So where was the Diebold Effect?

We were expecting it, hell we were expecting it... I think it was there, hold it... I'll explain.

The way the database works you can program it to literally flp a percentage of the votes. In a VERY CLOSE election this will work... but if you have a good GOTV effort and I have been told that we had a good turnout even in California, well that even small switch will not work.

If you had a larger switch in votes it would be too obvious.

The lesson of the story is... don't loose sight of the ball, which is the machines are rigged, but we NEED to get our voters out next year. That is the true lesson of the story.

like it is in ohio or florida

If you play PC games, you'll know what I mean ;)

for the game I am writing (RPG) we use an excell database, and formulas are used to determine final values. I think something like that was going on... but since we won on most cases, people will go, we can trust the system.

No we can't

Another factor could be that they may be a little more hesitant to do things illegal at this point in time, with indictments and Fitzmas in the air.

But till we get a verifiable, legit evoting system, vigilance will remain so so important.

This election was important to us psychologically, but not nearly as important for the Republicans. They still have the White House for the next 3 years at least. They are increasing their long term dominance on the Supreme Court guaranteed. And control over neither chamber of Congress was at stake this year.
It's easy to cheat these electronic systems, but it's never without risk whether it's easy or difficult to do. If the cheat gets exposed, the repercussions for the Republican Party would be lasting and disastrous. First of all cheating doesn't happen with a push of a button from Diebold Corporate Headquarters like some people seem to think. I doubt very strongly cheating happens with the coordination or even awareness of the RNC or highly positioned strategists like Karl Rove. It happens, if it happens, the way cheating has always happened. State election officials of the locally dominant party and county elections workers of the same party meet in the normal course of their social lives at party functions or whatever and one person looks at the other one with a lingering gaze and says, "You know we really have to win our state this year or John Kerry will destroy this country. Maybe it comes down to just you and me. We are in a unique position to help our country."
Cheating happens through like minded inviduals in a party organization finding each other out, some highly placed in the state organization some down in the trenches, and taking on the job of managing history on their own initiative. The Republican Party cheats because it attracts individuals with this kind of character flaw that happens to be in tune with the party's overall system of "ethics".

But you have to have a compelling reason to stick your neck out so far as an individual, like seizing the White House away from the party of Godless Socialism or whatever, and yesterday was not an occasion with a compelling reason like that.

We shouldn't expect elections in 2006 or 2008 to go smoothly without Diebold bounces for the Refucklicans like this year did, because the stakes will be rising much higher.

theft will elevate as well.

The vigilance will continue, and maybe laws will be passed based on science, computer science.

But even still I did hear of some instances of people trying to vote for the Dem but having the touch screen register for the Repub.

I agree Diebold only made the machines and allowed the security hole to exist.

If the stakes are big, then the call may go out from Rove to oh say "Blackwell" to get his minions to hack the tabulators.

Almost makes you wonder if someone on our side oughta be learning how to play with the central tabulator too.

;)

I think you're right. We lost issue two in Ohio because nobody voted. Who knows if it was stolen, but polls showed it up with 60% and it lost. That confuses me. If there were exit polls and they were obviously way off i'd scream bloody murder right here and now. Speaking of which, does anybody have the 2005 exit polls from ohio? Were there any?

nt