At least the chads were a visible encounter.(the third time)

Lots of stories yesterday about power outages in Connecticut .... no stories about how electronic voting machines will work on Tuesday if there is no electricity at polling places.

At some point the American people are going to become aware of just how diabolical the Diebold voting system really is. They also sell ATMs and other P.O.S machines, but for some reason their voting machines, TSX, OSX and tabulators all have built-in features that allow vote manipulation. The only sure way of getting an accurate vote is using paper ballots hand-counted at each precinct. There are lots of us retired people who would be only too happy to volunteer to count the ballots. This is the only way to ensure an honest election.

Jon Stewart did a bit on this on The Daily Show. The blogosphere has been discussing this for over a year. It's nice to see Mainstream Media poodles to finally catch up.

Come on, guys! How do you think that election in San Diego on June 6th got "Diebolded"? How do you think Ken Blackwell plans to win Ohio, despite indictments?

Wake up and smell the scorched Earth policy the fright wing of the Republican Party is implementing.

It is a sad day. The USA will need election monitors in November 2006 to ensure a free and democratic election. Diebold machines should not be used at all. I am concerned about the security of my vote. All the races, especially in Ohio, need to be monitored.

Owning a screwdriver doesn't strike me as "extraordinary technical expertise." Why are we as voting citizens even at the mercy of Diebold, or any other privately owned company, in the first place? This is ludicrous. If the situation were reversed and democrats were winning with every Diebold error, the republicans wouldn't have it. Enough is enough, the machines are lemons.
We shouldn't even be setting ourselves up to depend on electricity in order to vote. Bring back the freaking paper ballots, then at the very least we'll have a paper trail.

I believe that electronic voting is here to stay. The issue of greatest concern is how individual voters can validate their individual vote and how voting monitors can validate the election. Simple. Create a paper record that each voter signs and submits at the time of their vote. Random spot recounts should be used to minimize the chance of fixed elections.

No electronic voting until they have independent open source code that is approved by all. Multiple Harddrives in one machine that use check sum to verify their duplication is a minimum... after the election the hard drives should be taken out and treated with the security of actual ballot boxes. The one machine that reads them later should be opensource and approved by all parties to the election. Paper ballots may be cheaper!

From the article:
"The latest doomsday scenario simply can't happen," said a spokesman for Diebold. "The scenario requires unfettered access to the machines, complicity of elections officials and extraordinary technical expertise." (DMOs comment: Oh yeah...tell me that didn't happen in 2004 when Rove made "the call" around 3:00PM!!!!! After they told W he was losing in a landslide!!! Ever see the start of "Bushes Brian " it talks about how suddenly things changed after bush was told that, and Karl said - Oh no, just wait! I worked that election and Kerry was winning big at 3:00PM - suddenly it all went haywire.

Another scene from the past - remeber W in his airplane being interviewed about the Florida race in 2000 after it had been declared for Gore, he came right out and said "You just wait - I'll win Forida yet". He was right because that was the first rigged election and it also helped Jeb win over Janet Reno.

If we can't outlaw this we will never have another democratic election again. Mark my words.

Here in New York we have these "outdated" mechanical voting booths. They will operate with NO electricity. There is no "paper trail" just a set of counters that indicate how many votes were cast for which candidate or referendum. That means that NOBODY can figure out how an individual voted, AHA! a SECRET ballot, how subversive is an idea like that. We're being led down the garden path with these new voting machines. Do you really want your voting record "on the record"?