Posts Tagged ‘voting’

Deleting your vote

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008

As the candidates enter the final stretch, the big elephant on the table (no pun intended) continues to be vote fraud. In many ways, 2004 was just as problematic an election as 2000: in particular, there’s ample evidence that Ohio was stolen, and that if this hadn’t happened, Kerry would be in the White House (Remember all those exit polls that showed Kerry winning?  Well, they may have been quite accurate.)

The public’s denial on this issue runs deep indeed: who wants to admit that democracy isn’t just in crisis, but that it’s already failing? Scientists at UC released the results of a study last week showing how easy it is to hack voting machines; in fact, Diebold (the most notorious of the manufacturers of those wonderful gizmos) admitted earlier this year that its machines do in fact contain a glitch . . . but that safeguards will be in place to prevent it from impacting the 08 election.  (It’s tough to write that with a straight face.)

All of which is very worrying indeed, particularly given that the GOP has already started a massive effort to start fucking with the vote by disenfranchising as many people as possible.  Sure, it may be the Rovian tactics and the smears that get all the headlines, but let’s face it:  there’s no better way to win elections than to rig them.  Keep it up for a few more elections, and there won’t BE any more elections.  And I’m starting to think that’s exactly the way a lot of people want it.