Anyone holding their breath for fair elections?

[digitaldiscipline]

Two weeks out, and the electronic voting machines are already fucking over the Democratic candidates in my old district (in VA).

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/24/111047/27

What Trapper John didn't comment on, but I'm going to, is this tidbit: "Alexandria Registrar Tom Parkins is later quoted as saying that 'this is not the kind of problem that has either shaken our confidence in the system overall or that of the vote. There have been far worse problems around the country . . .'"

Read that again. "There have been far worse problems [than omitting the candidate's last name] around the country."

I weep for the electoral process, and how big a black box it has become.

Comments

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

The existance of problems you cannot fix does not negate the responsibility to fix the problems you can fix. That your roof leaks is not an excuse for not shovelling snow off your sidewalk.

Remove all candidate names from the ballots for that Senate race and replace with "Candidate 1", "Candidate 2", etc. Provide a paper key on posters in the polling places, showing candidates 1, 2, etc. in the previously-determined ballot order.

[fikshun.livejournal.com]

I just watched Terry Gilliam's Brazil tonight. It's more poignant than it was 20 years ago. Perhaps a quote from the screenplay's writer, Tom Stoppard, is in order:

"It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting."