【Naked Reunion (1993)】

The Naked Reunion (1993)drums of political warfare in this year's U.S. presidential race are positively deafening, with the loudest beats coming from Donald Trump, naturally, and his tireless insistence that the 2016 vote, now just a few weeks away, is already rigged against him.

This year's race is already historic on several fronts: the implosion of the GOP, Hillary Clinton's ongoing email leaks, sexual assault allegations against Trump — and that's just for starters. But hackers rigging a presidential vote would be quite the American milestone.

Are Trump's shrill admonitions predicting a rigged election even remotely credible? Do voters from either party need to seriously consider Trump's continuous warnings about voter fraud and its potential impact on the election results?

We consulted the experts, and the answer is a resounding "no."

A decentralized system works in our favor

The biggest and best advocate for the effectiveness of the U.S. voting system is none other than President Barack Obama himself. Obama addressed Trump's concerns regarding voting fraud during a meeting with the media on Tuesday in the White House Rose Garden.

"I have never seen in my lifetime or in modern political history any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections or the election process before votes have even taken place," said Obama.

"It's unprecedented. It happens to be based on no facts. Every expert, regardless of political party, regardless of ideology, conservative or liberal, who has ever examined these issues in a serious way will tell you that instances of significant voter fraud are not to be found ... There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America's elections, in part because they are so decentralized. And the numbers of votes involved. There is no evidence that that has happened in the past, or that there are instances in which that will happen this time."

These sentiments are seconded by Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services, a Virginia-based political consulting firm that specializes in election administration and political data.

"There are 10,072 jurisdictions in this country that run the elections process. They're not tied together at all," Brace, describing the various types of voting machines and processes around the country, told Mashable. "They're spread out of 50 states with 50 state laws to run their own elections. They're also controlled by about 3,000 county clerks who control the local elections."

An array of different voting machines are used across the country: optical scan paper ballot systems, Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) systems (operated by touch screen), ballot marking devices, punch card systems. Because none of the disparate voting machine systems are connected together electronically, a hack that could influence the election's outcome is logistically impossible.

"The risk of meaningful fraud of voting systems to throw the course of an election is hard, especially for a foreign actor. While the machines are vulnerable, they are not generally internet-connected today and so require physical access which requires planning, manpower and time." Dimitri Sirota, the CEO co-founder of BigID, an enterprise privacy management platform, told Mashable.

"If you look at today’s majority exploits they are either attacks on internet or USB connected applications, devices or controllers that leverage an unknown zero data exploit or they are leverage social engineering through personalized phishing. Neither really apply to the voting systems [today]."

"It would be nice to have [an online voting system]," says Brace. "But given the [anonymity] that the elections process guarantees each voter I don’t know how we can successfully, really put that into play."

Voter registration hacks aren't impactful enough

Without internet connections or a centralized ballot system, the only viable vector for somehow impacting the election through any kind of data manipulation might, however unlikely, be through voter registrations.

Although accessing statewide voter registration databases wouldn't impact the votes themselves, it could work to stoke fears among U.S. citizens who already have concerns about data breaches.

"The registration process does have a component of centrality to it [via statewide voter registration systems]. That’s more open. But you're only getting to the list of registered voters," says Brace. "Yes it would be theoretically possible to change [a registrant's name] … but that doesn't impact the vote itself."

But if a hacker could, theoretically, change a registrant’s name, couldn’t they also deletethat name? Or manynames?

"In theory, yes," says Brace.

Which leads to another worst case scenario proposition: What if hackers breached a voter registration database and deleted most or even all names from the database? If a voter can't verify their registration at a polling station, what then?

"They should then be given the right to a provisional ballot," says Brace. "That is the safeguard that allows them to cast the ballot. Then it is ultimately resolved the by the electoral board in that county."

Nevertheless, if such an event occurred, while it wouldn’t necessarily change the votes of the people casting provisional ballots, it could significantly slow the process of obtaining a result. Again, in this case, the vote can’t be hacked, but it could be significantly hobbled in a way that might shake trust in the overall system, thus swaying voter turnout for future elections.

Reality Check

In short: No, voting machines can't be hacked over the internet. And even if a hacker breached the voter registration databases, it wouldn't actually affect the vote — it would merely delay the reporting of results.

So the next time you hear that the election may be somehow rigged, or voter ballots are being in some way impacted by an interested party, just remember that in general terms, the facts don't support such claims.

"If you start whining before the game's even over? If whenever things are going bad for you and you lose you start blaming somebody else? Then you don’t have what it takes to be in this job," says Obama. "I'd advise Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes."