The 2020 Election Could Have Foreign Hackers on Both Sides

New York State, for the first time, had early voting for those who could not be available on the most recent Election Day. It ran for a week prior to Election Day, so it covered the weekend for our residents who are not in these parts during the week. In my district, it was set up in the recreation room of an affordable housing complex on Accabonac Road in Amagansett. I voted there. Lots of happy people voting with poll watchers watching, exercising our constitutional rights.

The big election coming up is not the one just past, of course, it is the election of 2020, when Donald Trump, if he is still President, will fend off the challenge from a Democrat and perhaps an Independent.

Given what happened in 2016, I think the 2020 election will not be decided as a result of a free and open process, but by a candidate which gets out the most fake news about their opponent.

Our government hasn’t done much to reverse what happened four years ago. This close 2016 election was decided, in my opinion, by the Russians, not because they could hack into the election voting results (because they did not do that), but because they slimed the Democratic candidate with so much fake news cooked up ahead of time, all broadcast from what appeared to be reputable sources. These included TV anchor desks, websites, social media platforms and reporters who reported that Hillary had killed one of her friends and Hillary was running a child labor ring out of a pizza restaurant in Washington D.C. The gullible public took that in and figured well, if it’s not true, why is it on my computer?

Given this, and given the improvements in hacking technology, I believe that China will get in the act, the Russians will get in the act, the North Koreans will attack and the Iranians will attack.

The real issue then is which countries would support or work to dethrone Trump. They will hack for their best interest, which clearly they did in 2016. I read somewhere that our government this year fended off more than 2,700 computer attacks from the Iranians in just a single month. The Iranians were doing well before Trump was elected and then doing terrible afterwards, so they will probably set up fake news outlets to create outrageous fake news about Trump rather than the Democrat.

Interesting, isn’t it. My cynical view is that the 2020 election will be won by our enemies.