The election was not hacked

Despite the histrionic claims of the press, the election was not hacked. The Democratic National Committee’s lousy IT security allowed someone to access their emails which were then leaked. Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta fell for an age-old phishing scam that was as believable as getting millions of dollars from a Nigerian prince. Using the spotty media understanding of cybersecurity, they can claim that the DNC and Hillary’s campaign were “hacked,” but the election decisively was not. And the press knows it.

In order to “hack” an election, a nefarious group would have to infiltrate the voting systems of 50 states, plus DC and territories. All of these systems are unique, with completely different architecture, ballot formats, tabulation processes, etc., etc. This did not happen. In fact, some hackers tried breaking into a few different states’ systems weeks before the election, were quickly identified, and prevented from doing so. Likewise, someone attempted to gain illegal access to the Republican National Committee, but since they had a competent IT staff, it too was thwarted.

But even without delving into the technical details, it’s obvious that the election wasn’t hacked. If, say, Russia wanted to elect Trump, they would have given him the popular vote victory along with his electoral victory. They also wouldn’t have left him to squeak out meager wins across the upper midwest and rust belt.