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November 1, 2006

Following Up on Electronic Voting

'Cause I'm a 21st century digital boy, I don't know how to live but I have a lot of toys...

I am not going to get into the Diebold situation - yes their President is a scumbag, but they're just one of several e-voting manufacturers. Furthermore, multiple precincts here in Virginia use the Diebold Accuvote. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, won last year by a staggering margin in what many of us thought was going to be a very tight election. The Attorneys General race was much much tighter - 323 votes, and the problems that we found weren't with the electronic machines but rather with the optical scan not reading the down ticket part of the ballot correctly! Furthermore, when we finally got it to court - the 3-judge panel would allow us to recount the machine tapes, not the ballots themselves. This resulted in a shift of maybe 1 vote - because why would the numbers be any different if the same tabulations were used?

Yankee Fog, in his comment on my previous entry, points out that it's not a conspiracy but a cavalier attitude. He is completely correct - the Republicans have demonstrated their willingness to push right up against the line between ethically grey and completely illegal. Only once in a while do they actually crossed over - the New Hampshire phone jamming. I don't buy for one moment that the voting machines are rigged out of the box. Frankly, they're not complex enough to be. I'm not saying the software can't be hacked - but why bother when there are much faster, easier, and cleaner ways to suppress the vote? And besides, to quote Scott Adams of Dilbert fame on who would be likely to hack said machines: "It probably means that the choice of the next American president will be taken out of the hands of deep-pocket, autofellating, corporate shitbags and put it into the hands of some teenager in Finland. How is that not an improvement?"

I'm not going to talk about 2004 except to say that we lost - I know, I was there.

Now, while we're talking about electronic voting - I feel that we must address TX-22, Tom Delay's former seat. Courts ruled they couldn't put a replacement on the ballot. So the NRCC has dropping gobs of cash into the district, trying to support write-in candidate Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. Yes, you read that name correctly - Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. What's even more entertaining than a person with a 12 character last name that includes a hyphen being a write-in candidate is the method for writing-in. When a voter selects write-in, it takes them to a screen that displays the letters of the alphabet which they then must use a jogwheel to highlight, and then press enter for each individual letter! I suspect we'll be seeing a lot of write-in votes in TX-22 for "SEK" before people throw their hands in the air and give up.

Now there's a fantastic bit of absurdist comedy available on Shelley's website - her campaign ad that may as well say "Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball". You have to wonder why the NRCC is wasting their money.

Posted by MikeSager at November 1, 2006 10:00 AM

Comments

Posted by: Alice Marshall at November 1, 2006 10:29 AM

Posted by: jake at November 1, 2006 5:05 PM