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How state election officials guard the vote

Mail-in ballot
Washington state residents should receive their ballots by Monday. (Credit: King County Elections)

It’s finally come to this: Ballots for the general election are in the mail, and within days, Washington state voters can register their choice for president.

But how do you know the vote won’t be rigged, or ruined by Russian hackers?

It’s prudent to be concerned, but the state official in charge of the election process says it’s “irresponsible” to make baseless accusations about the integrity of the voting process.

“I have full and complete confidence in our system,” Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman, a Republican who’s up for re-election this year, said in a blog posting this week. “Every eligible ballot will be handled securely and will be tabulated carefully and accurately.”

Washington politicians and voters had an up-close look at the chinks in the voting system back in 2004, during one of the closest state-level elections in history.

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How an astronaut got tangled up in WikiLeaks

Edgar Mitchell and Alan Shepard
NASA astronauts Edgar Mitchell (foreground) and Alan Shepard (background) work on the lunar surface during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. (Credit: NASA)

WikiLeaks’ purloined emails cover a wide range of issues that were handled by Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, but the farthest-out issues may well have to do with E.T., alien energy sources and Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell.

While GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump focused his fire on what the WikiLeaks file had to say about Clinton’s Wall Street speeches, UFO fans dwelled on what Mitchell was telling Podesta as he made the transition from the Obama White House to the Clinton campaign in 2015.

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U.S. accuses Russia of email meddling in politics

Email flurry
The U.S. government links the Russian government to campaign email intrusions. (© Gajus via Fotolia)

The U.S. intelligence community is formally accusing the Russian government of playing a role in email hacks aimed at casting the Democratic Party in an embarrassing light and influencing the presidential election.

In a statement issued today, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said this year’s email disclosures by DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks were consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts.

“We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities,” the agencies said.

The statement also noted that most of the recent attempts to probe state-level election systems have been traced to computer servers operated by a Russian company. “However, we are not now in a position to attribute this activity to the Russian government,” the federal agencies said.

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Leonardo DiCaprio to Mars? Just kidding!

Barack Obama and Leonardo DiCaprio
President Barack Obama mixed it up with Leonardo DiCaprio during the White House’s South by South Lawn festival. (Credit: White House)

For a time, the Internet was agog over Leonardo DiCaprio’s claim that he’s getting a ticket to Mars – presumably as part of SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk’s plan to send a million people to the Red Planet over the next century.

Then the truth came out: The Oscar-winning star of “Titanic” and “The Revenant” was only joking. Which you could have figured out immediately by watching the video of Oct. 3’s repartee with President Barack Obama and climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe.

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Scientists worry about Trump’s climate views

Stephen Hawking
British physicist Stephen Hawking delved into the mysteries of the solar system and beyond in a Discovery Channel series titled “Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking.” (Credit: Discovery Channel)

An open letter from 375 scientists is voicing concern about GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s views on climate change – and urging the United States not to cancel its commitment to last year’s Paris climate agreement, as Trump has said he would do.

Among the signers of the letter published today are British physicist Stephen Hawking, billionaire philanthropist James Simons, 30 Nobel laureates and nine University of Washington professors.

The Paris pact was adopted by the United States and more than 190 other nations last December, and formally ratified by President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping this month. It lays out commitments to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and keep average global temperatures from rising by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius).

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Libertarian completes science-quiz quartet

Four candidates
Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Democrat Hillary Clinton, Republican Donald Trump and Libertarian Gary Johnson respond to Science Debate’s presidential policy quiz. (GeekWire illustration)

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson may not be on stage for this year’s televised presidential debates, but he is getting his say on America’s top issues relating to science and technology, health and the environment – thanks to Science Debate.

Johnson was the last of four presidential hopefuls to respond to Science Debate’s 20-question policy quiz. His answers went online today. Democrat Hillary Clinton, Republican Donald Trump and the Green Party’s Jill Stein weighed in a week earlier.

Shawn Otto, who chairs the ScienceDebate.org initiative, said in a news release that the candidates’ responses “provide a window into the role evidence from science plays in their decision-making” – but he emphasized that the voters shouldn’t rely solely on the quiz answers.

“Now we need journalists and the public to press these candidates for more specifics,” Otto said. “How reasonable are their proposals, given the known evidence? What relative roles do ideology and evidence seem to play in their thinking? These are important considerations in electing an executive who will have the power to set policy, guide and enforce regulations, influence research investments, sign treaties, inspire students, encourage innovation, approve laws, manage immigration, and commit soldiers to battle.”

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Candidates answer presidential science quiz

Image: August temperature trends
NASA’s figures on global temperatures show that last month was the warmest August in 136 years of record-keeping. This color-coded chart tracks the temperature anomalies. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have sharp differences over policies to address climate change.(Credit: NASA)

If you think something absolutely has to be done about climate change and other environmental worries, Donald Trump isn’t the presidential candidate for you.

You probably knew that already, but the deeo differences in the presidential campaign come through loud and clear in three candidates’ responses to a 20-question policy quiz drawn up by Science Debate.

The questions address topics ranging from biodiversity to space exploration, and touch on hot-button issues such as vaccination and opioid abuse. Trump, the GOP candidate, provided statements addressing all the questions, as did Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Libertarian Gary Johnson hasn’t responded as of this week.

For the most part, the responses track what you’d expect from the candidates (or, more likely, from their campaigns): Clinton provided the longest answers, Trump gave one-paragraph replies, and Stein furnished point-by-point policy proposals.

Environmental issues revealed the most divergence.

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Edward Snowden’s former boss speaks out

Edward Snowden (Photo: Praxis Films)
Edward Snowden (Photo: Praxis Films)

The cybersecurity expert who hired Edward Snowden for his last job is laying out his lessons learned – but admits it would have been hard to stop the man who spilled some of the National Security Agency’s most closely held secrets.

“Knowing what I knew at the time, l would have hired him again,” Steven Bay, a former cyberintelligence analyst for Booz Allen Hamilton, said today in Seattle at the IEEE Computer Society’s “Rock Stars of Cybersecurity” conference.

“Knowing what I know now, obviously, I wouldn’t,” he added.

Bay said today’s talk marked the first time he discussed his side of the Snowden story in a public forum.

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ScienceDebate.org quiz challenges candidates

Image: U.S. flag on space station
The U.S. flag is unfurled for Flag Day 2015 inside the International Space Station. (Credit: Scott Kelly / NASA)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton says she loves science. GOP candidate Donald Trump says he loves NASA. The Green Party says it’s bizarre to claim that its nominee, Jill Stein, is anti-science. And Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson has talked about making decisions on “scientifically based” criteria.

But where exactly do they stand on the key issues relating to science and technology?

ScienceDebate.org and more than 50 other nonpartisan organizations want to find out, and today they’re urging all four of those presidential campaigns to provide answers to questions about 20 issues.

“Taken together, these 20 issues have at least a profound an impact on voters’ lives as those more frequently covered by journalists, including candidates’ views on economic policy, foreign policy, and faith and values,” Shawn Otto, ScienceDebate.org’s chair, said in a news release.

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Donald Trump disses America’s space program

Image: Donald Trump
GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump looks upward as he discusses his policy agenda at a town hall meeting in Daytona Beach, Fla. (Credit: Donald Trump Speeches & Events via YouTube)

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has been going through a series of reversals this week, and today’s highlights include the dissing of America’s space program.

“Someone just asked me backstage, ‘Mr. Trump, will you get involved in the space program?’” he said during a town hall in Daytona Beach. Fla. “Look what’s happened with your employment. Look what’s happened with our whole history of space and leadership. Look what’s going on, folks. We’re like a Third World nation.”

The rare reference to space policy was sandwiched within nearly an hour’s worth of campaign rhetoric, and the comments catered to a Florida crowd. Employment on the Space Coast was hit hard by the space shuttle fleet’s retirement in 2011. Thousands of jobs were lost.

Now Florida’s aerospace jobs are starting to come back, thanks to SpaceX’s launches and landings, NASA’s commercial crew program, the development of the Orion crew vehicle, Blue Origin’s orbital space program and other ventures. Nevertheless, complaints about jobs resonate with Floridians who suffered through the post-shuttle blues and the Obama administration’s cancellation of the Constellation back-to-the-moon program.

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