How to rig elections [video]

https://media.ccc.de/v/why2025-218-how-to-rig-elections

by todsacerdoti • 11 months ago

196 73 11 months ago

media.ccc.de

https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.04535

echelon_musk• 11 months ago

Courageous.

kwanbix• 11 months ago

Very.

nonethewiser4• 11 months ago

Well this starts off with a bang:

In germany we just saw very public rigging of an election for the federal high court of justice.

Not familiar with that but I imagine that is going to be a controversial statement.

Using Russia as a subject is interesting. A western audience is probably a lot less defensive against the idea that Russia rigs their elections. The video looks interesting.

V__2• 11 months ago

It isn't. A right wind millionaire and his media outlet started a fake campaign against the potential judge. Other media and social media jumped on it as well and the "normal" conservative party was "concerned". A lot of heel-dragging later, the judge had enough and withdrew herself from consideration.

immibis2• 11 months ago

In Germany it's often illegal to make strong statements like this unless they can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Is that the case?

(That's partly why Germany is getting infested with Nazis again. You can go to jail for calling them out.)

tietjens• 11 months ago

It shouldn’t be that controversial a statement. It’s an accurate assessment of what happened this summer in Germany. A judicial candidate was destroyed by false claims online. To me it seemed like German politicians were reading too much US news and wound up aping patterns seen there.

devjab• 11 months ago

Not familiar with that but I imagine that is going to be a controversial statement.

I'm not sure if it's fair to call it rigging, but there was a massive smear campaign against a judge nominated for their constitutional court. Leading to the nomination being withdrawn when it really should've been an appointment as usual. Which is likely the first massive step toward Germany politicising one of the foundations of their democracy, similar to how the USA supreme court seems like it's red vs blue when looked on from the outside.

I'm guessing this conference is rather left leaning, which is why they'd called that rigging, but there wasn't election fraud. It's an issue of course, since this means that rich people can essentially buy massive influence on the German democracy by clever use of social media and lies. Which may seem like the norm to a lot of people on HN, but that's not how it has traditionally been in Germany.

nozzlegear• 11 months ago

similar to how the USA supreme court seems like it's red vs blue when looked on from the outside.

It's not just the outside who see it that way!

hungryhobbit• 11 months ago

There's no "seeming": the current US Supreme Court is nakedly political.

stronglikedan2• 11 months ago

So they Kavanaugh'd him, but it actually worked!

ooopdddddd• 11 months ago

You are talking like this is the first time judges have been blocked for political reasons. See Horst Dreier in 2008 as a high-profile example.

meibo• 11 months ago

Not to mention that one of the major issues in that debate (for the supposedly "centrist" party) was abortion rights - even though most of her views on the topic were fairly in line with other sitting judges.

It's now alleged that this was caused by a disinformation campaign targeting MPs of that party.

https://www.volksverpetzer.de/analyse/brosius-gersdorf-union...

nonethewiser4• 11 months ago

Thank you for the context. Everyone can draw their own conclusions but its helpful having more context on what they were talking about.

dathinab2• 11 months ago

imagine that is going to be a controversial statement.

not really

but compared to what seems to be happened nearly daily in the US it really is not a big deal

but compared to what is supposed to happen it was a big deal

which seems to be a common trend, being very pissed of about what happened in German politics, then looking to the US and being "they did what now!?", oh it seems things are still fine here

sho_hn• 11 months ago

Maybe pick a functional democracy as your yardstick?

nonethewiser4• 11 months ago

but compared to what seems to be happened nearly daily in the US it really is not a big deal

Can you clarify what you're talking about? The most analogous situation I can think of is the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing which is basically the complete opposite outcome. Tremendous pressure applied against his confirmation which ultimately didnt influence the outcome.

churchill4• 11 months ago

Watching this brings back memories of Nigeria's 2023 elections. It was (one of a series of) turning point(s) for me when it slowly sank in that the country wasn't worth building a life in. Working remotely & spending in a local currency meant that for the past couple of years, I was insulated and could accumulate savings with little effort. But, the blatant corruption pushed me off the edge.

Quick scan of my social network just confirms the same: anyone extremely agentic, intelligent, or educated I know has either left, is in the process of leaving, or is considering leaving.

Last person out of Nigeria can turn the lights off.

adiabatichottub2• 11 months ago

That's very sad to hear. I've been to Lagos and I always have wished I could have visited longer. As an American I found it an absolutely fascinating place.

churchill4• 11 months ago

I'm happy (?) you found it fascinating, but only because you were visiting. If you had to live in Lagos for, say, 1 year, your opinion would change drastically and you'd be eager to leave.

pastage• 11 months ago

Considering the population growth of Nigeria I find it hard to believe that one of the most populated countries in the world will ever run out of talented people.

churchill4• 11 months ago

The systems eroding the country & making the educated & talented leave will make any new batch raised to self-select out of the country. In fact, successive generations of talented kids won't even be raised (or, only at a significantly reduced rate) because of poor investment in education.

Or, to be blunt: a syndicate of evil clown politicians have seized control of the ship of state, looting it of anything not bolted down, and murdering anyone who challenges them.

Fixing it is an extremely high-cost endeavor, so leaving is just the only logical option if you have a portable, in-demand skill.

Perfect example would be 1940s China vs. modern China. Same people, but went from a pre-industrial hellhole to a technological superpower because the gov. deliberately invested into creating a sustainable STEM pipeline and creating a nation where their talented young people are happy to live and work. Nigeria isn't doing any of that in any significant capacity.

On the population angle, Nigeria's politicians have a thing for fudging population numbers and realistic figures are closer to 120M to 140M, vs. the 240-260m Western demographers take at face value. I explained in detail in this comment here. [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44870564

bombcar• 11 months ago

Population may also be misreported because allocations and power for some depend on the population numbers.

rayiner2• 11 months ago

This is why my dad left Bangladesh in 1989. Over the years he developed hope that maybe things had turned around. For awhile, the government wasn’t quite so corrupt and GDP was growing at a fast clip. Then the people overthrew the government and now who knows. I could see that he was upset about having believed for the moment in the country getting better.

churchill4• 11 months ago

I've been through your comment history and I can relate. If you're highly placed enough as an elite, you can form a counter-elite and stage a change of government.

But, in most cases, if you have portable, in-demand skills, it's more reasonable to decamp to a better team than try to fix a failing one. The ones with enough proximity to make any change are usually co-opted, driven into exile, threatened into compliance, or straight-up murdered.

Based on what I read about her and the Awami League, I think removing Hasina will be a net-positive for Bangladesh. Yunus is a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist and widely-respected, and if they can keep AL out of power, and pacify any extremists, I think Bangladesh will quickly continue growing.

rafaelm• 11 months ago

See also the last presidential elections in Venezuela, where they did not even bother to pretend they did not steal the election, even under overwhelming evidence. A year later, we are still waiting for the official ballots.

That's almost the final level. The final level would be not even holding elections...

matheusmoreira• 11 months ago

Brazilian here. Similar feelings.

At least people can actually audit paper ballot elections. In my country we use electronic voting machines. Attempts to add a paper trail were declared unconstitutional.

MisterMower5• 11 months ago

Wild that he even had the opportunity to ask these questions and do his own investigating. The exact same issues happened in a recent US election, but in ours no one was allowed to examine any of the things he was able to.

Sounds like elections in both Russia and the US are rotten these days. Curious to note which party has no desire to rectify these issues.

rcpt4• 11 months ago

What issues in the US? I know in the last election the counts had anomalies but I don't think I've seen much beyond that.

It doesn't really help that this line of thought is completely banned by one party though.

XorNot• 11 months ago

Which party?

MisterMower5• 11 months ago

In the video he shows actual footage of him observing ballot counts by hand. In the 2020 election several precincts in urban areas actively prevented observers from viewing the counting, in violation of state law.

During the hand count they discovered series of ballots that all were marked identically for the United Russia party. Hundreds of them. In the US, tens of thousands of ballots get run through tabulation machines and the result is accepted as accurate simply because the machine counted a known batch of ballots accurately. You can’t see patterns like this with electronic tabulation machines.

He also discusses voter turnout numbers in precincts that broke for Putin’s United Russia party being 80% or greater whereas most other precincts had turnout of 30-40%. He just as easily could have been describing some Detroit precincts that had 90%+ turnout in 2020.

He spends a lot of time discussing security features on ballot bags that reveal evidence they have been tampered with. He discusses chain of custody at length and describes how and when he suspects ballot bags were tampered with. In 2020, mail-in ballots were accepted without any evidence they were actually returned by the voter named on them.

This video is interesting because it describes a lot of the same issues that plagued the 2020 election but for some reason we all expect Russian elections to be rigged, but can’t conceive of ours being anything but squeaky clean.

lacoolj2• 11 months ago

I want to see his talk on quantum cryptography (referenced early in the video). Anyone have the link?

er0k• 11 months ago

https://media.ccc.de/v/why2025-217-quantum-cryptography-and-...

lacoolj2• 11 months ago

Thank you!!!

derbOac• 11 months ago

Are there center or organizations that focus on studying election fraud and manipulation and how to identify it? In a rigorous nonpartisan (to the extent that's possible) way? Organizations that would regularly support and disseminate the sorts of papers being discussed?

reactordev3• 11 months ago

[flagged]

krapp• 11 months ago

The funny thing is after Trump cried wolf so hard about the 2020 election even if that were true no one would take any Democratic attempt at an investigation seriously.

And Trump has even made statements which can easily be interpreted as admission[0].

But it doesn't matter.

[0]https://www.c-span.org/clip/white-house-event/user-clip-trum...

reactordev3• 11 months ago

That’s right. Cry wolf, no foul, cry wolf again but this time, commit foul. Cry wolf one more time for good measure and unleash the military on the citizens.

slg• 11 months ago

I'm incredibly skeptical of the idea that Trump stole the election, especially when stuff like that video is used as evidence. Trump is clearly referring to the 2020 election. He is saying that if that election wasn't "rigged", his second term would be over by now, but since it was (in his opinion) "rigged", he will still be president during the World Cup.

All that said, one thing I can't get out of my mind is perhaps the most consistent trait of Trump's political career is him projecting his weaknesses and crimes on others as a preemptive defense for when those same criticisms are made about him. So any time he accuses his opponents of something, it should probably raise red flags for his own behavior.

esafak• 11 months ago

If you'd rather read about it: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.04535

dang• 11 months ago

We'll put that link at the top as well. Thanks!

arctics• 11 months ago

So to summarize, people did vote for Putin, major opposition was blocked, local elections are rigged.

nikolay• 11 months ago

In Bulgaria, the EU officials know that elections are rigged, too, but because they are rigged by their buddies, it's fine.

nesarkvechnep• 11 months ago

The Pumpkin has been bribing EU officials for 15 years. Angela Merkel raised him this way.

kindkang2024• 11 months ago

How to rig elections?

Simple: you just need the wille to rig and the power to manifest your will freely. No fancy technology, counting systems, or statistical anomalies can stop you. Quantum cryptography is useless in such a case.

Sad but true—if there isn’t enough power to balance that wille.

Rakshith• 11 months ago

So this is the russian interference Hillary was talking about?

How to rig elections [video]

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