Diebold Wants Your Vote
Diebold, as you probably know, is the company that makes most of the electronic voting machines. Your vote leaves no paper trail, so if your vote gets “lost” — Tough. Prove it. Some say Diebold is a German phrase for “Vee Vant to cancel zee votes of zee liberals.”
The CEO of Diebold is a gung ho rightwing Republican, and that’s how he wants his “customers” to vote. There’s been a growing public awareness of the danger of electronic voting machines — no paper trail, no accountability, no proof that you ever voted.
More and more precincts are switching to paper ballots. This is necessary. Our democracy is at stake here. And now Diebold is fighting back. They’re on the march, and they’re getting closer to YOU.
Representatives from Diebold have been making “sales pitches” to county and local voting offices — usually when the supervisor isn’t around. This way they're able to bully the lower-level employees and gain access to the voting equipment.
There have been reports that Diebold reps have been slyly inserting a card into the voting equipment and altering the software. County employees have been advised that if Diebold comes a-courtin’, to tape record and videotape the entire meeting, and have several witnesses present.
The more desperate the Republicans get — Bush’s sliding poll numbers, etc. — the more aggressive and determined Diebold will become.
If you haven’t already done so, please click here to urge your precinct to supply paper ballots. If they aren’t available, the next option is to vote absentee — this leaves a paper trail.
Hat Tip to Daughter of Liberty.
posted by Tom Harper @ 7:36 PM
12 Comments:
Pauldaver: Bought and paid for, you've got it. Aldous Huxley was right -- this is straight out of Brave New World. Instead of Soma, we're all being managed and manipulated by hundreds of entertaining TV shows and video games, and "news" that's equal parts Hollywood gossip and government-controlled press releases. We're all under control, and we're all happy. What's not to love?
You live in Washington state, home to Christine Fraud-oire, the beneficiary of "Look, we missed a box of ballots in latté liberal Seattle that just so happens to give her enough votes to overcome a recount she's twice lost!"
And you want to point to others and accuse them of stealing votes?
Pots and kettles and whatnot...
Do Democrats actually ever LOSE elections, or are they always "stolen"? Has Diebold been "up to their tricks" since 1994, when Dems were tossed out on their asses by the boatloads (and have been losing ever since)?
You guys screamed about the popular vote and FL in 2000, but ignored the popular vote in 2004 and bitched about OH and the electoral vote. Just like John F'ing Kerry, you can't seem to make up your mind, can you?
Anonymous: I want honest elections, whoever wins. If you clicked on all the Diebold links in the post, one of them was a picture of Kennedy during the 1960 election. I don't know if the Washington governor race was stolen (I wouldn't doubt it), but there's a certain irony: The Republicans who keep chanting "you lost get over it" are the same ones who keep demanding recount after recount with Rossi and Gregoire.
Tom, I don't know how many Republicans are or were asking for more recounts in the Fraudoire election...they just wanted the original count and recount to be honored before a "previously heretofore undiscovered and uncounted" mystery box showed up.
What comes around, goes around, though. Dem. Tim Johnson defeated John Thune in the SD Senate race in 2002 when the dead Indian votes were counted: 524 votes. Thune emerged two years later to knock out Tom Dasshole. Guess there weren't enough dead Indians that time.
By the way, the Fraudoire "victory" was sealed with the discovery of...PAPER ballots!
Oh, the irony...
Anonymous (I'm assuming these last 2 comments are the same person): Yes, I know elections can still be stolen with paper ballots. But these electronic voting machines just make it too easy. We need a combination of paper ballots (or voting absentee) and closer vigilance. I don't want the candidates I agree with to steal elections; that just means the pendulum will swing that much further in the opposite direction when the next election comes around.
Well I want to clear my name here, as the usual Anonymous ( I always sign my name) Elections were always crooked in this country. One of the side Effects of the voting rights acts was to also insure the fairness of the vote for Blacks in the disputed areas.
But it did nothing for the traditional areas elsewhere such as the Daley Machine in Chicago and the Texas Machine that Lyndon Johnson (and others) used to win elections. Those rarely had a impact in the national elections. What we have started seeing since 2000 was a real national strategy on using local elections to not only target those for the Congressional and Senate seats but to also influence the national election and Republicans are doing it better and with more effeciency then anyone else in History.
With these voting machines you have just given them the keys to the kingdom. I am more worried about any Hacker manipulating the system not just the Republicans. Remember folks teenagers have brought down entire infostructures with just one computer and even almighty Microsoft is a constant easy target. We need fair elections and electronic voting is not the way to do it. THEN we need to clean up this paper way as well.
Erik
Erik: Yup, that's exactly it. Electronic voting machines are just too unreliable -- handing somebody the keys to the kingdom, as you put it. We need paper ballots to be available at all precincts. Everyone who doesn't have paper ballots available should vote absentee.
And of course paper ballots need to be monitored closely. Elections have always been rigged and stolen; electronic voting machines just make it easier.
I don't know much about the issue, but I do know I actually trust the interplay of human judgment and human error more than I would ever trust electronic voting machines. It's human greed and deviousness that I don't trust. There is just too much risk of one side or the other manipulating the results. Our right to vote is precious, and we shouldn't be putting that right at rist. Enough already with politically-biased corporate folks designing and installing "voting machines" already.
Snave: Yeah, there's just too much that can go wrong with electronic voting machines. Whether it's by design, or a hacker or just a computer glitch -- free elections are too valuable to jeopardize. Paper ballots aren't foolproof, but theyr'e at least easier to monitor and audit.
I think its scary that the US voting system seems so loose and open to manipulation. Surely its not all that hard to design electronic voting systems with an audit trail to log the votes in the event of a challenge. If thats not achievable, stick to paper ballots.
Living In Canberra: Yup, scary is right. I agree it shouldn't be difficult to design an electronic voting machine that has an audit trail. It could be that the makers of these machines have motives other than efficiency or accuracy. If they make one of these machines that's auditable and verifiable, great. But until then, paper ballots -- plus monitoring and auditing elections very closely.
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