32 NEWSWEEK.COM AUGUST 14, 2020
technology for voting, the more fragility there is
in the system to exploit.”
Yet 29 states and the District of Columbia cur-
rently rely on machines for all or some of their
voting, and many states and counties seem eager
to invest more in digital voting machines, in spite
of their spotty records. Los Angeles County spent
$300 million to get new machines ready in time
for California’s March primary, only to see soft-
ware problems cause wait times of three hours
and more. (The county later said the delays were
due to the electronic system that checks voters in,
not the machines, but Stark disputes that claim.)
Meanwhile, cybersecurity experts warn that
Russia, China and North Korea all have the capa-
bility to corrupt or disrupt electronic voting this
November. They have the motivation, too: Sowing
chaos in a major adversary and the world’s largest
democracy advances their own anti-democratic
ambitions, both internally and internationally. All
three countries have been implicated in hacking
events involving computers related to U.S. elections.
The mere suspicion that vote-counting is riddled
with errors and cyberfraud could provide fertile
ground for arguments about illegitimate results
from the losing side.
Hacking the Electoral College
the biggest risk in the november elections
may well be the ambiguities and gaps in federal
election laws that leave an election-swaying hole
big enough for Republicans to drive a truck full of
phony ballots through. That’s the judgment of Law-
rence Douglas, an Amherst College law professor
and election-law expert, and author of the recent
book Will He Go: Trump and the Looming Electoral
Meltdown in 2020 (Twelve).
The risk hinges on the possibility that key state
Republican legislatures will direct their states’ elec-
toral votes to Trump even if he loses. That auda-
cious trick, says Douglas, would take advantage of
delays of days or even weeks for mail-in votes to be
counted. A legislature could simply declare an end
to the counting process on election night or at any
point thereafter when Trump is temporarily in the
lead in the count, without regard for whether the
remaining uncounted votes would put Biden on
top. The legislature could then submit the state’s
electoral votes to Congress as votes for Trump.
In split-party states such as Michigan, North
Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Democratic
governors could counter by submitting rival elec-
toral votes to Congress that are based on the final
count—which, in this hypothetical scenario, would
indicate a victory for Biden. The U.S. Congress
would have to sort out the mess. “There’s nothing
in the law to stop states from submitting compet-
ing electoral certificates,” says Douglas. “And once it
lands in Congress’ lap, the courts have no jurisdic-
tion at all. Even the Supreme Court can’t intervene.”
It gets worse: Congress may not be able to agree
on what to do. There is no mechanism in the Con-
stitution for dealing with the problem, and the
Senate and House would likely come to opposite
conclusions, given their contrasting partisanship.
In that case, both candidates could fall short of theWILL YOU COMMIT TO $&&(37,1*
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