“A who?”
“It’s a what, actually. A time bomb, if you prefer. Hidden code triggered to release its package into the Montgomery County voter database at 7:00 AM on Election Day.”
“How do you know that?”
“I was able to reconstitute a few lines of code from one of our backups. These guys were good. When I started sniffing for malware, it must have triggered an exploit that altered the hash so our virus protection software and even the ALBERT system didn’t detect the intrusion.”
“The hash?”
“Yeah. That’s a summary number of all the code in a particular program. If it’s off by a single digit, you know that someone has altered the code. So the Gh0st RAT replaced the hash files and substituted its own hash for ours. When our virus detectors sniffed the program, the current hash matched the one on file. So they came back with, nothing to see here, move on.”
“But the one on file had been altered.”
“Right.”
“And so the time bomb. What was that?”
“That was code that randomly erased ten percent of all registered Republicans from the voter rolls and erased the primary returns as well so we couldn’t confirm their registration against the primary vote.”
“That’s why we had so many complaints of voters who were unable to vote.”
“Yes. We instructed the precincts to allow them to vote provisional, so eventually their votes will be counted.”
“Still, even if it worked throughout the District, that would only lower our total by three percent, since we have thirty percent registered Republicans district-wide.”
“Actually, it would have even less impact, since it only hit Montgomery.”
“So that doesn’t explain the results.”
Gordon was silent.
“Gordon?”
“You’re right. That doesn’t explain the results,” he said. “There has to be something else I’ve missed.”
Gordon was scrolling through the results in Montgomery County and there were a lot of things that made no sense.
“We’re going to be posting precinct by precinct results in a few minutes,” he said. “You need to take a close look at them. I am assuming you have polling data down at that level?”
“Of course,” Annie said. “We had a pretty good idea exactly where our votes were coming from.”
“Would you be willing to share that with me on the QT for Montgomery?”
“Sure. Well, let me ask the boss. But I’m sure he’ll say yes.”
When she sent him the data files a few minutes later, Gordon knew exactly where to look. There were two areas in Montgomery County where Aguilar had been campaigning hard and that he expected to flip from the Democrats in order to win the district. These were the heavily Hispanic precincts around Wheaton and Silver Spring, and the Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Kemp Mill. Wheaton and Silver Spring normally went around 75 percent to 80 percent Democrat, and that’s exactly what the combined results from early voting and Election Day on his screen were showing. But Aguilar’s polls showed exactly the opposite, with him winning between 58 percent and 63 percent in those areas. His polls also showed him surging new voters in those precincts, so their numbers contributed to his overall win. What happened?
The Kemp Mill precincts should be even more telling. There were a handful of Orthodox synagogues that ministered to a heavily Orthodox Jewish population. If you drove through the neighborhood on Friday evening or Saturday morning, you would see families walking together to shul, the men wearing hats and the women covering their hair with nets. It was like a piece of old Europe, or of a West Bank Jewish “settlement,” transplanted to suburban Maryland. Since Bush 43, an increasing number of these voters had become Republicans. While Democrats still won the precincts, it was by much smaller numbers than in the traditional white liberal strongholds in Kensington, Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Potomac. So how was it that McKenzie had won these precincts by over 70 percent? What was going on? The same with Trump and Governor Tomlinson. He would have expected Trump to get at least 45 percent in Kemp Mill because of moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, which no previous president had agreed to do. Instead, he was hovering around 28 percent to 30 percent.
He needed ground truth, and he knew where he could get it.
He called Rabbi Yonni Paz, a long-time political acquaintance of his mother’s. What was going on, he asked him.
“What’s going on? You wanna know what’s going on, Gordy? I’ll tell you: Somebody is playing tricks. Nelson Aguilar is a mensch. He spoke in my shul. Everybody loved him. And he loves us. He has a heart for Israel.”
“I’m sure he loves your money,” Gordon said.
“Don’t be cynical. We don’t have money. All of us are broke, everybody knows that. Those are the Potomac Jews you’re thinking of. We just have lots of children, and that’s better than money.
“Those Potomac Jews. Look. The more Trump does for Israel, the more they despise him. Because they despise themselves for their betrayal of Israel. They put Israeli flags in front of their synagogues and banners saying United for Israel. But that’s just for show. They are self-hating Jews. You wanna know how they are united? They are united against Trump. And probably against our boy Nelson, too. You know, I gave Nelson a nice green embroidered kippa when he came to speak on Shabbat. I see he wore it whenever he went into shul, even with the lefties. So the visiting goy was covered, and those kosher beheymes were not.”
“So what do you think of the election results? According to our numbers, your precinct voted for McKenzie overwhelmingly, more than seventy percent.”
The Rabbi exploded. “You’re telling me what?”
“Those are the unofficial results,” Gordon said.
“There is no way my people voted for that momzer McKenzie. We despise him! He claims he is for Iron Dome and David’s Sling and Arrow 3 and you name it. And then he goes and votes against the appropriations bills every single time. Not a single penny has he voted that would help Israel! And Gaza, who can forget that! That schlump signs a letter condemning Israel with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the U.S. branch of Hamas. The self-hating Jews who support him have no family in Israel. No skin in the game. They don’t worship Elohim but the great god abortion. That is their religion.”
“So Rabbi, tell me how you really feel,” Gordon said.
“Ya, Gordy. You’re a good boy. You go figure this one out. Will ya?”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
39
At 10:30 PM, the major networks called Nevada and Virginia for Governor Tomlinson and with that, the online predicators upped the odds of a victory by Governor Tomlinson and Senator Bellinger to over 75 percent. Even though the networks had also just called Wisconsin for Trump, most of the anchors and their guests were now treating Governor Tomlinson and her running mate as the next president and vice president of the United States. The reason was simple: Governor Tomlinson had racked up such an impressive lead in Florida that it now seemed insurmountable. It didn’t matter that Michigan, Minnesota, and Arizona were still up for grabs. If the governor won Florida, it was game over.
CNN played its dramatic breaking news music, and in the Langham Hotel in Chicago, Granger sat forward on his seat. Keith Cobb picked up a piece of paper and, doing his best to suppress a smile, appeared to read from it. “It is now 10:40 PM here on the East Coast, and with eighty-five percent of precincts reporting down in Florida, CNN is projecting that the Sunshine state goes for Governor Tomlinson.”
Governor Tomlinson’s suite erupted with hoots and cheering and clapping and hollering, and Granger leapt to his feet and turned to the governor, who had remained in the sofa, next to her reverend husband, calmly watching the results.
“Madame president-elect,” he said, bowing to shake her hand.
“Not yet, Granger. It�
�s not yet official,” she said. “And we don’t yet have Pennsylvania in the bag.”
“Don’t worry, we will. We’ve got our guys working on your acceptance speech. Wonder when Trump will give you a call?”
“I’m not holding my breath,” the governor said.
“And so once again, as goes Florida, so goes the nation,” Keith Cobb was saying, trying to be profound or at least quotable. He turned to Rick Hoglan at the Magic Board to explain why CNN was making the call.
“Keith, it’s a combination of things going on here,” Hoglan said.
He explained that turnout in some heavily Republican areas, including Nassau County in the north and the Florida Panhandle, had been a bit lower than expected. That gave Trump a voter deficit from which he was never to recover. Meanwhile, down in the heavily Democrat counties of Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade, Democrats showed up in record numbers, beating even the score racked up by President Obama in 2012. The end result, with more than 85 percent of precincts reporting, was an overwhelming victory by Governor Tomlinson. “We’re looking at a victory margin of over 180,000 votes, Keith. That goes well beyond the margin of error and makes our projection desk feel confident in calling Florida for Tomlinson. With Florida, Virginia, and Nevada in the bag, that gives her 266 electoral votes, just four shy of victory.”
From here, Hoglan said, Governor Tomlinson had to win just one of the five swing states that were still too close to call: Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, or Georgia.
“With the numbers we are seeing, it’s easy to imagine her making a clean sweep of all five, Keith. That would give her 339 votes, an electoral college blow-out. But all she really needs at this point is just one of them. If Trump’s popularity in the rust belt is confirmed as most of the exit polling suggests, he could still win Michigan, and perhaps even Pennsylvania. After all, he just eked out a win in Wisconsin, which he won by 22,000 votes in 2016—the first Republican to win the state since 1984. Georgia is trending Democratic and could be a surprising pickup for the Dems this year, but with only forty-five percent of precincts reporting, it’s still too early to call. And don’t forget that Minnesota has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since the Nixon landslide of 1972. Even Hillary Clinton won Minnesota in 2016.”
“So you’re saying there are multiple pathways to 270 for Governor Tomlinson. What about for the president?” Cobb asked. “Is there any way he can still pull this off?”
“I’ve gotta tell you, Keith. That is looking increasingly unlikely. The president would have to sweep the table of all the states that remain too close to call. He’d have to win Minnesota, which we just discussed. He’d have to win Georgia, where you know there has been a very successful effort over the past eighteen months by the Democrats to register new voters—over 100,000 new voters, by latest count. He’d have to win Michigan, where as you can see, he’s running neck and neck with Governor Tomlinson—basically a tie, each of them at 49.2 percent. With just fifteen percent of the precincts left to report, and with some of those precincts in downtown Detroit, a heavily Democratic area, a win there looks unlikely for the president. And he’d have to win Pennsylvania, where the president is leading by 16,000 votes but you still have precincts in Philadelphia and suburban Delaware and Montgomery counties that have yet to report. So lots of African Americans and lots of soccer moms whose votes still need to be counted. Not Trump voters, Keith.
“And then, there’s Arizona,” he said.
Hoglan explained that Arizona had been trending purple for a number of years as Democratic voters fled California’s high taxes and over-crowded schools and moved to Phoenix where the economy was booming. “Arizona has been on the radar for Democrats ever since 2018 when Democrat Krysten Sinema beat Republican Martha McSally by more than 50,000 votes for the U.S. Senate seat that opened with the retirement of Jeff Flake. That was an electoral margin of 2.4 percent.”
“So where does Arizona stand now, Rick?”
Hoglan worked the Magic Board and explained that even though the overall numbers in Arizona were showing Trump ahead, there were large numbers of Democratic precincts that had yet to report in: Coconino and Apache counties in the north, and Pima and Santa Cruz counties along the Mexican border. These areas were going to be giving big numbers to the Tomlinson campaign and, quite probably, enough to frustrate the president from winning the state.
“So without Arizona, President Trump will be a one-term president, is that what you are saying?”
“That’s right, Keith. That is certainly one scenario.”
While the other networks began debating what a Tomlinson-Bellinger first term would look like, the visibly embarrassed anchors at Fox News brought on a panel to rip apart the refusal of their election desk to call Florida for Tomlinson. Granger had to chuckle when both Democrats and Republicans squirmed, unanimously embarrassed by the election desk fence-sitters. For a good ten minutes, they debated whether President Trump would announce his concession on Twitter, without even calling Governor Tomlinson, or issue a White House statement.
They had won, and won big. It was time for the blowhard to bow out.
Navid is the man, Granger said to himself. Navid is the man.
40
Catherine Herrera, supervisor of elections for Nassau County in northeast Florida, didn’t understand the numbers on her screen. What in the world had happened to John Rutherford?
Rutherford, a two-term former sheriff of neighboring Duval County, had been elected to Congress with more than 65 percent of the vote since 2016. But tonight, his numbers were in the mid-50s. It just didn’t make sense.
Trump was also running in the mid-50s. In this heavily Republican county, where the president practically walked on water—and there was a lot of it in Nassau County surrounding Fernandina Beach and Amelia Island—that was incomprehensible. Did people just stay home?
Her turnout screens suggested not. Of the 68,415 active registered voters, 76 percent (or nearly 52,000) had cast ballots—paper ballots, she was happy to say. Herrera was first elected to her post in 2000 and had watched in horror the Bush-Gore recount and the hanging chads. The punch-card ballots were long gone by now, and most Florida counties had switched to a system of paper ballots that voters filled out by hand and fed into scanners that tabulated the votes. In Nassau County, the precinct election judges took out the memory card from the precinct tabulator and fed it over the private VPN to her office, where the results were again tabulated, all of it under the watchful eyes of security cameras and election judges from both political parties. The precinct tabulators also kept image files for each paper ballot, and tomorrow morning the precinct judges would hand-deliver the backup memory cards from the tabulators and she would do a 100 percent audit of those image files, retabulating them to determine if there were any significant discrepancies with the totals showing up tonight.
Of course, the low Republican vote could have a perfectly legitimate explanation. Perhaps there had been some last minute political scandal she had missed, some mailer that had gone out, that had shocked Nassau County voters. But if so, she hadn’t seen it.
Or it could be over-votes, where people mistakenly filled in more than one circle per race. But why would they do that in the presidential race? And how likely was it that those same voters would also over-vote in the congressional?
Highly unlikely.
Actually, no, she thought. It’s statistically impossible.
Something was wrong. Could her voting machines have been hacked? But how? They had so many layers of security, it was hard to imagine how anyone could have accessed them all across the county and its fifteen precincts. To upload a virus to the tabulators, someone would need physical access to the machines, since they were air-locked from the public internet. She wasn’t worried about the ones in government buildings and community centers, which she could lock down. But others were located in churches
and sports complexes where just about anyone could come in. They would have to unlock the machines—okay, that wasn’t so hard, since they all had the same key. Break the tamper tape. Also possible, using nail polish remover: an old trick. Then access the operating system to upload some form of virus.
Catherine Herrera wasn’t a computer whiz and didn’t pretend to be one. But she was naturally suspicious by nature—much more so than the geeks who ran operations in most of Florida’s counties. How many state-wide conferences and seminars had she attended where the geeks pooh-poohed the security concerns she raised? “We’re in charge,” they liked to say. “We designed these systems. And we are the best. Don’t you worry your pretty li’l head about what’s gwon’on inside.”
Well, she did worry what was inside. Black box voting, everyone remembered that! And who wanted another scandal like the one in Wellington in the last election where a manual recount totally reversed the election night results? Council members announced as victors by twenty or thirty votes wound up losing by several hundred because the tabulators had been calibrated to switch columns, attributing votes for the winning candidate as votes for the loser. It was a nightmare—just the type of nightmare she wanted to avoid.
She was going to check the tabulators first thing in the morning and then do her 100 percent audit of the paper ballot images. If that didn’t explain the numbers she was seeing tonight, then they had a real problem.
A truly huge problem.
A problem so big they might never find its cause.
When she got back in the next morning, she planned to call Milford Gaines, her colleague in Okaloosa County in the strongly Republican Florida panhandle. If he had the same issues, then they could be assured this was no accident. Someone had broken into their systems.
41
The Election Heist Page 14