A few days ago, Netaloid pointed out the irony of President Bush chiding the powers that be in Ukraine over apparent voting irregularities while he had essentially zilch to say about just-as-apparent voting irregularities during the recent elections in the United States.

Predictably, Netaloid was derided by knee-jerk Bush supporters who suggested his criticism of the election process was akin to believing aliens have landed in Roswell and amounted to sour grapes over Kerry's loss. That derision has been sparked in part by a cadre of Democrats who appear to be pursuing an Ohio recount with the idea that the presidential election results somehow could be reversed.

For the record, Netaloid believes Bush's election was legitimate and that recounts won't change his win. But that's not the point. Sufficient irregularities have surfaced to suggest the process of relying on computerized voting machines is seriously flawed. Voter disenfranchisement already was apparent last time around, especially among blacks in states such as Florida. It's getting worse. And it's time for an official investigation into voting machines, because what's at stake is the public's confidence that the election system is on the up-and-up.

David Allen of Black Box Voting sums it up pretty well:

Short of a signed confession, how do you tell the difference between tampering with the software to change the results and a failure of the software to record properly? Also, in the case of a truly skilled criminal, there will be no evidence of alterations to the machine. This is, of course, what we have been worrying about from the start and why we have demanded additional safeguards, such as paper ballots.

A corollary to this question would be "Did voting machine malfunctions cause inaccurate results to be reported?" The answer is, in my opinion, ABSOLUTELY! Why is this question not being asked? Because questions of fraud are sexier and appeal to people's partisan nature. For some reason it is hard for people to accept that elections could be wrong just because the machines screwed up. Instead, they want to believe that any problem or inaccuracy is the result of skullduggery. In this highly divisive era no action is accidental, it is a coldly planned "enemy" action.

This way of looking at problems is completely counter-prodcutive because it leads to neither side being interested in the truth.While one side is convinced that the election results were inaccurate (which I am), they are convinced that any error was deliberately perpetrated (which I am NOT). Thus, the opposing side does not hear folks wanting to rationally explore what mechanisms of our electoral systems failed. They hear people screaming for their blood, threatening civil and criminal prosecution. Since no one wants to be on the recieving end of a witch hunt, they are going to dig their heels in and refuse to cooperate. And who can blame them?

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