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Will Hackers Try To Disrupt the Iowa Caucuses?
Hugh Pickens writes "The Iowa Republican Party is boosting the security of the electronic systems it will use to count the first votes of the 2012 presidential campaign after receiving a mysterious threat to its computers in a video urging its supporters to shut down the Iowa caucuses .... 'It's very clear the data consolidation and data gathering from the caucuses, which determines the headlines the next morning, who might withdraw or resign from the process, all of that is fragile,' says Douglas Jones, a computer science professor at the University of Iowa who has consulted for both political parties. The state GOP fears such a delay could disrupt the traditional influence of Iowa's first-in-the-nation vote. 'With the eyes of the media on the state, the last thing we want to do is have a situation where there is trouble with the reporting system,' says Wes Enos, a member of the Iowa GOP's central committee. The GOP is encouraging party activists who run the precinct votes to use paper ballots instead of a show of hands, which has been the practice in some areas so the ballots can provide a backup in the event of any later confusion about the results. 'There is really only one way — and it needn't be a secret — to help assure that results cannot easily be manipulated by either Anonymous or by GOP officials themselves,' writes Brad Friedman. 'The hand-counted paper ballot system, with decentralized results posted at the "precincts," is the only way to try and protect against manipulation of the results from either insiders or outsiders.'"
Caucuses are a bad idea to begin with. They value a better organized/paid for campaign over a better candidate. Also, why are Iowa and New Hampshire so special that they get to vote first and eliminate candidtes that may do better in other areas? The first primaries should be done on a rotating basis.
Punish it for what it is: an attempted coup. Maybe this shouldn't count as "real voter fraud," but in general, democratic societies ought to punish organized voter fraud as a form of "attempting to overthrow the government." If the federal government were to hang a few people for attempting to systematically defraud the electorate, I think you'd see a lot fewer people willing to engage in the practice.
But if he does, they can blame it on some anonymous hackers.
Which of course it must be if (insertRandomCandidateHere) wins.
It's a bit of a waste though, everyone knows they save the real hacking for the final tally counts to decide president, not this early stage. Maybe the GOP are just upset 4chan peeps are going to decide the next president and not Karl Rove?
Waiting for an amusing sig.
Normally New Hampshire disagrees with Iowa, so they don't get to pick nominees on their own. It's just that they get to pick one of the two candidates that will be viable for the rest of the slugfest.
Iowans aren't the simpletons that they are often portrayed as. Maybe they aren't Masters of the Universe, but they know what the game is and the game is to milk every candidate for as much as they can. The most they have done so far this election cycle as far as picking candidates is bleed the Bachmann campaign dry, which I wouldn't class as a negative outcome. Mittens isn't my candidate, but he knows that Iowa knows they game and only started making a real effort once the other candidates beat each other to hell.
http://www.aaronrogier.net
I don't recall hacktivists running Gitmo, or waterboarding people, or renditioning them, or claiming that the AUMF authorizes the President to assassinate American citizens. Am I missing something?