And that is precisely why the Democratic Leadership Council is not discussing it. Nor, for that matter, the MSM.
Where is all this confidence that the Dems are "ona roll" and going to squash the Republicans coming from?
Posted by Gtash at September 17, 2006 07:56 AMNow that's telling it like it is.
Posted by Michael Berger at September 17, 2006 08:00 AMAnd who was the politician who wrote the HAVA Act the has issues in the era of forced conversion to e-voting? Why its Bob Ney, who recently plead guilty to fraud charges.
We entrust our vote to a man who (at the time) was an unindicted criminal. You can be sure that making sure that every vote cast gets counted was the last thing on his mind.
Posted by brisa at September 17, 2006 08:00 AMI completely agree with that statement. I have said it before, but the Florida debacle was too easy for the Diebold manufacturer. I have always been suspicious that they were the "prince on the white horse" riding in to save us all immediately after the mess in Florida. Something doesn't smell quite right.
What in the world can we do, except demand a paper copy of the vote for recounting. However, we are now finding out that the paper copies are no good, in many cases. We are screwed.
Posted by Judith at September 17, 2006 08:01 AMFree and fair elections. They were always difficult to arrange, they are more difficult to arrange now. I think we have seen the elections stolen since 2000 and we still don't have legislation that addresses need for paper ballot and recount process. Maybe the folks holding the offices today don't want that kind of election audit capability?
Posted by Angel at September 17, 2006 08:32 AMDAMN STRAIGHT...and it won't be discussed...that's why I'm telling you all the spin and stories in the weeks upcoming will be about the BRILLIANT comeback of GWB and the gang...so to set up the unsurprising results of a Republican VICTORY!!! We've been screwed since the SUPREMES annointed George and all the talking and "debating" since is crap! America is lost and the Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves. (If you believe that's where they are) So shall we all be Republicans now and get ours while the getting's good and forget others, the environment, the future? SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN...
Posted by Dancer at September 17, 2006 08:33 AMI've heard/read many suggestions that we all should be using absentee ballots, but will that really do any good? Aren't they also counted on Diebold or Sequoia machines? And, this assumes we even get the absentee ballots:
Late ballots FOR THE NAVY! (Support our troops...NOT!)
as I keep harping on, the machines are not the problem. honest election officials would stop that in its tracks. Everyone who bitches about elections should march down to their Supervisor of Elections office and volunteer to be the ones at the polls. THAT is the only way to ensure a fair election, not bitching about what sort of equipment is used.
Posted by majkia at September 17, 2006 09:09 AM@majkia:
I think the point of 'bitching about the machines' is that what happens to the collected votes cannot be observed with the unaided eye. It doesn't matter who observes what at the point of vote-casting if the data is 'massaged' once it's in the system.
We need (at a minimum)...
1) Paper ballots that are human-readable
2) Observers from a disinterested entity (increasingly hard to find)
3) Open-source vote-counting software
4) Abolition of the Electoral College
Looks like the election results are already in.
Assimilated Press
Read Republican Party Offers Free TV Sets In Exchange For Votes
While I agree honest elections officials are the key, and that we do not (as a population) spend enough time marching to the polls to get THEM into office, I also think hurting the machine makers is right thing to do by exposing their callous fraud and collusion with the dishonest and gullible votng officials. I am no fan of electronic voting under any circumstances. Most of the civilized world does without them quite nicely. The bothersome aspect of machine voting is the corporate and thus non-transparent/proprietary control over the ballot box which has already taken root and is bound to get worse. I want to know what the damn hurry is about reporting and certifying results overnight? We have four friggin YEARS of campaigning and we can't wait a few days for results?
Mark with pencil. Count by hand. Rule with integrity. Melt the machines.
Posted by gtash at September 17, 2006 11:13 AMMachines are against us.
Rove is against us.
Republicans have more money.
Mainstream media is lazy.
Bush is dominating the news.
Attack ads are coming.
VOTE ANYWAY.
ELECT DEMOCRATS TO CONGRESS.
Therefore you concede already that Democrats will not take majorities in either the House or Senate, that Lieberman will defeat Lamont, and all this may be attributed not to the will of the voters but purely to fraud. Thus I see the paranoid style in American politics which Richard Hofstadter wrote about is now firmly established on the left instead of the right.
Posted by Zhombre at September 17, 2006 12:47 PMThe polls are showing the current Democratic AZ Governor, Janet Napolitano leading in the polls something like 69% - 22%, the rest undecided. The lead is outrageous.
We also have Diebold here so it will be interesting what the final results will be.
This could be a perfect location for a good litmus test.
It is on the front page of the Washington Post.
However, in order for there to be fraud, the Dems have to win first. If the Dems all stay home because of defeatist attitudes, there is no need for the GOP to steal an election.
So it is more imperative than ever to get the votes out there for the Dems. Otherwise, the GOP just wins fair and square.
Don't be a defeatist.
Posted by Mimikatz at September 17, 2006 03:29 PMThere isn't going to be an election in quote two thousand and eight end of quote.
Any questions?
Posted by Thomas Ware at September 17, 2006 07:32 PMThere will be an active "market" for minor offices. The bookies will have the quotes. When the market is exposed, it will make an interesting event.
Posted by Nobody at September 17, 2006 08:16 PMThe local IT guys in the election boards have an opportunity to get rich off of these machines selling minor posts.
Posted by at September 17, 2006 08:18 PMYou are missing one point: exit polls. If the election is not close, then Diebold tampering runs into a problem. It's one thing to have the exit polls say 52-48 and the official results are 49-51. It's another thing entirely if the exit polls come out to 63-37 and the machine results still come out at 49-51! In the latter case, I think the challenges would finally succeed in many jurisdictions.
Of course, that is not how we want to win elections. We would like them to be fair in the first place. But with Diebold so firmly entrenched, a blowup of some kind may be needed to break this cycle. Something like a Supreme Court decision mandating public code, a national certification authority, and paper ballots to be printed by each machine and counted in public.
Posted by Ralph at September 18, 2006 04:50 AMSince we now know that Dem chances in November are not as optimistic as we once thought, it is now time to look for excuses. Of course it could never be that the electorate does not like what we are selling, so it would have to be "something else"
When will we wake up and win elections?
Posted by Common Sense at September 18, 2006 05:54 AM