This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Solvable.

I'm Jacob Weisberg.

So you can talk about fake news and propaganda and astroturfing,

and all of those things hack the greater process, the conversation around the election.

Election meddling undermines what sits at the foundation of American democracy,

confidence in our voting system.

Whether hacking takes the form of masking the original source of a campaign message

to make it seem like it comes from the grassroots, so-called astroturfing,

or disseminating intentionally false information,

it all leads Americans to question the legitimacy of the democratic process.

In 2016, we discovered Russian backtackers were responsible

for disinformation campaigns. In response, Congress directed $380 million to the 50 states to boost

election security. But did it really help? Is it useful to compare electoral outcomes to poll results?

You're not going to believe it, right?

I mean, the problem of voting as opposed to any other computer security mechanism,

is that after the fact, it's partisan.

Is there a problem with the expectation we have,

then that the winner of election ought to be declared immediately.

So yes, a slower process would enable us to do more checking before announcing anything.

The American people don't like that. I mean, even going to sleep before knowing is bad.

With increasingly long election seasons,

...