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Computerized voting machines in the 2002 election did all kinds of weird things: if you pressed the Democrat's name in some counties in Texas, for example, the Republican's name was chosen. And in Cormal County, Texas, three Republican candidates won by exactly 18,181 votes apiece. There's the kind of coincidence the FBI loves. But it gets even more amazing: in two other races elsewhere in this great nation, Republicans won by--wait for it--18,181 votes. The odds of this are similar to the odds of waking up on the surface of Mars with your underwear on your head and a bowling trophy gripped between your knees. These results were eventually 'adjusted', proving it was all just a wacky coincidence. But how can we know? Because there is no physical evidence of how a vote was cast. No punch card, no paper ballot, no twig with notches in it. And they stopped doing exit polling in 2002 (apparently the results weren't coming out right-- I see what they mean) so we can't even get an objective comparison of the digital results with the voter's intentions by asking them how they voted as they leave the polling place, bilious and sickened. Kind of makes you feel all scared and crampy, doesn't it? But yes, gentle reader, it does get worse.
There is a complex connection between the companies that make voting software and machines and the GOP, as mentioned above. But it's not some remote connection that only folks with tinfoil beanies and radios in their fillings could understand. These are partnerships, blind trusts, corporate ownership kind of connections. Who's pals with whom. Connections that make sense of some of the most astonishing outcomes of 2002, where vast majorities of black voters voted for anti-black candidates, for example, or where Republican votes skyrocked and Democratic numbers plummeted, reversing historic trends, or machines tallied more votes than were actually cast (according to a Florida official a 10% margin of error is acceptable--that would be over ten million votes nationwide). In Alabama, Democrat Don Siegelman won the election for governor and went home. The next morning, 6,300 of his votes were gone, and Republican Bob Riley took the job instead. Don't worry: ES&S is looking into the problem. Not the government, not an independent commission. Golly.
Need more? There's lots more. ES&S shows up in many of the problem areas, but they're not the only ones. 'Computer Glitches' accounted for the loss of hundreds of thousands of votes nationwide, and the irregularities everywhere are both mystifying and highly suggestive, considering the system was supposed to smooth the way for fair and glitch-free elections in America. Could be just glitches, or it could be a concerted effort to steal the vote.
So when 2004 comes along and we see historic Republican victories across the country, landslides in every territory, and you feel like there's no reason to try any more, remember this: yes, the Republicans have the system rigged. But so did a certain German chancellor in the 1930's. He predicted a Thousand Year Reich. It lasted half a decade. Then again, they didn't have computers back then, so maybe I'd better not sound an optimistic note. After all, there's an inescapable conclusion about the fundamentals of American democracy here, which is that the vote--the single most vital instrument of democracy--has been tampered with on an unprecedented scale. And like falling off a thousand-foot cliff, just because you haven't hit the ground doesn't mean you're not dead. In the year 2002, Americans lost the right to vote. One could argue it was all just bugs in the system. But where there are that many bugs, there's an infestation.
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