who they've voted for? But yes, it would take something like this in large scale to attempt to win the votes for a particular candidate.

were rigging - means he probably is somehow. Good news - he can't get Bush's Florida software

No paper trail. You tap the screen and cross your fingers that the vote will be recorded as indicated. But you have no way to verify it.

Want a recount? You're screwed.

when people report flipping whether it's a true computer error or a mistake they've made themselves: thinking they've pressed one place on the screen but a nearby element is activated instead.

It's never happened to me voting (I usually vote on a paper ballot that is fed through an optical scanner, but this primary season, because I had to vote early, I voted on an electronic machine, which I checked carefully at each step and then again at the end). But it's happened to me in other life situations.

We took a road trip this summer, and I made some hotel reservations in the various towns and cities we needed to stop over in. When we got to the last city, I went to the hotel desk to check in. They couldn't find my reservation, and said I didn't have one. I was certain I'd made it and asked them to re-check. They finally found my name and informed me our reservation was for the following week. And they had no rooms currently. I was irate, I was sure they had messed up my reservation. But in retrospect, was it possible I was pressing Monday the 11th on the little calendar and in fact hit the row beneath and unwittingly made it for the 18th? It's very possible. (But I never make mistakes!!)

Last night I had to take the remote control away from my husband. We were switching between a show and the World Series game, and he kept repeatedly hitting the wrong buttons. I told him he had to relinquish his remote rights until he could figure out how to press a 3 and then a 2 correctly. (He claims the buttons are just so small!)

Machines are sensitive, and it's not so hard to scerw up--oops, I meant screw up!

we shouldn't be using those machines. Voting is our most sacred right and the country should make it easy and as foolproof as possible to exercise that right.

I screwed up a paper ballot once. There were like 60 judicial retention spots to mark yes or no, and I had come with my cheat sheet to work from so I could accurately apply all the research I'd done. I am a scrupulous voter. But it was a mindboggling array of arrows to connect, some yes, some no. When I went to feed my ballot into the machine, it spit it back out, and the attendant said there was an overvote in it. I apparently, in going from the top yesses to the bottom nos on umpty-ump lines, had connected two arrows in the same judge's line.

They gave me a new ballot and I had to fill the whole blankety-blank thing again. This time it was perfect. The point is--people can make mistakes on any kind of voting system. ANY KIND. We are not perfect.

Have you never made a mistake in your life? Everyone I know makes them every day, and many of them have Ph.Ds.

Teach him how to use the 'last' button on the remote when switching between two shows.

And why should we just accept it assuming a vote is going to the wrong candidate because a machine isn't calibrated properly? I say we should all go back to paper ballots.

Paper ballots. Fill in the dot. Sent thru the scanner by the voter and then the voter puts it in a box. Random hand counts across the state to verify scanned counts.

Voter fraud under these conditions would have to involve hundreds of people.

What 'calibration'? I'm using a touch keyboard right now, with very small keys. I never have to 'calibrate' it. I don't think there is ill intent, but these machines sound like junk.

I've run into this many times on the plant floor. Esp. with touchscreens that are mounted about 5-6' off the floor. Have to be very careful when calibrating to use stylus instead of a finger, or be careful if someone really tall or really short does the calibration because angles of perspective are different then, too.

1. I've looked at videos of these voting machines, and haven't seen a stylus...just fingers

2. If these are 'completely different' than contemporary technology that works almost flawlessly...then why use it?

3. If you have to be 'really careful', then why use it?

I'm sorry, but its really hard to explain away a faulty voting machine as a 'calibration error'. Especially in an era when so many touch screen applications work so well - these are 2 inch square 'buttons' people are poking at. It shouldn't be that hard to make it work right...and it it doesn't work right, we should all go back to paper.

and it occasionally needs recalibrated so I can see how that might happen.

"Give me a laptop and a cell phone, and I'll make any of those electronic voting machines give you any result you want."

Incorrectly calibrated or defective machines is not "vote rigging".