It's a conspiracy theory because it says the Russian state conspired to falsify votes. Up to now I haven't seen good evidence of that. So it's a theory.

You say there was "hacking of election related systems"? What happened? Maybe I'm just out of the loop?

According to the recent indictment of GRU hackers, they first broke into a state board of elections database and stole voter information. Then they broke into computers of a vendor that provides software to verify voter registrations. Then they sent "over 100" spearphishing emails with malware, posing as the vendor, to people involved in administering Florida elections.

It doesn't seem to be in doubt there was a conspiracy, although it is probable that all of the consequences are not mentioned in this indictment. The indictment mentions other states, but focuses on Florida.

https://www.vox.com/2018/7/13/17568806/mueller-russia-intell...

Thanks for the link to the indictment. With those accusations I can see why people think about tampered voting machines. Still very far from actual tampering in my view.

And that's where I wonder why at the outset of an investigation into whether voting-machines have been tampered with, the Russian state should be assumed to have done it.

Votes could be affected by preventing people from voting as well as by changing votes after the fact. The known facts point to either or both as plausible, assuming there was an opportunity.

You're certainly not alone in your doubts. Many people have assiduously been not assuming Russians had anything to do with tampering with the election every step of the way. Guccifer 2.0 was supposed to be a random Romanian hacker and yet it is now confirmed he was a member of the Russian military team attacking the US.

It's not helpful to dismiss stuff as a conspiracy theory these days in a general sort of way. The reason is that disbelieving one "conspiracy theory" requires you to believe in another, larger one. If you don't believe in the indictment, you are necessarily positing a massive conspiracy to frame Russia. There's no apparent simple, comforting explanation that doesn't involve large conspiracies.

Are there other nations that we have proof that they tried to tamper with that election? They of course need to prove it before deciding, but it seems to me that it is prudent to suspect the Russian state at this point.