to do, in much the way the Communist Party ruled the Soviet Union before it fell, by having a party official for every government official, telling him what to do. Or like Putin continued to rule Russia while Medvedev served in that office. Impeach Pence. Being guided by a shadow government is also not an impeachable offense, or every president since 1913 would be in violation. Remove Pence and the presidency just passes to the Speaker of the House. Sorry Hillary, but none of these things leads to a do-over of the 2016 election. Not before 2020.

So what is the reasoning of Hillary supporters? It seems to go like this:

1. An excellent candidate like Hillary Clinton could not possibly have lost an honest election.

2. Therefore, the vote count had to have been hacked. But who has the means to do that? Only Russia. Perhaps.

3. Would Russia have wanted to elect Trump? Not without a strong inducement. Perhaps the return of Alaska, or help in regaining control of Eastern Europe. Would anyone, even Trump, have had the means to offer such an inducement? Not really. No US. president has such power. Not even paying off enough Russian oligarchs would likely be enough. (Give them all our Uranium? That’s already been done. By Trump’s opponent.)

Early in this controversy some of the intelligence agencies, led by the CIA, reported that the 2016 presidential election had been :hacked”, but not in ways that changed any election outcomes. This was an irresponsible report to make, because most computer=naive people will seize on that word to conclude that election outcomes were flipped. The use of that word has fueled the entire “Russia hacked our elections” narrative. It should be noted that those people have not sought to make vote-counting systems more difficult to hack, but to attack the suspected beneficiary of such a hack and to try to overturn the results of the 2016 election. It seems they don’t care about flipping elections in favor of Democrats. Only in favor of Republicans.

2016 election outcomes were not flipped.

There are too many different kinds of voting machines in too many voting precincts in more than 3000 counties. There are no centralized vote counting machines, although there are machines that add the number of votes from each precinct. But a simple recount can reveal if there are any discrepancies. Much has been made about voting machines being hackable, but there are too many voting machines of different makes and models. Hacking an election remains a potential threat, but the solution remains voter verifiable paper ballots, such as those used in Brazil. Absentee ballots are a greater path to corruption. The greatest threat is still trucking in millions of illegal entrants and inducing local voting officials to accept them. That can only be done in a few areas, however. Requiring state-issued voter photo ID is the best way to prevent that, although it has to be made easy to get them.

This point is well -made in an article in Fortune, 5 Reasons Why Hackers Can’t Rig the U.S. Election, by Jeff John Roberts, August 9, 2016.

What should have been done

1. The special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, should never have been charged to find “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia without specifying a reasonable deadline for reporting his findings.

2. He should have been charged to find only successful “collusion” to change the results of the 9016 election, not “collusion” of any kind.

3. He should have charged only with the above, not with finding violations of other statutes, especially 18 USC 1001 (which is arguably unconstitutional as usually applied). Only seek indictment of perjury under oath.