# What is the Most Evil Thing Hackers Could do in the 2020 Elections? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 5, 2019, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558 "2019-07-05T07:07:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/1 "2019-07-05T07:07:36Z")
I hope this is in the right forum. So suppose you were in charge of the Russian/Chinese/Israeli/Iranian effort to mess with the US election, for whatever reason or for whichever candidate. What would you do? Kicking the idea around I came up with a few ideas. Most evil would be hacking a couple of country election boards to change or appear to change the vote tallies. _Then let everyone know about two days after the election._ This would undermine trust in The System and spark lots of courtroom activities. After all, how could you know your county was not also hacked? Any dirty trick would work well two days before the election. Release a fake news story, a fake video or photo just long enough before the election to go viral, but without enough time for a rebuttal to gain traction. But I am sure we all together could come up with something more clever than I can alone. What do you think? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/2 "2019-07-05T10:02:24Z")
No, I think that’s probably it - undermining public faith in the validity of the electoral process will suppress public voting and encourage authoritarianism. It doesn’t even matter which way they alter the vote (in fact, hackers swinging the vote in favor of the party they _don’t_ like and then revealing the hack would negatively impact that party in the future). ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/3 "2019-07-05T11:33:34Z")
I’d make the announcement that the election has been compromised just before the election. Feed the pre-existing prejudices of voter suppression and/or illegitimate voting. There are any number of just regular snafus that will occur in any general election of the scale and diversity of the US’s systems to further fuel suspicions. Make sure each gets plenty of attention in the social media platforms. Maybe play silly buggers with the power supply to polling stations where some VIPs or candidates vote. Feed in some dodgy exit polling data to suggest a rogue swing is on. Leave a few bundles of obviously spurious blank ballot papers in a state/district using hardcopy ballots outside polling stations. Get a few imitation or surplus ballot boxes, fill them with forged votes and dump them somewhere not too well hidden. They don’t need to affect a single legitimate vote, just get both sides to not trust the result. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/4 "2019-07-05T11:38:57Z")
Voter registration systems are more vulnerable than election result systems. – Datamine likely voters for whichever party you want to suppress and delete 1% or so of their registrations. This would be enough that it wouldn’t be noticed if it happened close to the election but enough to cause chaos on election day as thousands of people would be unable to vote. – Falsely add thousands of people for whichever party you want to suppress and make this _registration_ (but not the hack) public. Definitely record that they registered as the party you oppose. Make up some of the names out of whole cloth but make them sound ethnic. Register a handful of other real people that are ineligible to vote, and register some legitimate voters twice with variants of their registration data. This ploy will be easily uncovered by those who care about the truth, but the kernel of real events will be comforting to those who insist that there are millions of illegal voters, in addition to lowering the confidence of election results. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/5 "2019-07-05T16:04:47Z")
Since the OP is asking for opinions, I think this is better suited to IMHO. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/6 "2019-07-05T16:32:02Z")
I hate thinking about this, but what might be relatively easy for hackers to actually accomplish and would do a massive amount of damage - alter the pages Election Commissions use to communicate the vote totals to the media, and do it on Election Night. Everybody’s glued to their TV’s and screens, and even the major networks seem to rely entirely on these pages to find out what vote totals are at any given moment. Can you imagine the loss of faith people will have in the process if Trump leads Harris by 1,500,000 votes in Ohio at 7:30 pm, then Harris leads Trump by 1,500,000 votes in Ohio at 8 pm? Both numbers can be obviously false, but the networks would breathlessly report them anyway, and by the time it can be demonstrated that one or both sets of those numbers were false, partisans will already take the number they like and reject the other number as falsified, regardless of the evidence. The way to fight this is to verify the number before broadcasting it, but that’s not really how modern media reportage and the pressure of the rapid news demand on Election Day/Night works. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/7 "2019-07-05T16:48:21Z")
They don’t even need to do anything, just threaten to do/state that they did something. Cite: [ISIS & Macy’s Parade](https://www.ibtimes.com/isis-targeting-macys-thanksgiving-parade-islamic-state-group-asks-lone-wolf-attackers-2445577). > [@](#): > > The New York Police Department said Monday it will reinforce security measures after the Islamic State group threatened to attack the 90th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill confirmed police had reviewed the threat that appeared in Rumiyah, a magazine distributed by the militant group also known as ISIS. > > O’Neill said no specific plot was uncovered, but threats made by terrorist organizations were treated as credible. "We live in a world where you have terrorist organizations like ISIL and Al Qaeda that pose credible threats. With the belief that the election may be compromised , the ‘right’ people stating they did such will make it believed that they did, even w/o proof that they did. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/8 "2019-07-05T16:52:16Z")
I would probably go with making Richard Nixon the write-in winner in one precinct in each state and just stay silent from there. Let them guess what else I did/was capable of. But for a serious attack I would go after voter registration - again picking semi-obvious false registrations (God, Nero, Nixon) and registering them in a lot of places and then just remain silent. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/9 "2019-07-05T20:00:25Z")
The Presidential election should be the target. Just make things weird. E.g., have quite a few black-majority precincts in as many states as possible have 100% turnout and 100% vote for Trump. It would be obvious that the election was tampered with. But enough for a do over? It’d would be a huge mess in the courts that would make 2000 look trivial by comparison. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/10 "2019-07-05T21:05:11Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > It would be obvious that the election was tampered with. But enough for a do over? It’d would be a huge mess in the courts that would make 2000 look trivial by comparison. It’s more effective for the hackers when there is some kind of plausible deniability for the tampering. If the hacking is completely obvious and undeniable, then most people would generally agree upon the nature of the problem. It’s better for the hackers if the hacking is only suspected. Then people will be ever accusing each other as the enemy, rather than all agreeing that it is the foreign agent causing the problem. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/11 "2019-07-05T21:30:11Z")
In another thread about a conversation I had with my Congressman Joaquin Castro, I outlined my greatest worry was open and blatant cheating which helps only the Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/12 "2019-07-05T23:12:29Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > The Presidential election should be the target. Just make things weird. > > E.g., have quite a few black-majority precincts in as many states as possible have 100% turnout and 100% vote for Trump. > > It would be obvious that the election was tampered with. But enough for a do over? It’d would be a huge mess in the courts that would make 2000 look trivial by comparison. No, Scotus would simply declare that Trump was the winner. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/13 "2019-07-06T01:30:52Z")
Announce the final vote tallies for specific locations two days before the actual election. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/14 "2019-07-06T12:26:44Z")
Nothing makes Americans more upset than the rumor of child sex rings. That’s a leverage point. There are other leverage points too. Let’s see what they use this time. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/15 "2019-07-06T13:11:17Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > … then most people would generally agree upon the nature of the problem. The last few years conclusive disproves that this isn’t going to happen. Facts no longer matter. ---
**Author:** ![HelenGawn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@HelenGawn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelenGawn)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/16 "2019-07-06T19:45:40Z")
Use various hacks against all party’s candidates. Make it look like it was done by multiple agents, friend and foe. Watch trump get flummoxed when Vlad tries to beat him and Iran supports him. ---
**Author:** ![Tempe\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tempe_jeff/32/7328_2.png) [@Tempe\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tempe_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/17 "2019-07-06T21:56:20Z")
Old and busted: Trump won’t accept the results of the Election !!! New and cool: Trump will steal the Election !! Putin!!1!! Make up your minds; or not. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/18 "2019-07-11T11:15:32Z")
In answer to the OP title, nothing as bad as the reactions to real or perceived hacking of the election would be. Edited to add: For reference look at the previous two years. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/19 "2019-07-11T18:01:43Z")
> [@Tempe\_Jeff](#): > > Old and busted: Trump won’t accept the results of the Election !!! > > New and cool: Trump will steal the Election !! Putin!!1!! How are those two things unrelated? Trump didn’t accept the results of the election he _won_. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-evil-thing-hackers-could-do-in-the-2020-elections/836558/20 "2019-07-11T22:54:43Z")
IMHO changing the vote tally for a small Democratic victory to a larger Democratic victory, but making it obvious. Trump would claim the election was stolen, and he might succeed in keeping the presidency.