A Slashdot post links to a Black Box Voting post showing that “in machine counted precincts, Clinton beat Obama by almost 5%. In hand counted precincts, Obama beat Clinton by over 4%, which closely matches the scientific polls that were conducted leading up to the election.”
To me this is less significant as a claim about “ZOMG Clinton cheated! W00t Obama!” and more important to raise the issue that when you use a voting system has as many well-documented flaws as the Diebold machines, you’re going to have these kinds of questions. Wouldn’t it be smarter, and better for democracy, to run our elections differently?
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http://dhinmi.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/10/02623/2264/85/434176
I agree with you — clearly we need a voting system that has the confidence of the electorate, because otherwise there won’t be any trust in the outcome even when, such as in cases like this, there isn’t any really good evidence to support hacking or cheating. Since people’s current confidence levels render just about every election disputable, we’re setting ourselves up for a neverending waste of time and money (among other, perhaps worse consequences) if we don’t solve the problem at a basic level.
My proposal is that only my vote will count. That’ll make recounts really quick and easy.
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