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Following the expected loss of US President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, several vague claims have gone viral that a stinging operation aimed at capturing Democrats in the act of election fraud. As we explained in an earlier and more general debunker, such claims – including this one – are based on a number of deeply flawed assumptions about the federal government’s role in ballot production and the mechanics of the American electoral process.
At issue in this fact check is one of the most pervasive claims within this kind of misinformation: the idea that all “official” ballot papers in elections had a secret watermark that made them identifiable by “elite” units “of the National Guard who are currently undertaking a secret recount made possible by” quantum blockchain “technology. One can actually find a representative wording of this statement, second to Reuters reporter Brad Heath, on the Facebook page of one of the people cited in a Trump campaign suit claiming to witness election fraud in Michigan:
On Sunday 8 November 2020, a nationwide ballot recount was done by elite units of the National Guards [sic]. To prevent fraud, the official cards were printed with an invisible and indestructible code watermark and recorded on a Quantum Blockchain system. At the time of writing, in five states, 14 million cards had been laser scanned, 78% of which failed because there was no watermark to verify the vote. Of those failed ballots, 100% had controlled Biden.
Nothing in the above statement is factually defensible or logically consistent. In fact, the complaint originates from a regular InfoWars guest named Steve Pieczenik. While Pieczenik was once a high-level government employee during the Carter administration, he is most famous now for promoting vile conspiracy theories, including those that suggest the Sandy Hook mass shooting was staged. (It wasn’t.) “Each of these paid [Sandy Hook] parents, whoever they are, are totally, totally fake, ”he once argued alongside Alex Jones.
In a November 5, 2020 episode of InfoWars ‘War Room with Owen Shroyer’ program, Pieczenik first unveiled the alleged election fraud scheme, citing anonymous sources within the government:
I don’t work for the federal government right now. I am not paid by them. Let me just say it again. What I said in 2016, there are honorable members of our intelligence, military and civilian communities in the government who understand exactly how corrupt Biden and the democratic machine are, were and will be. This is indeed a stinging operation, contrary to what everyone else has said. Trump knew it was happening. … What happened was that we marked the watermark on each card with what is called the QFS blockchain encryption code. In other words, we know quite well where each ballot went and who has it. So this is not a stolen election. … All this was expected. This was all part of the puncture operation we are conducting.
What is a “QFS Blockchain Encryption Code”?
Early iterations of this conspiracy theory, as reported by other pseudoscientific or conspiracy-focused websites, interpret QFS as a “quantum financial system” – a totally fictional concept. This alleged financial system has its origins in an old conspiracy theory known as NESARA, whose adherents claim that a series of financial reforms (proposed in the 1990s by Harvey Francis Barnard and referred to as the “National Economic Security and Recovery Act”) are been secretly approved and suppressed by the government, but will one day usher in “an era of debt cancellation and monetary reform”.
Perhaps because Bernard’s 1996 self-published book is titled “Draining the Swamp,” the possibility of Trump being the leader to usher in that new era has become a popular part of the QAnon ecosystem of pro-Trump conspiracy theories. As reported by Logical.ly in September 2020, QAnon “co-opted the NESARA” global reset narrative to announce a new era of debt relief and monetary reform – where money would be replaced with a gold-backed cryptocurrency. – would be imminently introduced by none other than Trump. ” This new financial future is fueled, in theory, by what some claim is a “quantum financial system”.
Believing that a “QFS blockchain encryption code,” as Pieczenik calls it, is hidden in cards in the mail also requires a broader belief that an “impending global reset” is about to forgive all your debts.
What about a “quantum watermark”?
Subsequent iterations of the complaint, such as the example from the Facebook page of the Trump election fraud lawsuit presented earlier, delete the terminology “QFS”. These statements retain only the “quantum” part of the concept. “The official cards had been printed with an invisible and indestructible code watermark and recorded on a Quantum Blockchain system,” that person said. Terms like “blockchain” and “quantum” sound impressive and scientific – which is probably one of the reasons for their use here – but the way these terms are employed in this conspiracy theory makes no sense.
In extremely simplistic terms, blockchain refers to a cryptographic method for preserving and protecting digital information. Blockchains are essentially records of transactions stored in a decentralized network in a way that makes them virtually impossible to modify and only accessible to individuals with a mathematically indestructible cryptographic key. The technology currently exists and underlies, in some form, all cryptocurrency transactions.
In relation to cryptography, “quantum” almost always refers to quantum computing. Quantum computing is a real thing. Although still in its infancy and largely theoretical, it is a form of computation that is not based, like all traditional computers, on bits of binary code (i.e. ones and zeros). It has the theoretical potential to deliver computing power far beyond anything currently possible. Blockchain systems don’t require quantum computers. Indeed, quantum computing is a threat to blockchain systems, as they could one day potentially offer enough power to break the previously indestructible cryptographic keys underlying such systems.
A “quantum blockchain system” is like the “quantum financial system” – an imaginary notion.
Imperfect evidence used to support the biting narrative
Much of the same evidence that purportedly supports watermark-based DHS sting is repeatedly cited on bulletin board forums, conspiracy websites, and social media. These include the existence of a U.S. Postal Service patent application for a blockchain-based system to ensure mail-order voting during elections and alleged watermark images on ballot papers. In fact, none of these elements support that narrative.
The patent is real, but the postal service applied for it in February 2019, it wasn’t granted until August 2020, and it’s an extremely broad document that doesn’t suggest the development of any specific new technology. David Jefferson, a computer scientist at the Center for Applied Scientific Computing at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, told the Decrypt outlet that the patent “seems like a quick attempt to grab a large chunk of patent rights rather than actually inventing something original.” . Whatever its purpose, nothing in the patent would have been, or was, ready for the November 2020 election.
Additionally, it has been known to the public long before the 2020 election or the related push for mail-order voting that blockchain-based systems are of interest to election officials. In fact, they were proposed and tested for limited use in previous US elections. In 2018, for example, West Virginia tested a blockchain-based voting app called Voatz in those midterm elections, giving service members and their families serving overseas the ability to vote digitally. . (It was not used in the 2020 election.) In other words, the patent reveals no new truth about US election officials’ interest in blockchain security.
Likewise, it is not noteworthy to point out the existence of a watermark on a ballot paper, although many of these images have been shared as evidence of the veracity or plausibility of the so-called DHS sting. It is public knowledge that most ballot papers in the mail contain watermarks, QR codes or other security features included. Like the patent application, the alleged existence of a watermark does not confirm any DHS conspiracy, but merely suggests that mail order voting used in your jurisdiction, like thousands of others across the country, uses watermarks as one of their security features. .
The bottom line on “quantum blockchain systems”
As we explained in our larger debunker on these kinds of claims, the idea that Democrats can, on a mass scale, simply throw out Trump’s ballots and replace them with Biden’s votes betrays a fundamental ignorance of how elections come. administered in the United States. Neither the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) nor any other federal agency is “responsible” for the election or responsible in any way for producing ballot papers, recounting or auditing.
While states are responsible for their own elections, the entities responsible for designing, printing, and distributing the actual ballots are private contractors selected by officials or councils of local electoral jurisdictions. These companies do not receive the raw paper from the federal government, and there are over 10,000 different electoral jurisdictions in the United States. Each of these jurisdictions would have their own electoral structure and security features, separate local competitions, and their own unique identifiers that bind specific ballots to specific registered voters.
You can’t just print new votes for Biden even if “quantum blockchain systems” or “quantum financial systems” were real. Since they are not, the statement is “False”.
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