A new low for voter apathy
BlackBoxVoting.org is reporting that evidence has been obtained regarding the performance of Diebold voting machines used in Palm Beach County in the 2004 presidential election. Serious discrepancies have been found regarding the timestamps on many voting records, showing some votes having been cast two weeks before the election, and some showing a timestamp sometime in 2010. Other logs show massive incompetency/poor training of poll workers charged with maintaining the machines.
So of course, the election results from Palm Beach County have been nullified.... oh, wait, they haven't.
There's been a huge outcry by the voters and media demanding answers for the... oh, wait, there hasn't.
Hundreds of voters have demanded that their votes be verified as matching the votes recorded on their receipt.. oh, wait, there weren't any receipts.
Well, I'm sure that Diebold is completely impartial and has made the whole process of manufacturing and programming these machines as transparent to the voting public as possible, and have refrained from donating any funds to Republican campaigns while they had this contract... oh, wait. They aren't and haven't.
It's official, folks. Participatory democracy is dead in the USA. These machines have made the whole "hanging chad" debacle of the 2000 election look like someone dropping a ballot on the floor; there's not even any trace of impartiality or accountability. Repeated requests for access to the machines' code and hardware have been denied, with the excuse of "if we let people examine the machines, they'd figure out how to affect their accuracy blah blah blah". That's all well and good, but the whole point of said examination is to verify that it's not possible to corrupt or otherwise affect voting results, not to find out ways to hack them. In any event, an inside job, as any security pro will tell you, is a far larger threat to a process in need of protection than an outside attack.
There's also the fact that nobody seemed to care about these discrepancies during the election. "Oh well, the computers were messed up, I'm sure the results are fine." *blink* THIS IS AN ELECTION, not your fantasy football pool! An attitude that accepts unexplained and uncorrected computer glitches in a voting machine is one that shouldn't be allowed within 100 miles of a federal election... but since Diebold gives so much money to the Republican party's campaigns, the powers that be decided that Diebold could police its own procedures and provide its own accountability. And then not provide any method of verification in case there's a need for a recount or other election irregularity? How homicidally stupid is that?
So now we just accept the word of some black box that the results are accurate, and get abuse (even threats) when we question those results.
I knew that Big Business ran the country, I guess I just didn't realize that they were actually choosing the President now, rather than contributing to the campaigns. It's a good business move for Diebold; they get to save money on the campaign contributions if they can choose who wins the election.
The lack of media coverage disturbs me, as well... I can understand Fox not giving it any airtime, as it'd be a conflict with their core mission (providing propaganda for BushCo.) But why isn't this on CNN? In the New York Times? Has the Neo-Conservative cabal really extended its stranglehold on the media that far? It would make sense if it did; it'll need the media coverage of the (invented) coming civil unrest to sell the country on the suspension of the Constitution, which (by the way) will also have the side effect of allowing Bush the Second to remain in office indefinitely.
*adjusts tinfoil hat*
So of course, the election results from Palm Beach County have been nullified.... oh, wait, they haven't.
There's been a huge outcry by the voters and media demanding answers for the... oh, wait, there hasn't.
Hundreds of voters have demanded that their votes be verified as matching the votes recorded on their receipt.. oh, wait, there weren't any receipts.
Well, I'm sure that Diebold is completely impartial and has made the whole process of manufacturing and programming these machines as transparent to the voting public as possible, and have refrained from donating any funds to Republican campaigns while they had this contract... oh, wait. They aren't and haven't.
It's official, folks. Participatory democracy is dead in the USA. These machines have made the whole "hanging chad" debacle of the 2000 election look like someone dropping a ballot on the floor; there's not even any trace of impartiality or accountability. Repeated requests for access to the machines' code and hardware have been denied, with the excuse of "if we let people examine the machines, they'd figure out how to affect their accuracy blah blah blah". That's all well and good, but the whole point of said examination is to verify that it's not possible to corrupt or otherwise affect voting results, not to find out ways to hack them. In any event, an inside job, as any security pro will tell you, is a far larger threat to a process in need of protection than an outside attack.
There's also the fact that nobody seemed to care about these discrepancies during the election. "Oh well, the computers were messed up, I'm sure the results are fine." *blink* THIS IS AN ELECTION, not your fantasy football pool! An attitude that accepts unexplained and uncorrected computer glitches in a voting machine is one that shouldn't be allowed within 100 miles of a federal election... but since Diebold gives so much money to the Republican party's campaigns, the powers that be decided that Diebold could police its own procedures and provide its own accountability. And then not provide any method of verification in case there's a need for a recount or other election irregularity? How homicidally stupid is that?
So now we just accept the word of some black box that the results are accurate, and get abuse (even threats) when we question those results.
I knew that Big Business ran the country, I guess I just didn't realize that they were actually choosing the President now, rather than contributing to the campaigns. It's a good business move for Diebold; they get to save money on the campaign contributions if they can choose who wins the election.
The lack of media coverage disturbs me, as well... I can understand Fox not giving it any airtime, as it'd be a conflict with their core mission (providing propaganda for BushCo.) But why isn't this on CNN? In the New York Times? Has the Neo-Conservative cabal really extended its stranglehold on the media that far? It would make sense if it did; it'll need the media coverage of the (invented) coming civil unrest to sell the country on the suspension of the Constitution, which (by the way) will also have the side effect of allowing Bush the Second to remain in office indefinitely.
*adjusts tinfoil hat*
posted by Zach Burnham at 7:55 PM (click for permalink)
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