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.
