There is no longer any doubt that Diebold voting machines can be hacked to alter the tabulation and leave no trace of manipulation – quod erat demonstrandum – it’s been done. Computer expert Harri Hursti of Finland hacked Leon County's Diebold voting system. Hursti demonstrated that someone inside the supervisor's office could both alter the outcome of an election and erase any trace of his meddling. Some of the machines have undocumented infrared ports, the purpose of which is not explained. The fact that nobody seems to care is frightening enough, but guess what happens when an honest elections commissioner attempts to make sure that the upcoming elections will be free of criminal
manipulation? That’s right - Ion Sancho, election supervisor of Leon County (which includes the capitol in Tallahassee) is facing a lawsuit by the state of Florida for refusing to use Diebold machines until the secret back door has been closed. Other vendors of voting machines are refusing to talk to him and according to the Miami Herald, “the state snatched $564,421 in grant money away from Leon County for failing to meet a deadline for -- you guessed it -- obtaining new machines.”
No matter that the State of California, alarmed by this, conducted its own investigation which confirmed the situation; amply suited to be a plot in the next James Bond movie. The State of Florida needs bogus election results to keep the fascists in power and to keep those Republican campaign contributions from Diebold coming.
I don’t swallow the Bushist argument that a pro-forma election is evidence of a free society, but the converse is quite true. Fake elections are evidence of a society which is not free.
2 comments:
years ago i read a book called the symbolic uses of politics that suggested elections are a ritual to legitimize the government.
I think that's true - very true of what we're doing in Iraq and Afghanistan and disturbingly true of our own elections.
Post a Comment