“That sounds pretty dire,” she said. “Don’t you think that’s going to create panic?”
“It’s better to be honest than to let people imagine the worst,” he said.
“In that case, your statement should explain to people why they can feel confident that their votes are secure, and that these problems were minor. Our systems are not under attack.”
Gordon couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Uh, ma’am, our systems are under attack. We have isolated the attack and restored all services.”
“No,” she said. “Our cybersecurity team responded to isolated calls relating to a publicly accessible database and to technical glitches in a handful of voting machines. That’s the message we need to get out. Our system is secure.”
An hour later, she emailed him a draft one of the toadies had prepared. It was titled, “Rumor Control: Just the Facts, Please,” and began with acknowledging the Election Day glitches.
“Maryland voters need to know that their voting system is secure. It includes built-in redundancies and has been subjected to rigorous security testing by an accredited national laboratory.
“Our new system includes a paper record of every vote cast. These ballots can be retabulated if needed. Voting equipment, including the tabulators citizens encounter at the polling place, are never connected to the internet. Physical access to the network is restricted and limited to election officials, all of whom have had a security background check. Furthermore, all network transactions involving the transmission of votes and tabulated results occur over a private network that is not connected to the internet. These transactions are all encrypted and logged to ensure there are no intrusions.
“As for the temporary distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the state’s voter database that occurred this morning, Maryland voters need to know that their personal data is heavily encrypted and secure. The network is constantly monitored, so no unauthorized third party can access their information. Indeed, it was precisely because of the effective security procedures we have in place that the DDoS attack was detected, isolated, and eliminated earlier today.”
The words sent a chill down Gordon’s spine. All is well, kiddies. Sleep well. Your votes are secure. Nothing can go wrong here.
He knew it was a lie and suspected that the problems he had corrected that morning were just the beginning.
30
Granger was with Governor Tomlinson and vice presidential nominee Bellinger in the Chicago war room, a top floor suite at the Langham overlooking the Chicago River and the Wrigley Building, an art deco masterpiece in the center of downtown. The hotel had set up two big screen TVs tuned to Fox News and CNN and four smaller screens on a credenza along the wall of windows showing the other networks. The campaign had booked the entire twelfth floor. The only inconvenience was that the war room overlooked Trump Tower. Governor Tomlinson couldn’t take her eyes off it, as if somehow its proximity brought her political opponent into the room with her.
By 5:00 PM, Granger was starting to rant. “Where are those big numbers we’re supposed to be racking up in Detroit and Philly?” he said to no one in particular. “Where’s Palm Beach County? Where’s Broward? Where’s Miami-Dade?” So far, his people on the ground were telling him that turnout had been hovering around 60 percent in those heavily Democratic areas. Meanwhile, the exit polls showed Trump racking up big numbers in rural counties, as Rick Hoglan was reminding him.
“It’s still early, Keith,” the CNN numbers man was saying. “There’s always a surge in turnout when the polls close. But I’ll bet you the Tomlinson camp is watching those turnout numbers just as we are. They’ve got to be paying particular attention to Philadelphia and to Montgomery and Delaware counties in the Philly suburbs, where Obama won big in 2012.”
Hoglan touched on each of the counties on his “magic wall” to contrast the 2012 and 2016 results.
“If the governor is going to pull this off, she’s going to need better numbers than Mrs. Clinton had in these deep blue precincts to counter the strong Trump turnout we’re seeing in the exurbs and the more rural counties. Right now, it’s trending in the low sixties. They need seventy-five, seventy-six percent if they’re going to win Pennsylvania—and with it, the presidency, Keith.”
Turnout didn’t always work in favor of Democrats, Granger knew. In the 2016 election, when Trump won Pennsylvania by 44,292 votes, Hillary came to within 70,000 votes of Obama’s score and conceivably could have equaled it, if Trump hadn’t surged his base and hauled in 300,000 more votes than the Romney-Ryan ticket in 2012. Even in downtown Philadelphia, where CNN and other “mainstream” networks were holding out for more Democratic votes for hours after the polls closed in 2016, Trump won 12,000 more votes than Romney-Ryan won in 2012. His “What the Hell do you have to lose” mantra to the black community had hit home. Indeed, it arguably put Pennsylvania in his corner.
Four years later, with black unemployment rates at a historic low—nearly 200 percent better than under Obama!—Trump’s approval numbers with African-American voters had gone up dramatically. They were so high—well over 30 percent—that the media stopped reporting on them a year before the election. They’d just report the top-line number and scream out the headline—52 percent of voters disapprove of President Trump! Forty-nine percent support impeachment and removal from office!—and neglect to tell their audience the rest of the story.
The rest of the story is why Granger had been so worried going into this election, and why he had hired Navid. His IT guy was supposed to pull the “Secret Switch” before the first hard results were announced, although Granger wasn’t quite sure what it was. They had agreed on target states, and the overall state numbers; the how of it he left up to Navid. But if voters didn’t turn out, how could Navid work his magic? Where was that big inner-city turnout they were all expecting?
At 6:00 PM eastern time, Keith Cobb cocked his head to listen to a voice in his earpiece. He held up a hand, then looked toward the camera. He never smiled. He never scowled. He worked hard at looking impartial and he did so now.
“CNN is prepared to make the first projection of this historic election night,” he intoned. “Polls are now closed in most of Kentucky and Indiana. Let’s go to Rick Hoglan at the Magic Board,” he said.
“Keith, CNN is ready to call Indiana and Kentucky for Trump. That’s not a surprise, and I’ve got to caution our viewers, these are very preliminary results, with just one percent of precincts reporting. But our exit polls give us confidence to call both states for the president and vice president.”
“Any states for Governor Tomlinson, Rick?”
“We’ve got pretty firm exit poll data from a number of blue states, Keith, but as you know, our policy is not to call a state until its polls have closed. Everyone still remembers the Florida debacle during Bush-Gore in 2000, when we and most of the other networks called Florida for the Democrats at 7:00 PM, when voters were still lined up to vote in the heavily-Republican Panhandle, which sits in a different time zone.”
“Right,” Cobb said. “None of us want a repeat of that. So what comes next, Rick?”
“Check back in one hour, Keith, when we will have the next round of poll closings. Until then, we’ll continue to monitor turnout, and if there are any surprises, we’ll let you know.”
At 7:00 PM, CNN called Vermont and New Hampshire for the Democrats and South Carolina for Trump. Virginia and Georgia were too close to call. And Floridians in the Panhandle were still voting.
Keith Cobb brought on a young female correspondent, Allie Esfandiari, who had breaking news to report from the floodlit grounds of Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
“Keith, CNN has learned from a close advisor to the Trump campaign that they have become increasingly pessimistic with the numbers they are seeing from these early states. They had been hoping to win Pennsylvania and Florida with decisive ma
rgins and so far that hasn’t happened. And while they were prepared to lose Virginia, Georgia is a must-win and they now see that state going to Governor Tomlinson.”
Cobb was a pro, and he showed zero emotion as he resumed his broadcast after this stunning information. He was hoping for a report from inside the Tomlinson camp shortly, he said. The next hard numbers should be coming at 7:30 PM, when polls in North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia closed.
31
At 8:00 PM, Congressman Hugh McKenzie sat with Willie, his wife, and their two college-age children, Katie and Jack, around a TV in the suite his campaign had rented at the Bethesda North Marriot Hotel and Convention Center on Rockville Pike. Morton Nash was ticking off the wins for the Tomlinson-Bellinger ticket.
“North Carolina, boom!” he said. “That’s a huge win. That’s fifteen electoral votes Hillary didn’t win in 2016. And look at the numbers. The DNC’s get-out-the-vote effort is bearing fruit. If Pennsylvania goes for us, we’re just three votes shy of 270. And that leaves so many other states in play, we can win this big.”
“But they’re only reporting two percent of the precincts in Pennsylvania,” McKenzie said. “And CNN and all the networks have called Ohio and West Virginia for Trump.”
“They’re pros, Congressman. They’ve had so much egg on their faces in prior elections, they won’t be making calls unless they’ve got real solid exit polling. Watch Georgia, Arizona, Florida, and Michigan,” he said. “And there’s no way Trump’s winning Wisconsin again. Seriously? Our people are engaged!”
Results from a ton of states started trickling in. Maine split two for two, just as it had in 2016, and Democrats predictably won Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. Trump won Tennessee, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas and was projected to win Texas and the Dakotas. At 8:30 PM, CNN called Arkansas for Trump. But without races called in Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, or Michigan, no network was ready to hazard predicting a winner.
It would be another half-hour at least until they had results in the only race that mattered: Aguilar’s surprisingly strong challenge to McKenzie’s re-election effort. After nearly a year of campaigning, where they measured progress month by month, week by week, and finally day by day, now it was just a matter of minutes before voters would decide McKenzie’s fate—and those minutes seemed to drag on interminably.
32
“Turn to Fox 45 in Baltimore,” the Crocodile said. “They’re going to be watching the Maryland races.”
Aguilar campaign headquarters was packed, and the candidate was roaming amongst groups of volunteers, stopping to press an arm here, kiss a cheek there, bump fists with the chicos who had taken off work in late afternoons and weekends to go door-to-door with him in the high rises below Wheaton Mall. Camilla Broadstreet made sure they had several tubs full of ice, beer, and wine, but no one was celebrating yet.
“There it is!” the Crocodile shouted. “It’s on the chyron.”
The Fox 45 commentator was talking about the presidential race, but at the bottom of the screen numbers for Maryland’s congressional races were rolling. Republican Andy Harris, in CD-1, was projected to blow away his opponent. With only 6 percent of precincts reporting, he was showing 76 percent. Nothing yet in CD-2 north of Baltimore, but John Sarbanes in CD-3 was only at 52 percent so far. In the western Maryland district, CD-6, incumbent Democrat and former businessman David Trone was neck and neck with his Republican challenger, a former journalist. But the big surprise was CD-7, the inner city Baltimore neighborhoods hit by the Freddy Grey riots, which Elijah Cummings had represented until his untimely death the year before. Cummings had been returned to Congress reliably for decades with over 70 percent of the vote, sometimes well into the 80s. Once, in 2006, he ran unopposed and won 98.1 percent of the vote, only missing a perfect score because of 3,147 write-ins for other candidates.
The chyron showed Grady Jones, his hand-picked successor, running in the high 50s. Trump’s campaign against Cummings for neglecting Baltimore seemed to be paying off. African-American voters were turning to Trump in bigger numbers than anyone had imagined.
“There’s a sign for you, boss. If Grady Jones is not walking on water in the Elijah Cummings district, you’re going to be the next Congressman for the eighth district.”
The room went deadly silent as the CD-7 numbers finished scrolling by, and the chyron began to spell out Aguilar. The candidate lifted his gold cross to his lips and kissed it. And then, the room erupted in cheers.
The Crocodile actually jumped into the air as he called it, displaying an enthusiasm and agility no one had believed him capable of. “Look at that!” he said. “Sixty-two percent. Sixty-two percent, boss! That’s better than even we had predicted.”
Aguilar did not share his enthusiasm. At least, not yet. “It’s just four percent reporting,” he said. “No one is calling the race.”
Annie went out into the hallway and called Gordon on his cell.
“I saw that announcement earlier,” she said. “Everything under control?”
“Won’t know for a couple of hours.”
He explained the procedure for closing the election. It was way more complicated than people imagined. The chief judges needed to close out each voting station individually, the Republican and Democrat together, take out the memory card, note its serial number in the precinct book, then reseal the machine and the detachable ballot boxes and seal them with tamper-proof tape. Each tamper-proof seal had a number, which the judges noted in the precinct logs. If anyone tampered with the seals, the words VOID VOID VOID would replace the number. Then the election judges placed the memory cards in the precinct tabulator and uploaded the result using the on-board modem connected through a VPN to their county boards of elections. Even if someone intercepted those votes—near nigh impossible, since the VPN was like a tunnel drilled through the core of the internet, with only one entrance and one exit (“think of it like Stargate, or a wormhole,” he said)—tonight’s results were not official. Tomorrow they would run the image files through separate tabulators in Annapolis and add in the electronic votes from the DRE machines. Only if there were no discrepancies with tonight’s totals would they announce official results. Any significant discrepancies and Gordon and his team would step in. They had an elaborate system of redundant security checks to guarantee the accuracy of the vote. But those procedures took time.
“Your guy seems to be doing well,” he said. “But we’re getting results mainly from Carroll and Frederick so far, where he ought to be doing well.”
“No Montgomery precincts have reported yet?”
“Only a handful,” he said. “Less than one percent. We post them as we get them.”
“What about early voting?” she asked.
“We’ll be releasing that at 9:30 PM, since all those machines were tabulated last Friday.”
“Can you have a look?” Annie said.
“You know I can’t do that.”
“We should do well there,” Annie said. “We got amazing responses at the polling places we visited last week. Even the Silver Spring Civic Building that normally runs heavily Democrat.”
As she was talking, Gordon pulled up another screen on his left-hand monitor and whistled.
“Oh, my. You will want to look at this.”
“Gordon, stop! You’re killing me!” she said.
“We’re releasing the numbers in another fifteen minutes, so no harm no foul. You need to look at them carefully. Carroll and Frederick early voting are showing big numbers for your guy. But MoCo is way out of the norm. Seventy-four percent McKenzie.”
“Huh?”
He caught a glimpse of his supervisor, Lisa Rasmussen, walking down the hallway toward his office.
“Hey, gotta go!”
Annie was stunned. Their internal polls showed Aguilar winning with 68 percent in C
arroll County, 62 percent in Frederick, and 47 percent in Montgomery County. The problem, of course, was that Montgomery County alone had three times the voters of Carroll and Frederick combined. So if that early vote total was real, they were in big trouble.
She needed to warn the Crocodile.
33
As soon as his supervisor had returned to her corner office suite, Gordon pulled up the early voting results from Montgomery County. Overall, they showed that 74.4 percent of early voting had gone for McKenzie, and just 20.8 percent for Aguilar. That just didn’t track with the Election Day results the State board had just posted. He wanted to see the individual breakdowns from all eleven early voting places in the county, since they were in areas with different demographics.
For example, the Silver Spring Civic Building, while in a deeply Democrat part of the county, should have shown a healthy result for Aguilar. First, there were large numbers of Hispanic voters in that area, plus he had campaigned there virtually every day. Same thing for the Mid-County Rec Center up on Layhill Road and the one at the Catholic school in Wheaton. Aguilar should also be doing well up in Damascus and Burtonsville, which were more Republican-leaning anyway.
McKenzie should have better results in downtown Rockville, where voting took place at the Executive Office Building, and in the traditional Democrat strongholds of Kensington, Chevy Chase, Bethesda, Potomac, and Gaithersburg.
It took a while to extract the data from the spreadsheets, since there were so many different elections and candidates. Before the initial gerrymander, in 1999, all of Montgomery County was grouped into a single congressional district, which made sense. Now, twenty years later, Montgomery County voters were spread out over four. Most people never went through the data, but if they did, they’d be surprised to discover there were usually around a dozen presidential candidates on the ballot, in addition to all the congressional and local races. So there was a lot of data to eliminate.
The Election Heist Page 12
