I can see the fnords!

[athelind]

Of course, all of this assumes that our oft-voiced concerns about electronic voting machines and other forms of election fraud were just conspiracy-theory nutjob paranoia.

Which may or may not be the case.

Wired News: Watchdogs Spot E-Vote Glitches

blackboxvoting.org files Freedom of Information Act requests on voting records

Edit 041103 14:00:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/ observes:

One thing that is very strange is how much the exit polls differed from the final results, especially in Ohio. Remember that Ohio uses Diebold voting machines in many areas. These machines have no paper trail. Early in the campaign, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell, a GOP fundraiser, promised to deliver Ohio to Bush. He later regretted having said that.

Comments

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

So let me get this straight - there's no way to do a paper recount of the votes in Ohio, which were within two percent, and swung the election Bushwards. So there's no way to be sure Bush actually did win in that state, and no way to prove how many, if any, votes might have been tampered with.

I'd really like to know if the counties that were Republican were the same counties that had the Diebold system. I suppose that's the focus of the debate, now.

[drleo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember him saying that. I'm not convinced there was any hanky panky in Ohio, but more importantly, we'll never know for sure.

[araquan.livejournal.com]

Exactly... we may never know. This is why I'm glad we have computer-read paper ballots in my locality...

[silussa.livejournal.com]

Actually, it was my understanding from CBS that most of the counties are still using punch card ballots.

[archteryx.livejournal.com]

Almost all counties in Ohio are still using punch card ballots, yes. I live in one that uses much older electronic machines, where you physically push buttons to select your choices and then register the vote -- which is encoded on two separate pieces of paper. I wasn't aware that Diebold machines had been cleared to be used in Ohio at all, after that debacle.

As for the exit polls, most folks, even more progressive, think it's a problem with the exit poll system then dark voting machine conspiracies. Considering how many problems exit polls had in 2000, I'd be inclined to invoke Occam's Razor and state that they're likely correct. I certainly hope they are.

-- ArchTeryx