A bank can audit down to the "lost" penny in an ATM, on BILLIONS of transctions world wide daily, yet Diebold can't make a machine count CITIZENS votes in a one time election?? Says A LOT about the values of our country.
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Election "hacked" last time
How is this different than when Bush "hacked" the last last election: he lost by over a million popular votes, there was widespread fraud, and a group of judges largely appointed by himself and his father gave him the win. What's the diff?
Not hacked, elected
You are confused.
First, The election in which the Supreme Court intervened was the 2000 election. George W. Bush had not been president for a nano-second at that point and could not have appointed any Justices. Bill Clinton had been president for 8 years; he appointed some two of the Justices that were on the court in 2000. George H. W. Bush also appointed two. The remaining Justices had been appointed by earlier presidents. If I am not mistaken, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton both appointed Justices who were confirmed by a Senate in which the majority party was Democrat.
Second,
The electoral college system is what provided the environment for the elected president to have fewer popular votes than his opponent - yet still win the election. This system was in place decades before George W. Bush was even born. Read a little about the electoral vote system and attempt to understand how it works. You may find that it is a good thing.
Third,
There were indeed reports of problems with voter fraud in the 2000 election; none of the allegations that I know of ever really amounted to much in real terms.
If you want to learn what really happens in the election business, work - not in a campaign - but rather in the elections business. Take a job with one of the voting equipment vendors, the election office in your county or state, or be a poll worker. What you will likely find is that these people are dedicated to their task and work hard to produce a good result. These folks vote, like you, for the candidate of their choice. At the end of the day, though, they are less concerned with who wins than with how the election was conducted and concluded.
The solution is simple - these systems should ONLY be used as a
The solution is simple - these systems should ONLY be used as a GUI interface to print a ballot - nothing more. No electronic storage of data, no transmissions, no viruses, no software updates, and no more talk of worthless receipts. This solves the original problem of hanging chads and confusing ballots. Quit worrying about e-security and simply print the ballot with what the voter entered with the GUI. It can be printed in big bold type with the candidate's smiling face if need be. You can even add a sightless option that will add braille to the ballot. And all you Secretaries of State - refuse to do business with any manufacturer that says voting algorithms are propietary. It's really quite simple - voter selects Candidate A on the GUI, printer prints Candidate A on the Ballot. Voter verifies ballot and drops into locked box. Incorporate the optical reader into the box if you want. If there's any dispute, just count the dang ballots. Anyone caught tampering with the paper ballots is jailed for life as an enemy of the state. Let's get off our high-technology horses and get back to some basics.
That's a great idea. How
That's a great idea. How can we try to push this through. There have actually been law suits filed in every state over these voting machines, but the mainstream media hasn't been talking about that.
People should check out http://blackboxvoting.com to see how they can do something about this issue.
Also check out the HBO Documentary Hacking Democracy
http://mrxfromplanetx.com/category/fraudulent-elections
Perhaps it is time to accept...
…that ANY system is hackable, just like any safe can be defeated. The safe industry is smart enough to recognize and admit it; they rate containers on how long it will take for them to be defeated by manipulation and by force. The question to ask is about the process in place to ensure that awe can detect the hacking, and what to do if it is detected. If man can make it, man can bread it. Safes, voting machines, ATMs - All can be hacked, the difference is that the banks and safe companies admit it and employ methods to detect the problem and intervene before the hacker (or thief) is successful. It's time the commentary on voting machines went in the same direction.