By Kevin Skoglund, member of Verified Voting’s Board of Advisors
You may have heard that evidence in Rockland County, New York, reveals that the 2024 General Election was stolen. I get asked about it a lot. Verified Voting does too, so I was asked to share my views as an election technology and cybersecurity expert. I won’t link to the original sources because any link would boost their visibility.
No credible evidence of hacking or large-scale fraud has been found—not in 2020, not in 2024. Election experts have looked. Conspiracy theories have circulated anyway. Most are technically incoherent. This one is nonsense, too.
The Rockland County theory has six main claims:
- CLAIM 1: The votes for a Senate candidate were not correctly counted in two precincts.
- CLAIM 2: It is suspicious that the Democratic candidate for President received far fewer votes than the Democratic candidate for Senator.
- CLAIM 3: Problematic changes to voting machine software were approved inappropriately by a test lab.
- CLAIM 4: UPS devices are capable of hacking voting machines.
- CLAIM 5: UPS devices can connect to satellites to receive hacking instructions.
- CLAIM 6: UPS devices can connect to an AI super-computer to hide evidence of hacking.
Let’s look at each one.
CLAIM 1 includes evidence. The candidate received 8 votes total in two precincts. Sworn affidavits from voters suggest the total should be between 9 and 14 votes. It is a small difference that will not change the outcome—other candidates had over 300 votes—but further inquiry is reasonable. There may have been an error or malfunction that should be fixed. Or, some voters may have made a mistake when marking their vote. Whatever the reason, a small discrepancy in one contest does not reveal a conspiracy to rig the presidential election.
CLAIM 2 suggests a larger plot. It uses statistics to conclude that the difference between votes for Harris and Gillibrand (both Democrats) was unreasonably high. Statistics do not always tell the whole story, and “unreasonable” depends a lot on the data and assumptions used. In this case, it is likely that many Jewish voters voted for Gillibrand but not for Harris. Rockland County has strong Hasidic voting blocs, and a similar pattern can be seen in other places. Snopes and Politifact give more details.
CLAIM 3 is that ES&S submitted a sketchy software change, and that Pro V&V, the test lab, broke the rules to approve it. The theory does not specify in what way the change was problematic, nor how or why everyone colluded to make it. The truth is that it was not a software change at all, only a change to the system’s documentation. The installation log file is different on every machine, and the documentation update says not to be alarmed if it doesn’t match. That’s an appropriate and harmless edit, not evidence of a secret plot.
CLAIM 4 concerns the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), which is commonly used to give voting systems two hours of backup power. Supposedly, a conspiracy of political operatives has enabled one model, Eaton Tripp Lite, to hack voting machines. This claim has several problems. First, only Dominion voting systems use that UPS, as one of five choices, and it may be chosen rarely because its rack-mounted design is not a good fit for polling places or small counties. ES&S (used by Rockland County) and the other voting systems do not use it. Second, these devices are not special to elections. They are standard products that anyone could purchase at an electronics store and examine for themselves. Third, even if a UPS device was malicious, it doesn’t automatically follow that any connected device is instantly hacked. This is a crucial step that is never explained. It’s just magical hacking.
CLAIM 5 builds on the UPS claim. It is based on misreading a press release that says Tesla’s Powerwall will soon support Eaton’s circuit breakers. Elon Musk is the CEO of both Tesla and Starlink, but “Eaton is excited Tesla will support our tech” is far from “Eaton UPS devices include connections to Starlink.” Moreover, Starlink DTC is new technology, launched in October 2024. The theory says launching just before the election is suspicious, but the opposite is true. Any UPS devices would have been purchased and installed months or even years earlier.
CLAIM 6 also mischaracterizes a press release about how Eaton plans to use Palantir’s AI to help manage their supply chain. “Eaton is using AI software to manage our warehouse” is nothing like “Eaton devices are secretly using a remote connection to an AI super-computer to cover up hacking.” The purpose of this deliberate misreading is to bring Palantir’s founder, Peter Thiel, into the conspiracy.
The election results don’t show fraud. There was no evil software update. An evil UPS is far-fetched. The connections to evil satellites and AI are pure fantasy. What are we left with? A small vote discrepancy for one Senate candidate in one county that would not change any outcome. The rest is just pins on a bulletin board connected with red string. It weaves in boogeymen to get an emotional rise out of people and short-circuit critical thinking. Don’t fall for it.