“Less than 80,000 votes in three key states swung the election” (James Clapper)

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12 June 2018

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Common sense | Russia | USA | USA-Trump

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Contrary to other democracies, the U.S. does not have a system of proportional representation in its presidential elections. It uses a so called Electoral College system, which gives more electoral weight to sparsely populated areas, like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Nevertheless, the outcome of both systems was similar for nearly 150 years, expect for the five presidential elections of: 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016 (Wiki). The 2016 US presidential elections showed the largest ever discrepancy between both outcomes: the losing candidate had nearly 3 million popular votes more than the winning candidate. Based on the Electoral College outcome, Donald Trump was elected as 45th President.

Subsequently, some statisticians like Alex Halderman, professor of Computer Science at the University of Michigan, noted strange fluctuations (ie, anomalies) in the outcome of three states: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (NY Mag-2016, Halderman-2016). A recount of the ballots in these 3 states did reveal inconsistencies but no massive voter fraud (yet) (Guardian).

In his 2018 book, “Facts and Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence“, former long-term Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, writes the following:

“Of course the Russian effort affected the outcome. Surprising even themselves, they swung the election to a Trump win. To conclude otherwise stretches logic, common sense, and credulity to the breaking point. Less than 80,000 votes in three key states swung the election. I have no doubt that more votes than that were influenced by this massive effort by the Russians.” (the Hill)

The diagram in my 23 June 2017 blog (“The 45th President – Follow The Russian Money“) shows the actors of the Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections (Wiki). In May 2017, Robert Mueller was appointed as Special Counsel overseeing the investigation of the 2016 interference.

In March 2018, additional information revealed a new (and old) actor, which then resulted in the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal. Facebook published Russian paid ads to target and swing the opinion of specific voters, identified by Cambridge Analytica.

Some (known) items that summarise how the 2016 U.S. election was swung:

gerrymandering or redistricting for political advantage (my 2017 blog);
targeting (black) voters not to vote, a.k.a. voter suppression (Bloomberg-2018);
targeting (white) voters and swinging their opinion through fake news (WaPo-2018);
hacking voter systems in (at least) 39 U.S. states (CNBC-2018, NYT-2017, Vox-2017);
ignoring the impact of urbanisation in the USA on the Electoral College system.