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Absentee ballots are no more secure than optiscan ballots, which are only slightly more secure than electronic voting (with no paper ballot), which isn't secure at all. ES&S/Diebold could be producing ANY result they wish in the all-electronic systems--half the states in the U.S. And when I look at assholes like Jim DeMint (Diebold-SC), I'm pretty convinced that that is what they are doing. In the "better" systems--and I mean that very relatively--that is, the ones that at least have a paper trail, putting total assholes in Congress is not as easy, but neither do these systems have even remotely adequate audit/recount controls. The optiscan systems (including all absentee ballot systems like Oregon, or partial absentee ballot voting) require more corporate money, and more corporate press manipulation, to produce total assholes in Congress (and other offices).
Our election system is a very complicated mix of completely insecure vote counting systems (half the states), slightly less insecure systems (the other half), billions in corporate money funneled through candidates to corporate-run TV, for highly profitable campaign ads (everywhere) and the corporate press concocting the political narrative (everywhere). There are additional factors, such as various kinds of suppression of the black vote. But the system is SO non-transparent, overall--with the recent completion of ES&S/Diebold's takeover--that such crude suppression may become unnecessary.
Our system, overall, was very controlled by corporate and war profiteer interests before electronic vote counting was spread like a plague across our nation--a coup that occurred very fast, during the 2002 to 2004 period (subsequent to a $3.9 billion e-voting boondoggle from the Anthrax Congress, in the same month--in the same month!--as the Iraq War Resolution). Electronic vote counting--by ES&S/Diebold and other insecure machines, now everywhere in the U.S. (New York, the last holdout, recently caved)--puts the final nail in the coffin of our democracy, as far as I'm concerned.
We don't have the most fundamental condition for democracy: transparent vote counting. It's gone.
One other thing: ES&S/Diebold ALSO controls the 'TRADE SECRET' code voting systems in virtually all PRIMARY elections (except for the Caucus states). That is, they have the power to choose who the Democratic candidates will be. Corporate money mostly determines that. But in addition, this far rightwing-connected corporation can help put bad Democrats--pro-war Democrats, Corporate Democrats, "Blue Dog" Democrats--on the ballot, in circumstances where Democratic voters have the edge and a real Democrat is threatening to win the primary.
This does NOT mean that we should give up and not vote and not make other efforts. Although Diebold has blatantly reversed election outcomes (as in U.S. Senate/Georgia 2002--where Max Cleland had a 10+% edge going in--and ES&S, which now owns Diebold, blatantly reversed FL-13 in 2006), they risk the public getting on to their enormous power over election results if they do that too often, in races that are clearly not close. The system overall is COMPLEX, as I said. It involves corporate money, corporate press and corporate vote counting, and also local cultures, local officials and other factors (like racism). The system has to be played carefully with risks like the Georgia '02 Senate reversal generally taken only for Big Stakes. Defeating paraplegic Vietnam War vet Cleland at the outset of the Iraq War was very important to the Bushwhacks and other war profiteers (as was Bush-Cheney's 're-election' in '04). Also, Georgia '02 was a test run. It was the first all-electronic (no paper trail) system. Rove probably wanted to see just how outrageous he could be.
With exhausting grass roots effort, exhausting small-donor fundraising, an optiscan system (potential for recount, where ES&S/Diebold has to be more careful) and a lot of luck (for instance, a really good candidate), the "People" can still win some elections. There is also sheer oneriness. Do you want to give in to these bastards? You want to yield up your right to vote? This Corporate Election System--with 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting as the capper--is designed to depress and demoralize "the People" and defeat democracy. You going to let them do that? Not me! I vote, every time--even when the "choices" I'm given sicken me no end. Voting CAN produce real reform. It the heart and soul of democracy. We must not yield up our right to vote. We must fight back and get rid of these machines.
"Are you declaring the Democratic sweep in the recent California election was fraudulent?"
I do not trust ANY result in ANY election in the U.S. NO election in the U.S. is being adequately verified. Half the states have NO capability to audit the numbers that the machines give them. Zero. Zilch. NO ability to verify. The other half (optiscan systems) do a completely inadequate 1% audit (most of them). What this means is that 99% of the votes never see the light of day. A machine sees them. A machine run on 'TRADE SECRET' code, more than likely owned and controlled by ES&S/Diebold. And those are the "best" systems!
California has one of the "best" systems and also one of the best secretaries of state (Debra Bowen). Bowen banned ES&S from California, at one point, they were so non-cooperative in her efforts to analyze and monitor our electronic voting systems. She has outright banned electronic voting (no paper trail). Diebold was making great inroads on e-voting (no paper trail) systems that would have turned California into Georgia or South Carolina (voting results that are not even recountable). She has toughened the rules and she beat down some particularly Diebold-corrupted local election officials. But she has not challenged the core problem--private, corporate, 'TRADE SECRET' tabulation of the votes. California's basic audit is still only 1%, which is NOT adequate to detect fraud in a 'TRADE SECRET' electronic system.
In Venezuela, which has an OPEN SOURCE code electronic system-that is, anyone can review the code by which the votes are tabulated (unlike here)--they hand-count a whopping 55% of the votes--over fives times the minimum needed to detect fraud in an electronic system, according to experts whom I respect.
I think Debra Bowen is honest and is also extremely intelligent. However, our previous Democratic secretary of state, Kevin Shelley, was drummed out of office, on entirely false corruption charges, after he sued Diebold and demanded to see their source code, just prior to the 2004 presidential (s)election, and just after that weird California recall election with 125 candidates on the ballot, that Schwarzenegger allegedly won. Shelley was a threat to 'TRADE SECRET' code vote counting. Bowen is not. Maybe that's a sign of her political savvy. She's too smart to try to end it--she saw what happened to Shelley--and she's doing the best that she can with 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting as a given.
Let me just repeat one thing: Kevin Shelley had to SUE Diebold to get at their 'TRADE SECRET' code. Even our secretaries of state are forbidden to review it! That tells you all you need to know about the state of our democracy.
Finally, as to your question, Democrats getting elected (whether it's Obama '08 or California '10) does NOT mean that multinational corporations and war profiteers are no longer in control. The Democratic leadership has PERMITTED this nearly completely non-transparent, private, ES&S/Diebold-monopolized vote counting system to be put in place everywhere in the country. That is one of the mind-boggling facts that opened MY eyes to our situation as a democracy. Democrats also pander for corporate money. They can't run without it. You gotta have a million dollars in hand, these days, to even think of running for Congress. And they also cringe in fear of the corpo-fascist press and don't dare challenge its power to write our political narratives. Don't be fooled that Jerry Brown getting elected governor means that multinational corporations don't run California. He is tight with one of the biggest, baddest corporate players in the world, Gap Inc. (He married one of their executives.) He may be liberal on social issues, and more pro-union, but he is a typical "centrist"--that is, Corporate--Democrat in most ways. I will grant him this--he's unpredictable, and comes from a populist (and radical Catholic) tradition. I'd say 90% Corporate, 10% wild wheat.
And anyway, as to California, Enron and other Bush-Cheney donors (Texas energy corps) got away with California's entire $10 billion state surplus, so what do the corporate powers really care if the Democrats take over this robbed and raped and left-for-dead golden land? This way, the Democrats get to take the blame and get to put down the UC student riots and so on. All the money's gone! When the Democrats put Humpty-Dumpty back together again, and California starts edging toward a surplus, the Looters and Rapists will be back. And meanwhile they have a Puke Congress to loot and rape Social Security and anything else they want to loot and rape, again.
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