Hillary Clinton could have been robbed of the presidency by hackers, a group of experts claims – and now they’re calling for her to demand a recount.
The team, which includes voting rights experts and computer security buffs, says it has compelling evidence that Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania could have been hacked to artificially lower turnout.
They’re now pressuring the Clinton group to call for an independent recount that could swing the needle of the election in the Democrats’ favor, New York magazine reported.
The states offer two kinds of voting: One in which paper votes are counted by an optical scanning machine (and checked in random samples by humans) and one in which the vote is inputted directly into a computer.
The group says that Clinton received 7 per cent fewer votes in those counties of Wisconsin in which votes were counted electronically, compared to those with paper ballots and optical scanners.
That suggests Clinton’s counts may have been artificially lowered from within the counting machines by hackers, while the paper counts – not being susceptible to hacking – remained unaffected, they say.
According to their calculations, such a hack could have cost Clinton 30,000 votes in Wisconsin. She lost that state – and its ten Electoral College votes – by 27,000.
Michigan was too close to call with a gap of 11,000, denying Clinton its 16 Electoral College votes, and she lost Pennsylvania’s 20 Electoral College votes by 68,236.
Though there’s been no suggestion of possible culprits in the potential hacking, the DNC blamed Russia for mid-election-season hacks of Democrat email accounts.
If an independent investigation could prove hacking – and a recount granted Clinton those three states – then she would be made President after all.
But it’s by no means a done deal.
At present all the experts have is the suspicious drop in voters in counties with electronic polling – not direct proof of hacker intervention.
There’s also not much time left for the Clinton team to make their decision.
If they want to file a recount in Wisconsin the deadline is Friday. In Pennsylvania they have until Monday. And in Michigan the cut-off is November 30.
Experts would also have to examine the voting machines to see if there was evidence of hacking.
And according to New York magazine, the White House does not want the Clinton team to push for a recount, as it is trying to ensure a smooth transition between the Obama and Trump administrations.
It also emerged today that six Democratic electors have agreed to try to block Donald Trump from securing the presidency with 270 Electoral College votes.
That’s not nearly enough to undermine Trump’s lead, and even if they did block the votes, the Republican-led House of Representatives would probably vote him in anyway.
But the protest could call into question the practice of using the Electoral College.
Sign up for Ghana Star News to receive daily email alerts of breaking news in Ghana. GhanaStar.com is your source for all Ghana News. Get the latest Ghana news, breaking news, sports, politics, entertainment and more about Ghana, Africa and beyond.
