FOR SALE by owner: All electronic touch screen voting machines must go! Used in only one major election. Actual usage may vary widely per machine.* Most red machines come complete with booth and privacy curtain. Blue machines w/o. To be sold on first come basis. Machines will be sold without orig. vendor's proprietary software due to minor glitches. NOTE: Software exceptions and quantity discounts available to bidders from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, Haitii, etc. To see if you qualify, please contact Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell.
(*Example: Some red machines such as the four used in New Life Church recorded an avg. of 159 votes per machine, but tallied 4,258 votes for George Bush. Votes counted is not representive of actual useage.)
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I confess to composing the above with some fact, some fancy. It's based the story of the state of Ohio as presented over on Common Dreams. In brief, Ohio's House Bill 3 which just passed will effectively:
- demand the use of discriminatory voter ID
- cripple the possibility of statewide recounts
- end the process of state-based challenges to federal elections---most importantly for president---held within the state.
Here's the real fun part according to Common Dreams:
"Ohio's GOP-controlled legislature's has passed a repressive new law that will gut free elections here and is already surfacing elsewhere around the US. The bill will continue the process of installing the GOP as America's permanent ruling party."
So, while we're supposed to just get out and vote this year and 2008 to turn things around, if what's happening in Ohio and may be coming to a number of other states, what's the use?
As thugs in the white house continue to dismantle the nation, our corrupted congress aids it, and the supreme court abets it, how much longer do we continue to cling to some pipe dream that next election will be different? It only takes an Ohio here, a Florida there, i.e., a few key states to keep the reigning powers gaining strength while losing public support.
That's why I composed the lead-in classified ad for this blog. With politicians effectively closing down all pretensions of democracy in Ohio, how much longer must they continue the charade? Why not just sell the damn voting machines? Tell citizens they no longer need go out to polls to vote, that they can stay home and vote and with the new technologies, their state will just read their minds and tabulate the votes.
Sure that's preposterous, but I'm sure there's a pretty fair chance people will buy it. American's are a pretty tolerant, if not downright gullible bunch. I say that based on the pablum Bush feeds 'em. Obviously he thinks so too. Like his next war he's now selling us. And Americans continue to swallow it. Oh they may not like it, but it's not distasteful enough to 'em to stop taking it. Maybe those who do get mad enough will go to the polls in November. But maybe that won't make any difference.
9 comments:
dada, is that a true statistic in regards to average votes tallied per machine and total votes for Bush??? unbelievable, if so...
and to think that such laws would be passed in a state that is always the focus of each presidential election...
keep feeding the masses bread and circuses to keep them placid and they'll vote for whoever's in power to keep the status quo...more SUV's, more baubles, more sex on TV to help them assuage their lost moral compasses...
let's not let the blogging aspect of the internet go the way of that other subverted mass communication device that's been horribly misapplied...time for an Elvis moment on the TV!!!
Maineiac:
That stat is half true, i.e., I don't actually know how many voting machines were employed in the New Life Church--that was just a guess based on the number of votes there--but the truth of the New Life Church is this: out of a total of 638 citizens who cast ballots there, "the precinct’s divinely inspired voting machines registered 4,258 votes for George W. Bush."
Last evening the TV was on a network station at the top of the hour, after the program changed to one of those survival competition-type shows where people swam with baby alligators and ate live worms, etc.
After a couple minutes of that, I didn't even care who was president. I was too busy being grossed out.
But it's a new day and I'm trying to grasp this incredible budget proposed by Bush. Increase defense, retain the taxcuts, and cut every social program imagineable.
Time to grab a loaf of bread and head for the circus...thanks for dropping by!
And don't forget smaller states like Nevada because the repugs certainly don't. I was incredulous in 2000 when Gore only needed ONE MORE lousy electoral vote & Nevada was one of those close states that could have given it to him. He would not have had fight in friggin florida. Hey, has anyone been to Las Vegas lately? That whole city is made of disgruntled transplants (5000 more arriving every month). Heavily tilted to Gore (& Kerry in 2004), its booming population should have carried Nevada's electoral votes. Among the many dirty tricks there: voter registration drives where clipboards full of new democrats were tossed in the trash, while repugs were sent along to the Sec of State (this was reported on CNN). Thus, new democrats who thought they had registered were shut out at the polls. After 2000, Nevada proudly announced it would be one of the first states to go all electronic. I went into the state capitol in Carson City & tried their test machine. Sure, it had a running roll of paper on the side, but that still does not prove anything if software is tampered with. In fact, they made a big point that the little roll of paper was to "stay with the machine" ... no duplicate receipts given to each voter. Silly me, I had thought if each voter kept his receipt & if there were problems, they could just show up at their precincts & demand to see exactly where their vote was counted. It's things like this going on in every state (not just in the big swing states) that will hand them the next election, too. D.K.
as we know from the appearance of new viruses and worms and other such nasties on the 'net, hacking computers is the primary occupation of many people...as an old boss of mine used to say...if anyone wants to break into a computer badly enough, they'll find a way...
in my view, electronic voting machines are vulnerable to determined hacking of the software by clever thugs, and depending on the corporate ties of the software writers, may actually be fraudulently designed in the first place..the infamous programmer's "back-door access" trick...not to mention the standard dirty tricks mentioned above...
fortunately, even though i did not participate in the last election due to apathy and angst, i live in a rural town in a blue state and, last time i voted, we still used paper ballots...
maineac, I too thought about not voting last time cuz I was safely in a real blue state (CA), but there were so many local races that repugs had been winning that it was worthwhile to try & stop that at least. Does Maine (I assume that's where you are) go blue (I hate using the color scheme) even at the local level? D.K.
well, let's see...our senators are repugs, although Senator Snowe appears to have some environmental leanings, she went with the flow on Alito...our House reps are Dems...not too sure about the governor (hey, i'm new to this political activism stuff), but locally, we have an interesting mix of old farmers, traditional yuppies, dope-growing rednecks, and ex-hippies...the old farmers have the land and the traditional yuppies have the money, but there are some brakes on local development and most of the people moving here appear to be displaced locals from coastal towns who can't afford to live there anymore because of the mansion-building booms brought on by the wealthy out-of-staters...the ex-hippies are an interesting bunch, most of them belong to a local environmental group whose purpose is to protect the lands surrounding a local drowned estuary, but they suffer from some credibility problems when using the organization to back personal vendettas against development pressures...
what an interesting description of inland maineacs ... dope-growing rednecks & ex-hippies ... sounds a lot like northern CA, don't you agree Dada? I spent a few weeks one autumn (yeah, one of those touristas) hiking around Acadia Natl Park & wandering around Bar Harbor. Good to hear there are local people who still care about the environment. D.K.
D.K. I remember some of that northern CA area...from back in the 70's early 80's. One of my favorite lines from all the Seinfelds was the episode where Kramer says something like, "Ah, El Paso, I once spent a week there one night."
Well, that kinda captures my impression of Medoocino on the CA coast. Strange, eerie place with very unique people.
"I once spent a couple days there one hour>"
I voted early in the '04 election. I was astounded at the long, long line. After about 45 minutes (I know, that's puny compared to Dem. Ohio precincts on election day), we finally made it into the room where the actual voting booths were. Imagine the sinking feeling that overcame me when I saw on the side of the registrar's machine the word "Diebold".
But as far as where I am in TX, it's on the extremity of the state, i.e., the part that would first succumb to frostbite because we're blue!
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