What happened in Fla happened all around the country in various competitive districts. The diebold machines were set to give the Republicans a small advantage (just enough to win according to the polls) BUT...they failed b/c the margin of victory was greater than expected.

That's why Rove and Bush weren't that worried pre-nov 7th...they thought the bases were covered.

Of course the "lame stream" corporate media is not covering this important issue.

Buzz...Buzz...

I will refer you back to Occam's Razor - the simplest explanation is likely the correct one. Which is more likely? A massive nationwide conspiracy between several corporations, the White House, & the media? Or a poor ballot designed combined with election worker ignorance on new technology?

I don't know what happened in FL. But it is strange that the undervote was so large.

Stranger still...ALL the mistakes ALWAYS favor Republicans.

REpublican Senator Chuck Hagel was the CHALLENGER and ALL THE POLLS said he didn't stand a chance in Hades...yet he won in an "amazing" upset that defied the polls, the exit polls, etc....funny thing...at that time Chuck Hagel owned a large portion of Diebold and that's the machine they used in the election. On 1996 when Hagel won it was considered the Big Upset of the election...

What's more Hagel lied about his ownership in Diebold at the time....

WHEW...what the corporate media has studiously avoided covereing. Must be that mythical "liberal" bias...

Buzz..Buzz...

...And there are plenty of places where the voting machines worked fine and the Democrats won. There have been plenty of elections where our candidate has supposedly had no chance, and yet we've gone on to win. Polling is not an exact science, and races can be substantially closer than polls indicate. But I will say that the more we blame the infrastructure and try to claim "They're not playing fair", the more we lose sight of what really matters - talking to voters and winning elections. Are there anomalies in Florida? Absolutely! They need to be investigated. But is there a conspiracy? No, there's not. It's time to stop complaining about the field and to start playing ball.

First off, hello cousin Mike! Just found your blog, and thought I'd take a look around.

Now on to the meat...

Occam's razor does dictate that the simplest solution is usually the correct one, but I wonder if you're applying it in a reasonable manner here.

In every case, literally without exception, discrepancies between 2006 election exit polls and the results spat out by the DRE machines favored Republicans. The chances of that happening by random chance are ridiculously small.

Furthermore, the work required for a successful election hack isn't nearly as complicated as you'd think. Those machines are electronic security nightmares. A single technician with the right access could install any code desired using a memory card.

Worse, the actual data from the elections is *still* stored in a Microsoft Access database on Diebold machines. This was a scandal when that was discovered three years ago, but it still hasn't changed. Post-election, anyone with access to those machines and Microsoft Office could literally change the totals to whatever they want them to be. Some of the machines Diebold produces were found to have MS Office already installed during an audit.

On top of all that, there is a program called Portable Apps that allows you to fully install an application on a flash memory device, like those used in the voting machines. It's certainly illegal to use it to make a copy of Microsoft Office you can take with you like that, but legality isn't going to be a barrier to someone who wants to hack the election.

With the impossibly low likelihood of these results happening by chance, their absurdly partisan bent, and the simplicity and ease of changing the election results untraceably, Occam's Razor ceases to dictate that a hacked election is the least likely cause of the discrepancies. In fact, I would argue that bungled election thievery - certainly a staple of American politics - is the *most* likely solution now. Every other solution relies on random chance resulting in a statistical impossibility.

Damon - good to see ya!

I'm not sure which exit polls you are referring to, but exit polls onto themselves are inherently unreliable. There were many times they were incorrect before DRE had massive penetration.

You pointed out a tech with the right access - the right access being the key. The people who have access to the current machines are the same people (for the most part) as the ones who had access to the lever machines & punch cards & optical scan ballots. The election employees are often times geriatric, and unable to operate VCRs and Toaster Ovens. These people are the only ones with access - they won't be capable of hacking these things before they're deployed. If it's the supervisor of elections carrying this out, why weren't they doing it with other technology? Furthermore, a person trying to fuck with a voting machine during an election is going to be quite obvious in most circumstances - even to said geriatric poll watchers.

Plus, once you copy the file down you're going to take it to a computer with Access and change the results, and then you or second person go in to replace the valid data?

To me - there are too many barriers to hacking said machines, despite their obvious security flaws (Access), that it is no longer practical to attempt massive fraud like this.

Additionally - if the vote were being stolen, why would they carry out extreme measures to attempt to suppress the vote in other ways? The harassing robocalls, police parked in front of precincts in Democratic areas, misinformation campaigns. These methods are far easier to carry out, and frankly probably more effective.

I am personally a full supporter of a paper ballot on top of DRE, but I don't buy for a second that all over the country there are election workers hacking the machines or people illegally gaining access. It requires too many things to fall into place to be effective.

There are simpler ways to steal or swing an election.

People are always suspicious of new technology. We should be suspicious and vigilant when dealing with our voting equipment. But we must also stay grounded. The more we blame the infrastructure, the more people will say "Fuck it - my vote doesn't count anyways!" And then, our people won't turn out - and we will truly lose.

Machines can also be compromised at the factory, at the elections commission inspection, before or after certification, and so forth. There are lots of opportunities to compromise a large number of machines at once.

And who says you need to copy the file down at all? Just swap it for one you brought on your own USB key; the database isn't even encrypted or password protected. Or worse, bring in a script that automatically turns one out of every ten votes for a Democrat into a vote for a Republican? A corrupt technician could do that in plain sight, in front of all those geriatric poll workers, and never even be noticed.

However, I don't actually think there was any massive attempt to hack the election machines this year. A few machines here and there would be all it would take in a tight election, but of course, this turned out not to be a tight election, thank goodness.

In this case, what I think happened is that a few machines did get hacked, and in a couple of isolated places it was enough to sway local elections, like in FL-13. But the sheer number of Democrats getting out the vote overwhelmed most of these attempts.

The other measures - robocalls, et al - you're talking about were the bigger, more organized ones, of course. And more blatant, pathetic, and desperate. Like I said, this wasn't a close election, and the Republican party was certainly aware of that. But why make it even slightly possible to sway a bunch of DRE machines at once? Until all of them produce a paper trail, I'll consider any and every election that uses them suspect. In the old days, you had to stuff ballot boxes and produce physical forgeries. Now all you'd need is a thumb drive.