If we can't count on fair elections in this country, American Democracy is over.
It's that simple.
Diebold voting machines are easily hacked and subject to manipulation. It can't be put any simpler than that. It's been demonstrated and proven. Of course, the Right-controlled Media have no interest in covering a story of immense importance to the country.
Diebold also makes banking equipment, in particular ATMs, so they know how to make secure, verifiable equipment. When it is for the Banks.
But when it comes to voting machines, they claim none of it is possible. Given that the head of diebold is an ardent Republibican and has been quoted as promising to deliver elections to Bush, this is... questionable, to say the least. A fucking fraud, in normal language.
Until Diebold machines are replaced, or are demonstrably secure, our elections would not meet the international standards that are applied when Vote watchers are dispatched to developing countries that are voting for the first time.
Diebold, you suck.
Dad Signs, Cont.
7 hours ago
Did ya know you can open a Diebold voting machine with a hotel mini bar key?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.correntewire.com/hotel_minibar_keys_open_diebold_voting_machines
I'm stocking up ! Everyone should have one. Open every Diebold machine you see. Poop in there! Have kittens!
So does this explain the ridiculous ballot recount in the City of Milwaukee just recently?
ReplyDelete80,000 total ballots. Whoops. We meant 45,000 ballots. We think.
But no, really, your vote still counts. We were only off by 35,000. C'mon, don't we get a margin of error?
Did you vote Z? Did you see the ballots?
ReplyDeleteThey had a party affiliation right at the beginning. If you didn't fill it out, your vote wasn't counted. If you filled it out, but didn't vote for candidates, your vote wasn't counted.
If you voted outside of your party affiliation, your vote wasn't counted.
I guess I don't have a problem thinking that a fair number of voters screwed up the ballot, because those requirements don't apply to a regular vote:
If you vote for a straight party, your vote gets counted in all those races.
And you don't have to register any other votes, i.e. if you mark Republican (bear with me here) than all the R's in the race get your vote.
But you can vote individually also, and cross party lines.
So for a primary, there's a bunch of cases where the vote gets thrown out. But the ballot is still counted just no votes registered. See where I'm going here?
But they're recounting, which is just fine. No races are going to be changed, but any potential problems can be identified.
The problem here is that our friendly regressive totalitarian buddies will sieze upon this as another indicator that we need voter ID. Even though there was no problem that an ID card would fix (unless , that is, that you view too damn many Democrats voting as a problem).
Diebold is another issue entirely, Stuart.
Hey, Z, sorry. I see that the fuckup is due to new electronic voting machines that weren't working right.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it was only me that thought the ballot was prone to misinterpretation.
In any case, it wasn't any form of voting fraud. I see that Bauman and d'Amato chewed out the voting sherriff.
You're actually right on both counts, TC. There WAS a software glitch that was admitted by the vote counters. But your first point is on target; because it was a primary election, you were unable to cross party lines. Many voters did not understand this concept. Were these ballots not counted if they weren't filled out correctly?
ReplyDeleteIn the end, the recount turned up the same results. But the entire incident didn't exactly inspire voter confidence in the system.
How do we educate the voter, and insure error free voting machines?
Before November?
Move to Canada.
ReplyDeleteEven Iraq has better run elections in the midst of sectarian civil war.
You can stick America in the ass with a fork and turn her over, she's done.
You can stick America in the ass with a fork and turn her over, she's done.
ReplyDeleteI feel that way, too.
So sad.
According to Joel McNally's recent column, the Milwaukee vote counting debacle may be a sign of things to come. He claims that almost a third of all precincts in the country will be using new electronic voting systems for the first time this November. That's a lot of opportunity for screw-ups.
ReplyDeleteI have a bad feeling about this.
In Maryland, the mess is so bad that the Gov just called for chucking the whole batch of electronic macines, $100 million worth, and go to paper ballots.
ReplyDeleteHey, look! MAryland's gonna have a fair, accurate election!
We should just go the purple-finger route. Good enough for the Iraqis.
tc, Zelmo, Blue Girl-- chill!
ReplyDeleteAmerica is most certainly not done. Put the forks away. Our Founding Fathers were much smarter and far-sighted than the pack of doofuses (doofie?) currently in the White House. Checks and Balances still exist, and yes, they still work.
They just don't work instantaneously, and unfortunately during the time it takes the system to self-correct loopholes exist that can be exploited. Sadly, bad things often happen before the system adjusts, but it does adjust.
Hey, I know, go read my blog! That'll cheer you all up! No, really-- I actually nearly totally agree with tc on this whole voting machine snafu thing.