There are plenty of other possible meanings, and people feel differently about the many possible definitions.
The word "Hack" does not just mean "illegal intrusion of a computer system"
I quite enjoy the irony of pointing this out on HackerNews...
Only if you weren't paying attention! There was plenty of noise around about the attacks at the time, if you looked for the signs.
In August 2016 The Federal Government made some moves to designate the election machines and systems as critical infrastructure so they could protect them[1]. Predictably, this was opposed[2].
After the election, Obama did it anyway[3]. As it turns out many states had asked for assistance securing their systems[4].
[1] http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/election-cyber-securit...
[2] http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2016/08/some-swing-stat...
[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/01/why-t...
[4] http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/02/politics/cyber-hacking-rus...
It means hacking provably vulnerable voting systems [1] at a small number of polling locations in pivotal counties in swing states.
"Hacking the election" is neither inconceivable nor intractable. It's just something the media and government have to ensure we don't think about.
[1] http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2017/08/a-conference-of-hackers-tot...