It's The Voting Machines, Stupid

Get a clue. He who counts the votes, wins the election.

First off, the voting machines seem to have a mind of their own....or a mind of the "controlling" party"...

Time: Posted Sunday, Oct. 29, 2006A woman walked into a polling place in Peoria, Ill. last week and proceeded to use one of the new electronic voting machines set up for early voting. She logged on, went through each contest and seemed to be making her choices. After reviewing each race, the machine checked to see if she was satisfied with her selections and wanted to move on. Each time, she pressed YES, and the machine progressed to the next race. When she was done, a waving American flag appeared on the screen, indicating that her votes had been cast and recorded.

But there was a problem. The woman had not made any choices at all. She had only browsed. Now when she told the election judges she was ready to do it again--but this time actually vote--they told her it was too late. Pressing the last button, they said, is like dropping your ballot in an old-fashioned ballot box. There's no getting it back.

And then there's Hugo Chavez' ownership in Smartmatic - and we posted about this yesterday - that if you thought Dubai was bad....the "build the fence" Republicans have just woken up to this one.....

TSC: The federal government is investigating the takeover last year of a leading American manufacturer of electronic voting systems by a small software company that has been linked to the leftist Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chávez. The inquiry is focusing on the Venezuelan owners of the software company, the Smartmatic Corporation, and is trying to determine whether the government in Caracas has any control or influence over the firm's operations, government officials and others familiar with the investigation said.

Is this a false alarm, or does it represent a real threat of foreign meddling in American elections? I suspect it's the former, but I can't be sure -- and, of course, that's the problem with electronic voting. Because you can't tell what's going on inside of the box, voters can't be sure that their votes are recorded, or counted, accurately. And if they can't be sure of that, their faith in the whole electoral system is in danger -- and with it, their faith in our system of government.