[quote=“Quentin”]No one here has yet mentioned the giant elephant in the room: Diebold.
Computers are very easily hacked. Everyone knows this. This is non-partisan paranoia - whoever controls the machines, controls the outcome of the election. Knowing what we know about how vulnerable computers are to hacking and viruses, how can anyone trust the process of electronic voting? There are certain times when the old ways are better. At least counting paper votes leaves a paper trail.
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Even with a paper trail to fall back on, how would that change anything? Just look at Florida debacle in 2000. The argument about what counted as a vote or not, whether a hanging chad counted as a vote. Those machines were nice and old, mechanical, and couldn’t cut the vote cleanly. What good is a paper trail in a situation like that? Florida highlighted the issue, but it was fairly widespread. Election day corruption is endemic in the US and has been for every election we’ve had going back two hundred years.
If you looked at other states, there would be an equal amount of voting fraud consisting of: multiple votes from one person, felons voting, the cemeteries voting, bags of paper votes disappearing, etc etc ad nauseum. Corruption is still widespread, it’s just not as blatant as when politicos stood outside polling stations offering free beer to anyone who voted for their man.
The above mentioned wouldn’t count the number of people who screw up and vote for two candidates for the same office , nor does it count the people who think they voted for the wrong candidate. The initial hysteria in Florida in 2000 was caused by those “accurate” exit polls the media did. Elderly residents started to freak out on camera that they made a mistake voting (because the font was too small) and panic set in.
Leading in the polls doesn’t mean crap. The reason I say that is because people are far more likely to answer a 2 minute telephone questionnaire about who they are going to vote for than to actually vote. It’s sad state of affairs for Americans, but most of the voting age populace is apathetic. Maybe Obama’s aim at the 18-25 year old group will work out. Looking at facebook that seems to be the case as the number of “Vote Obama 08” groups get larger and larger. That won’t mean shit if people don’t get off their asses on election day and vote (or vote by absentee ballot).
If Obama takes a higher percentage of the vote in CA, NY, WA, OR or most of the North East US it doesn’t help him. He was most likely going to win those states already. Where it matters is if he can get college age voting population to turn out and “rock the vote” in swing states where it is a closer race. That is what he has been focusing on, but coming up on the day, they still need to vote and not just say they will vote.
As for the “what people have long suspected” part, what they should realize is that popular vote doesn’t matter as much as they think it does. They should also have have paid more attention in their high school civics class. That would also help dispel is misunderstanding that the US is a pure democracy. It isn’t. The US is a democratic republic. We also have a weird convoluted process of selecting the executive branch once every 4 years. The founders did this on purpose because they distrusted the “common man” out of fear of mob mentality and mob rule.
blackboxvoting.org/ attempts to watch the watchmen, but really it comes down to whether or not your man (or woman) wins. If they did, there was nothing wrong with the election, it was the people’s will, there was no corruption, bullying or anything else nefarious going on. If your candidate loses, then obviously the machines were hacked, votes were stolen, election officials bribed, etc etc.
You can be paranoid, and I’ll be pessimistic. I don’t expect to see a huge increase in voter turnout. According to the Washington Post, the election turnout in 2004 was 60%. That is still one out of every three eligible voters not voting. This election might get the vote up to 65% or 70% because of all the hype, but not much higher. I would like to see people actually voting, but I don’t see the 18-25 year old age group making much of a difference. That’s in comparison to the 55 and older age bracket which votes in much higher percentages.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10492-2005Jan14.html