THEY CALL IT "SEE BS" FOR A REASON
- 6 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
The comedy is unrelenting. Everyone’s favourite politician, Donald J. Trump, halfway through is final term, delivered a speech to the public about all the vulnerabilities associated with state and federal elections as identified by the country’s intelligence community.
Deviating from prior pronouncements, the President did not explicitly say that his own or any other elections had been affected or even so much as one vote altered. Instead, he made public formerly classified US intelligence reports regarding a whole spectrum of critical vulnerabilities. Problems include: the ability for ineligible persons to vote in through flawed absentee voting and anyone simply being able to walk into a polling station and cast a ballot; the susceptibility of voter rolls and voting machines to hacking and manipulation; as well as demonstrable threats posed by adversaries attempting to, and occasionally succeeding in, stealing data on voters, politicians, and political campaigns and otherwise compromising elections.
More than that, Trump made a serious accusation. He said that the US intelligence community learned of millions of voters' data being “bought, stolen, or hacked” by China and that they withheld this information from him and his team. He also claims, and tells us his declassified documents reveal, the Chinese undertook a far more ambitious campaign to determine the outcome of the 2020 election that goes well beyond what intelligence officials previously revealed.
Without airing the President's speech and before they’d even had time to review the four tranches of data submitted for public review, CBS offered a debunking of their beloved Trump: “FACT CHECK RATING: False.” Most hilariously, they explain how there's been no evidence of malicious activity and that everyone worth asking agrees that recent elections have been the most secure in history.
I couldn't believe what I was reading, given the bipartisan nature of the problem, no less than a decade of fervent accusations from both sides, and so much continual reporting on stories relating to all these themes by media across the political spectrum.
It didn’t matter that previously unavailable information was released. And it really didn’t matter that anyone in the English-speaking world born before 2005 could probably recall dozens of reports and investigations by CBS alone raising the alarm about voter fraud and election interference at all levels and coming from all directions through the misdeeds of malicious actors, foreign and domestic, and even elected officials, civil servants, and the general public.
To jog my memory, I Googled “CBS election interference” and “CBS voter fraud” and got quite the list:
May 23, 2016 - “CBS LA Investigation Uncovers Votes Being Cast From Grave Year After Year”
August 10, 2016 - “Hacker demonstrates how voting machines can be compromised”
October 26, 2016 - “CBS4 Investigation Finds People Voting Twice”
October 26, 2016 - “Hacking techniques used against DNC, Podesta also targeted journalists covering Russia”
August 24, 2017 - “Issues That Matter: Presidential campaign managers take on election hacking in bipartisan push”
September 7, 2017 - “Equifax targeted by cyberattack: As many as 143 million customers may have had their names, social security numbers and credit card numbers stolen”
October 10, 2017 - “U.S. voting machines are susceptible to hacking by foreign actors”
November 3, 2017 - “Former Clinton campaign aide says rigged election claim is ‘overstating’ things”
July 13, 2018 - “Russians relied on bitcoin to finance election hacking, prosecutors say”
July 13, 2018 - “Intel chief Dan Coats says of cyberattacks, 'We are at a critical point'”
July 14, 2018 - “Top state election officials meet amid security concerns”
July 17, 2018 - “When Russian hackers targeted the U.S. election infrastructure”
July 27, 2018 - “Sen. Claire McCaskill confirms unsuccessful Russian hacking attempt”
August 7, 2018 - “Election cybersecurity takes center stage at hacker convention in Las Vegas”
August 12, 2018 - “Hacking Democracy: What happened when Russia hacked the United States' election infrastructure?”
September 5, 2018 - “Phishing for political secrets: Hackers take aim at midterm campaigns”
September 12, 2018 - “How hackers influence voters with social media”
September 12, 2018 - “How to hack the midterm election with social media”
September 19, 2018 - “Why voting machines in the U.S. are easy targets for hackers”
September 26, 2018 - “The dark web is where hackers buy the tools to subvert elections”
October 2, 2018 - “US infrastructure vulnerable to cyberattacks designed to suppress voter turnout”
October 3, 2018 - “How hackers could target a city's critical infrastructure on Election Day”
October 10, 2018 - “How cyberattackers target elections”
October 10, 2018 - “These are the hackers targeting the midterm election”
October 17, 2018 - “How hackers are using artificial intelligence to target campaigns”
October 24, 2018 - “These states are battling malware ahead of the midterm election”
October 24, 2018 - “How malware could disrupt midterm elections”
September 5, 2019 - “Federal intelligence officials meet tech firms at Facebook to discuss election security”
September 29, 2019 - “Clinton tells CBS ‘Trump knows he's an illegitimate president,’ election was ‘stolen’”
November 24, 2019 - “How Russian intelligence officers interfered in the 2016 election”
February 10, 2020 - “Justice Department reveals charges in massive Equifax hack”
February 10, 2020 - “China-backed hackers charged in massive Equifax data breach”
February 11, 2020 - “Justice Department charges 4 members of Chinese military for massive Equifax hack”
February 11, 2020 - “Data from Equifax credit hack could 'end up on the black market,' expert warns”
July 24, 2020 - “Vote-by-mail experiment reveals potential problems within postal voting system ahead of November election”
August 4, 2020 - “2020 election could be under threat from "old adversaries" and "domestic disinformation campaigns”
August 18, 2020 - “Senate Intelligence Committee releases final report on 2016 Russian interference”
September 10, 2020 - “Russia, China and Iran ramping up attacks ahead of election, Microsoft warns”
October 22, 2020 - “Iran and Russia accessed some voter registration data, top intel officials say”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-russia-voter-registration-data-2020-election-national-intelligence
October 29, 2020 - “Wisconsin Republican Party says hackers stole $2.3 million”
May 22, 2021 - “New voter ID rules raise concerns of fraud, ballot rejection”
May 12, 2022 - “Muse Mohamud Mohamed Found Guilty Of Lying In Minneapolis Vote Fraud Trial”
October 19, 2022 - “Voters With Felony Convictions Arrested By Gov. DeSantis' Election Fraud Task Force”
November 8, 2023 - “Russia, Iran, China likely to engage in new election interference efforts, Microsoft analysis finds”
August 7, 2024 - “Republican activist becomes first person convicted in Arizona fake electors case”
October 4, 2024 - “7 Michigan people charged with double voting incident in Macomb County”
October 5, 2024 - Tina Peters' sentence draws applause and outrage. Supporters call her a ‘hero,’ judge calls her a ‘charlatan.’”
October 21, 2024 - “The X factor: How Trump ally Elon Musk is using social media to prime voter mistrust ahead of 2024 election”
October 31, 2024 - “Non-U.S. citizen charged with illegally registering to vote, casting ballot in Michigan general election”
https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/non-us-citizen-charged-casting-ballot-michigan-general-election
October 31, 2024 - “Trump sues CBS News over 60 Minutes interview with Harris; network says suit is ‘completely without merit’”
November 5, 2024 - “FBI warns that fake videos using its name, insignia are spreading election misinformation”
November 5, 2024 - “What we know about reports of fraudulent voter registration applications in Pennsylvania”
February 25, 2025 - “Election systems feared to be vulnerable as Trump administration cuts workers tasked with security”
April 5, 2025 - “4 Hamtramck city councilmembers named in Michigan election fraud investigation”
May 19, 2025 - “Wendy McMahon to step down as president and CEO of CBS News, Stations and CBS Media Ventures”
July 2, 2025 - “Paramount, President Trump reach $16 million settlement over ‘60 Minutes’ lawsuit”
August 11, 2025 - “2 Hamtramck City Council members charged with election fraud, forgery”
September 5, 2025 - “Orange County woman charged for illegally registering dog to vote in 2021, 2022 elections”
September 25, 2025 - “Justice Department sues 6 states for failing to turn over voter registration rolls”
October 23, 2025 - “Castle Rock woman convicted of voter fraud in 2022 election”
March 5, 2026 - “Pennsylvania man convicted of voting for Donald Trump twice in 2020 election”
So, as you can see, any suggestion that there have been or could ever be vulnerabilities associated with America's elections or that the results could be manipulated is completely fraudulent and without merit — really, an attempt in itself to manipulate elections and sow doubt in the integrity of America's democracy. Obviously.
