In Ohio, the Secretary of State commissioned a study of electronic voting machines and their reliability and integrity. The study showed that all of the machines could be corrupted. She called for a return to paper ballots. Damn ... back to Chicago-style stuffing the ballot boxes.
In The New York Times article, there was an interesting quote from a guy with one of the electronic voting machine companies:
The study released Friday found that voting machines and central servers made by Elections Systems and Software; Premier Election Solutions, formerly Diebold; and Hart InterCivic; were easily corrupted.
Chris Riggall, a Premier spokesman, said hardware and software problems had been corrected in his company’s new products, which will be available for installation in 2008.
“It is important to note,” he said, “that there has not been a single documented case of a successful attack against an electronic voting system, in Ohio or anywhere in the United States.”
Mr. Riggall, like, y'know, I don't mean to be critical, duder, and I'm no ... errr ... rocket scientist, but if there was ... uhhhhh ... like a documented case, then it wouldn't have been ... uhhhh, what's the word ... oh yeah ... successful.
And I'm no ... uhhh ... psychologist ... dude, ... but aren't you like ... errr ... inferring ... no, that's not the word .... implying ... like ... uhhh ... tellin' us, y'know, like ... uhhh ... from your sub-conscious mind, dude, so to speak ... that there's like ... uhhh, an undocumented case of being ... ummm ... successful?
Just thinkin' ... y'know ... through the obfuscatory haze, dude.
Posted by Bill at December 15, 2007 09:53 AMI think it depends on how you define successful. If you mean picking up an election and walking off with it, in plain sight, while the whole world watches because they know you can't be beaten in court, then 2004 jumps to mind. Countless Diebold machines were fixed, especially in Ohio and Florida. It was like SEP, a sort of cloaking device described by Douglas Adams in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. He said you could park a huge spaceship next to a football field, and nobody could see it because they all assumed it was Somebody Else's Problem.
Posted by: Squelch at December 15, 2007 02:00 PMI'll choose Chicago-style dishonesty over Ohio-style any day of the week.
It's just so much more upfront.
Posted by: lucy at December 17, 2007 08:31 AMWould living in the EU be any better, ya think?
Posted by: Joel at December 18, 2007 09:04 PM