Drudge: ‘Homeland Security to Take Charge of Elections’
Why does the Department of Homeland Security all of a sudden want to oversee security for the election in November? Just a little while ago I checked the Drudge Report, and I was greeted by the following headline all in red: “HOMELAND SECURITY TO TAKE CHARGE OF ELECTIONS.” I was immediately alarmed, because I had already heard about how local election databases had been hacked, and Donald Trump has expressed concern that the presidential election in November could be rigged somehow. So I immediately clicked on the link and it took me to an article from the Washington Examiner.
Even before the FBI identified new cyber attacks on two separate state election boards, the Department of Homeland Security began considering declaring the election a “critical infrastructure,” giving it the same control over security it has over Wall Street and and the electric power grid.
The latest admissions of attacks could speed up that effort possibly including the upcoming presidential election, according to officials.
“We should carefully consider whether our election system, our election process, is critical infrastructure like the financial sector, like the power grid,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said.
I would definitely agree with Johnson that our election system is critical infrastructure.
But can a Department of Homeland Security that has been packed with Obama appointees actually be trusted to handle the security for our elections in a fair manner?
Unfortunately, I believe that is a legitimate question.
However, I will concede that something needs to be done. Just the other day, FBI Director James Comey admitted that his agency is taking the threat of election cyberattacks “very, very seriously” after a couple of local election databases were successfully attacked. The following comes from ABC News:
Three days ago, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., sent a letter to Comey, expressing concern that “the threat of the Russian government tampering in our presidential election is more extensive than widely known and may include the intent to falsify official election results.”
In late June an “unknown actor scanned a state’s Board of Election website for vulnerabilities” and, after identifying a security gap, exploited the vulnerability to conduct a “data exfiltration,” or unauthorized data transfer, the FBI said in a recent bulletin.
Earlier this month, hackers used the same vulnerability in an “attempted intrusion activities into another state’s Board of Election system,” the FBI said.
The integrity of our elections is absolutely paramount. Without free and fair elections, we might as well not even have a country.
So the fact that hackers have proven they can hack into some of our systems is quite alarming indeed.
According to the Daily Beast, voter databases in Arizona and Illinois were the ones that were victimized.
The FBI’s analysis of the hacks, contained in a security alert first reported by Yahoo News, shows that Arizona’s elections website was penetrated in June using a common vulnerability that’s well known to security experts. Then, in July, Illinois’ voter files were accessed apparently using stolen login credentials, which could have been obtained by spear phishing a state employee.
So did these hackers do much damage?
Well, it has been documented that many voters in Arizona did have their party affiliations changed without their knowledge or consent, and this rendered them unable to vote during the primaries.
During the primary election in Arizona, for instance, a number of voters found that their party affiliation had been changed without their knowledge. When they showed up to vote in the state’s closed primary elections, some were told they were ineligible to vote with the party of their choice.
State officials have blamed the problem at least in part on an error at the state’s driver registration bureau. But similar problems have reportedly cropped up in California, Connecticut, Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania.
Needless to say, we can’t have hackers messing with our elections, and something needs to be done.
I just don’t know if the Department of Homeland Security can be trusted or if they are the ones that should be fixing this problem.
Before I close this article today, there is one more item that I would like to bring up. In the past, there has been much speculation on the internet that some sort of “event” could suspend or delay the coming election, and that is why the following headline from U.S. News & World Report caught my eye: “A Candidate’s Death Could Delay or Eliminate the Presidential Election.” This is how that article begins:
The presidential election could be delayed or scrapped altogether if conspiracy theories become predictive and a candidate dies or drops out before Nov. 8. The perhaps equally startling alternative, if there’s enough time: Small groups of people hand-picking a replacement pursuant to obscure party rules.
The scenarios have been seriously considered by few outside of the legal community and likely are too morbid for polite discussion in politically mixed company. But prominent law professors have pondered the effects and possible ways to address a late-date vacancy.
“There’s nothing in the Constitution which requires a popular election for the electors serving in the Electoral College,” says John Nagle, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, meaning the body that officially elects presidents could convene without the general public voting.
In this article and this article, I documented how Hillary Clinton’s health appears to be rapidly failing. It is entirely possibly that if her health continues to go downhill, she might not even make it to Election Day.
Alternatively, many among the elite would be extremely happy if something caused Donald Trump not to make it to Election Day. So let us definitely pray for his health and safety and the health and safety of his family.
This election season has already been the strangest one we have seen in decades, and I have a feeling that it is going to get a lot stranger over the next couple of months.
In the end, let us hope and pray for a fair, honest and safe election, because the American people should get to choose who will lead them for the next four years.
