Britain discovers Diebold

[alvarezadams]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/columnists/story/0,,1866780,00.html

American democracy had a lousy reputation for 3/4's of its history. We complain of 2000 and 2004 but we forget about (that's a euphemism for abject ignorance of our own goddam history) Rutherfraud.

I am one iota away from giving up on our "noble experiment".

[rightwingsucks]

1. Well me too

I feel that way also. The people have lost their voice.

[alvarezadams]

3. If you know your history

you'd know that the people's voice has been heard intermittantly and with lots and lots of interference from the begining.

I fear that the "noble experiment" was an ignoble effort to assuage traditional hopes with novel rhetoric. At almost every moment in American (or any other democratic regime's) history, vested interests have seen fit to manipulate the electorate in order to achieve their perennial ends.

From Mytilene to Sumter, from wealthy dealers in contraband to wealthier dealers in weaponry - the right has laughed its head off at democracy. The few decades where people had a voice and exercized their power have always been followed by cynical manipulation and counterreformation.

Revisionism? Even in Spain - with a civil war that is still within living memory, the catholic-supported right has seen fit to rewrite history and deny the massacre at Badajoz. A massacre witnessed by the international press and even recognized by the nationalist forces at the time - it's all documented - and a catholic-funded historical magazine is going revisionist.

:puke:

It's bad enough that most of American political rhetoric is 6th grade drivel designed to appeal to base emotion, regardless of fact. What really gets my gall is that they take us ALL as fools.

[noneofmybusiness]

2. Actually, Greg Pallast isnt barred from TV in Britain ;)

We probably hear more about this corruption in the British media.

[Joanne98]

4. Some snippets from the article

This week the venerable New York Times was the latest of many organisations and institutions to declare that America's democratic system is simply starting to fail. Not in terms of its democratic ideals, or some takeover by a Neocon cabal, but by a simple collapse in its ability to count everyone's votes accurately and fairly. The Times is editorialising on a shocking government report into electoral rules in Ohio's biggest county, Cuyahoga, which contains the city of Cleveland. It details a litany of errors and a large discrepancy between the paper record of a ballot and the result recorded by the new Diebold electronic voting machines the county has just installed. It also worried that 31 per cent of black people were asked for identification as they voted compared to 18 per cent of other voters. ' report should be a wake-up call to states and counties nationwide,' the paper thundered.

But Ohio is far from isolated. The problem is simply that America has no national standard for tallying the votes in its elections. Apart from a few federal mandates to safeguard broad constitutional rights, it is left up to local officials to sort out the details on the ground. This means in one state a machine might be used. In others a simple paper ballot and a pen. Or it varies from county to county. In one small town a touch screen machine might be on hand, a few miles away other voters might use a punch ballot and in the next county after that you might use a pen. Or pull a lever. Or countless other complex ways to do what should be so, so simple. It also means in one place there is a solid (paper) record of a vote that can be recounted, while in others, it is all down to famously fallible machines and their electronic memories.