[Steve_Seattle]

"zero evidence that Russia influenced the election"

This can be taken on three levels:

1. There is zero evidence that Russia hacked the DNC or Podesta.

2. Regardless of who hacked the DNC and Podesta, it made no difference in the outcome of the election.

3. Regardless of who hacked the emails, they were authentic documents - not faked - so their exposure actually gave voters more information and allowed them to make a more accurate assessment of the candidates and what they stood for. The hackers were doing the job the MSM refused to do, giving the voters a more balanced picture of the candidates.

Most of the debate centers on #1, but #2 and #3 also need to be addressed. Is there, in fact, any evidence that significant numbers of votes changed because of the hacks, and was the number sufficient to sway the election?

My view is that most people who paid close attention to the content of the hacks were already predisposed to vote against Hillary, and that fence-sitters usually don't dig very deep for information.

The release of the leaks was paralleled by a media effort to push back, first by ignoring them, then by dismissing their importance, then by attacking the leakers. Probably less than 5% of the voters were poring over the content of specific emails, and that group largely consisted of pre-existing Hillary critics and Hillary defenders. The average person looked on from afar. But if people were influenced by the hacks, it was because they had more information, not less.

[xzins]

I still haven’t seen evidence that Russia hacked the DNC or Podesta.

Judge Napolitano makes a distinction between hacking and leaking. Hacking involves some kind of bug placed in a system, iirc. Leaking involves exploiting a weakness in the system.

Podesta’s phish error and Hillary’s unsecured server explain everything that needs to be explained.