I'm not sure I can answer the question on whether there is some grand scheme or grand conspiracy in all that. I'm kind of a numbers guy. And you have a situation where the technology is very vulnerable. You've got study after study showing that it's easy to break into these machines and change massive vote totals. That frightens me, as an American citizen. Just frightens me, because we're in a context of a situation where manipulated elections, stolen elections, stuffed ballot boxes... that's our history. It is something that you really have to work to keep secure. Because there's all kinds of motivation by all kinds of parties to try to manipulate election results. So to then move into a technology that has massive vulnerabilities to it is the entirely wrong direction. So that's a large part of the point.
The other part is... well, since 2000, virtually all of the manipulation, if you will, has been in one direction. You look at where there's been a lot of reporting on vote flipping — where someone goes in and presses the screen for one candidate and it show up for another candidate — and that wasn't covered in the film, but virtually all of those showed that it was Kerry voters, and it would flip to another candidate. There were practically no reports the other way. And that speaks loudly to me.
It speaks loudly to me on the exit polls when it goes so strongly in one direction. So from that standpoint, it becomes up to the media, it becomes up to the investigators to, at the very least, look into it. And maybe the film is just a call to action and alarm, in that sense. Saying, "This looks suspicious. Let's look into it. Let's really look closely and see if there's conspiracy."
The problem with the technology now is that it doesn't leave footprints. It's just very difficult to uncover it, and that's another problem. So what you end up getting left with are exit polls that at least provide clues for us that we ought to pay attention to.
Touching on a couple of those things, and just as a follow-up to that, is just the bigger issue of electronic voting. In the film, because of the machine problems that are detailed, as well as factors such as power outages that affect voting ability at one point, let's assume that for November everyone completely went back to paper ballots. Even if we switched to something besides electronic voting, do you think we would solve most of the problems we saw in the film?
No, not just automatically. We have a history of problems with paper ballots. Ballot boxes can be stuffed; the chain of custody is very important. We had a primary election in New Hampshire where twenty percent of the precincts did paper ballots, and they were able to actually do a recount, but then they had chain of custody problems. Because if you have paper ballots, you have to treat it as gold. They have to be put in boxes, everything has to be followed. The chain of custody is very important. Do I favor something that involves paper? Yes. I think at the very least you have to have a paper ballot that is produced in one way or another.
Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
Your interview would be a lot more interesting if you hadn't stuck to nothing but softball questions and fawning on your subject.
I'd have liked to see you ask him if he had any evidence at all that any voting machines had ever been hacked during an election (there is none) and perhaps hit him with some questions about the hundreds of thousands of bogus registrations from ACORN and other leftist groups, or perhaps the cash for votes practices of Democrats in a number of southern states.
But I guess that wouldn't suit your agenda, just as the media avoids reporting on election fraud in general because they know that any unbiased and halfway thorough investigation will reveal so much more fraud from the left than the right that it would be embarassing.
Think about it. All this furor about voting machines, yet it is the city and county and state electoral bureaucracies which are dominated by Democrats which have been the main supporters of the use of these machines.
Partisans like the people who made this film have identified a legitimate problem, but they need to come to grips at some point with the reality that if there is fraud going on, it's much more likely to be their political allies who are doing it.
Dave
2 - David R. Perry
Dave,
I'm assuming that you haven't actually watched said movie. I would recommend it (it's available via Netflix, by the way; in case anyone here subscribes), as I found it very interesting, and many of the criticisms you mention are dealt with in more detail there. I was not attempting to rehash every point or claim of the film.
Granted, the film has an admittedly obvious leftist bent to it, but I think it's ridiculous to criticize the main thrust of the film, which deals with the need for more accountability and checks and balances in the voting process. That is something that only benefits a real democracy. Your quibble seems to be with "why" they're looking into it in the first place, which is less important.
If you'd like to ask your own questions, the production company seems fairly open to media inquiries. Perhaps you can help fill in the blanks of the discussion.
By the way, your critique would be more interesting if you didn't exhibit an obviously equal, but opposite, agenda. (Agendas come from both sides, you know.)
- DRP
3 - Dave Nalle
Well, I'd normally take a middle course, but when dealing with a partisan position I'm naturally inclined to take the opposite one.
I've done a lot of reading on the voting security issue == things like actual academic studies -- but there's so much propaganda out there that I'm reluctant to watch a film. The format is much easier to use for propaganda and distortion in the grand Michael Moore tradition.
These things are getting on cable, though. So when it does I'll be all over it.
Dave
4 - John
The bias is so overwhelmingly against Republicans that the film is self- discrediting.