Edmund Storms wrote:
Jed, do you still think these flaws were accidental, a result of
incompetence, or just sloppy design?
Well, naturally I have my suspicions. Who wouldn't? But I still think
that I cannot know the answer to this question without evidence. I
mean evidence that would stand up in court: testimony, incriminating
documents and the like. The only way to get such evidence would be to
have the powers of a District Attorney or a Congressman holding a
Congressional Investigation. I doubt that a reporter could dig up
anything definitive. In other words, I would have to be able to
compel witnesses to tell the truth, and I would have to have warrants
to look for documents inside the company.
There have been such investigations by D.A.s and the Congress.
In a sense, it does not matter what brought about this situation.
Whether it was stupidity or deliberate, the effect on elections, and
Diebold's legal responsibility is similar, although I suppose a
deliberate design would be a criminal offense. Knowing that the
machine is faulty and not doing anything about it probably also a
criminal offense. I wouldn't know about that, but if I worked there,
I sure wouldn't keep it secret! You can bet that if anyone goes to
jail, it will be some lowly programmer.
Here is 2004 news report:
"A California court has approved a $2.6 million settlement between
Diebold and the State of California and Alameda County. The state and
county had sued Diebold for fraudulent claims about the security of
its electronic voting machines. . . ."
The settlement is the fruit of a suit filed in September by
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who argued that Diebold was
not truthful about the security and reliability of its electronic
voting machines.
Lockyer, who earlier dropped a criminal probe into Diebold, claimed
that Diebold provided Alameda County with software that was not
certified by the government. . . .
Apparently Attorney General Lockyer decided there was not enough
evidence for a criminal case. That does not prove there were no
criminal offenses! It could just mean they are good at covering them up.
Do you think the Republicans are not out to steal the election if they could?
I think many of them would if they could, but who knows if have the
guts to do it. A lot of Democrats would steal elections too. Not
Obama as far as I know. Maybe some of his misguided supporters would . . .
Recently, I had a discussion with a Democratic party election
official from Iowa. That is, a party member delegated to run the
primary caucus. She and the others selected for this job are supposed
to be neutral between Clinton, Obama and the other candidates, and to
enforce fairness, the debate rules of order, and so on. She told me
appalling stories of misbehavior by Clinton's supporters. They used
old time techniques such as stuffing ballot boxes, or locking the
doors and turning off the lights and then telling Obama supporters
the meeting was cancelled (or 'it is already over -- you missed it,
go home!') and then holding the meeting with their own supporters
only. She was astounded at their chutzpah. After the caucus she was a
firm Obama supporter. I heard of New York City districts with
thousands of black residents that somehow did not tally a single
Obama primary vote.
To me, this is the most obvious effort to steal an election that I
can imagine and, what is worse, it helped Bush win. Will it work again?
Probably not. You can't steal an election if the vote is high enough
against you. People will figure out what you are up to. Take, for
example, the New York City districts that supposedly recorded no
Obama votes. People shrugged that off during the primary election
because everyone knew that Clinton would take New York no matter
what. It has a bad smell, but you can't fight every injustice. On the
other hand, if those same districts in the General Election show only
McCain votes, and not a single Obama vote, you know there would be
outrage, and probably widespread rioting in the streets. People would
not stand up for that!
Obama's lead in New York is so large, I am sure there will be no
Republican vote theft in New York in the General Election, and the
Democrats wouldn't bother. They are sure to win. There may be theft
in states with close elections, such as Ohio, Florida and North
Carolina. Between the Bradley effect and likely vote theft in places
like Ohio, I think there is a good chance that McCain will win. Obama
has only a thin lead in any case. He is ahead by only 2% among
"likely voters (traditional)." In other words, when they give weight
to the poll data to make the distribution equal to the usual turnout,
taking into account that older white people nearly always vote, and
young black people seldom do, then Obama's advantage is only 2% with
2% margin of error. (This a perfectly legitimate statistical analysis
technique. It isn't as if they are actually disenfranchising people
-- it is only a poll!)
See: http://www.gallup.com/home.aspx
In other words, without strong turnout by young people and
minorities, there is no way he will win. There is no telling whether
they will turn out. Obama campaign people are well aware of this and
they are making great efforts to get people to the polls. By the way,
anyone who supports Obama and wishes to join them at the local
campaign headquarters is welcome to do so. If you are in Atlanta and
you have a spare portable computer, please lend it to them. (Contact
me for details.) If you support McCain, let me emulate Clinton's
supporters and encourage you to stay home and not even bother to
vote. You are going to win in Georgia anyway, so stay home and take it easy.
- Jed
