I voted early this year, and noticed that Diebold Voting Machines are still being used - after

[Cal33]

so many years!! Luckily I live in a Democratic state. It probably won't
create problems. But what about those states controlled by the
Republicans?

If Democrats choose to play the role of enablers, I am sure the Republicans
are glad of the help! It takes two to tango!

[Cal33]

1. If enough of us here at DU complain loud and long, maybe those who are in a position to

remove those machines might be persuaded to do something about it -- eventually.
DU is not exactly an unknown entity. It does carry some impact.

[customerserviceguy]

2. I don't seem to remember a lot of complaints about them

in 2006, 2008, and 2012. It seems that when our side loses an election, we blame the machines, when the Rethuglicans lose, they blame voter fraud.

Me, I blame the folks in the mushy middle who decide the weekend before an election who they're going to vote for.

[Cal33]

3. I am sure the Republicans are using frauds of all types they can think of during every election. Is

there still any doubt about this point? Cheating, lying and stealing are part of the character
traits of socio- and psychopaths. But do Dems. have to aid and abet them through our sheer
apathy about doing something to fight back? You are right. That's what I'm talking about.
We don't complain and fight back enough. And this helps the Repubs.

[customerserviceguy]

4. I think it would be very, very hard

to screw around with hundreds or thousands of voting machines, and be able to keep it a secret, especially when election officials come from both parties.

Why some of us trust a lever machine (do you know the internal workings of one, I don't) and distrust a technology that we use to get cash from our bank accounts is beyond me.

[Cal33]

5. I'm no computer whiz either. I'll describe what I know in general terms, and hope some more

knowledgeable person will explain further:

Diebold is not the only maker of these computerized voting machines.
But he is the largest one. He (they) could have built-in mechanisms
installed into those machines before shipping them out to the buyers.
These built-in mechanisms are controllable by people from a long
distance away (to have the votes changed when the time comes, for
example), so no one would be any wiser.

That's one way of doing it. There surely are others.

[customerserviceguy]

6. Ah, the old "ghost in the machine" fear

And so you're telling me that Diebold strategically let the Democratic Party take back the Senate in 2006, and allowed Barack Obama to win the Presidency twice, only to further their agenda in some future year?

Too conspiratorial for me.

[Cal33]

7. In order to cheat intelligently (so as not to be found out), there are many things to

consider. For example, they have to estimate what percentage of the votes to
change from Dem. to Repub. in any given area, because they know there are
people on Election Day outside the Election places waiting to talk to those who
have just voted. They, too, are counting. If the difference between the result
the Repubs. have is too great from that of the Dems., there will be trouble. So,
they'd want to keep the false votes down as low as possible, so as not to arouse
suspicion.

In those years where Democrats have won, the Dems. must have won by far
larger numbers than what the Repubs. had anticipated. The number of false
votes they created was too low. They had miscalculated. Also, they might not
want to risk the whole thing if the Dem. votes are far larger than that of the
Repubs. The larger the percentage of cheating, the easier it becomes to get
caught.

I think, in order for the Dems. to win at all, the real number of their votes have
to be quite a bit bigger than what the official results show. I am talking about
the Republican states, of course.

And what about all the other ways of cheating? I've read, and I'm sure you
have, too, about people being deliberately sent to the wrong voting places,
I.D. card requirements, etc. ...... ad infinitum. This is really criminal.

Some people don't seem to realize it, but we are dealing with criminal behavior.
These people stop at nothing to get what they want -- by hook and by crook.
That is what socio- and psychopaths are!

They are the cause of our nation going down the drain. They deny it, of course.

[customerserviceguy]

8. Yes, you can't just change all the votes to one party or person

But then you have to figure out how to conceal what you've done from many, many people, for a long, long time. That's the basis of conspiracy theory.

I prefer the much simpler explanation that there are a group of underinformed people out there who really haven't paid enough attention to things to know which party supports their ideas, values, and preconceived notions, and simply makes decisions on the spur of the moment on who to vote for, and that causes the swings in our elections.

Whichever side they fear least gets their votes.

[Hortensis]

11. I agree entirely with that last. I wondered if our computers were hacked even as I voted.

The enormous money and power at stake, and available to sociopaths, make sophisticated, extremely well funded attempts to steal elections electronically on local, state and national scales inevitable.

[Cal33]

14. I remember in 2004 Diebold boasted that he would deliver the State of Ohio (I believe) to

Last edited Sun Oct 26, 2014, 02:03 PM - Edit history (1)

Bush, Jr., and he did. How could he have been so sure, unless ..... ?

[blkmusclmachine]

9. Our feckless, wallflower DEMs do nothing to secure the vote. I wonder why...

[Cal33]

10. There probably are many reasons. One guess is, the average Democrat is more easy-going,

lackadaisical, and less driven than the average Republican. Some, of course, go too far.

[Hortensis]

12. Here in Georgia the GOP has a lock on most offices. Fingers crossed for change to begin this year.

[Cal33]

15. For a Deep South state to change. That would really be something!

[kairos12]

13. That is the Rethug ongoing program called True..I mean Screw the Vote.