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Diebold Goes 0 For 3 In Massachusetts Case 119

Posted by kdawson from the help-america-litigate-act dept.
beetle496 writes "ComputerWorld reports that last week a judge denied Diebold's request to block ES&S pact with Massachusetts. This is a follow-up to the earlier discussion here after Diebold contended that the state had erred in selecting the machines of its rival, citing accessibility provisions of the HAVA law. Quoting: 'Diebold's request for an injunction to block the execution of the contract with ES&S was rejected... The judge also denied Diebold's request to have an accelerated discovery process and to keep the state's legal team from viewing internal Diebold documents... "The suit is still there, but they went zero for three yesterday," the spokesman said.' The actual accessibility concerns have been discussed over at the TEITAC listserv, including a few telling observations from experts familiar with accessible voting and at least one state insider."
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Diebold Goes 0 For 3 In Massachusetts Case More

Diebold Goes 0 For 3 In Massachusetts Case

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  • Diebold should just (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @09:19PM (#18598065)
    stick to ATMs.

  • Score.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NightWulf ( 672561 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @09:21PM (#18598093)
    one for the good guys. It's a start. Just amazes me how in some countries the mere thought of voter fraud creates giant revolutions, while in America you have blatant evidence of fraud, and very few people care.

    • Re:Score.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Cylix ( 55374 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @09:25PM (#18598121) Homepage Journal
      In America, we are just hoping to get a piece of the fraud pie!

      We have dreams too... they are just different then everyone else.

    • Re:Score.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Volante3192 ( 953645 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @09:31PM (#18598173)
      I used to care. But I think voter apathy is contagious...

      Frankly, I think this country would be better off the sooner we start *really* fucking it up than later. Shock people into realizing their fragile little world is on the brink of becoming glass shards...

      If we just slowly slide downward, people won't notice...like now. It's like gently turning the heat up on a frog in a pot of water on the stove. Need to crank that oven dial to 11 and make froggy jump out and go "DAMN, THAT'S HOT"
      • For what it's worth, snopes.com [snopes.com] says the legend of the boiling frog is false. But I do wonder sometimes if we should just get it over with and start fucking things up ASAP. :)

      • Re:Score.. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by value_added ( 719364 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @09:58PM (#18598393)
        I used to care. But I think voter apathy is contagious...

        Could be that the options aren't too exciting. There's never a CowboyNeal option, is there?

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by WindBourne ( 631190 )
          Well, kidding aside, I tend to think that you are correct. All in all, the choices have been 2 lamers; a dem and a rep.. Worse, most of these are crooks.
          1. Reagan was a traitor, liar and a crook. Worse, his policies have damaged America like no other had, until W..
          2. Poppa bush (a president that I liked) may also been part of the reagan fraud. I would like to believe that he was not in the Iran Hostage deal (where the republicans cut deals with the Iranians to hold the hostage until after the election, which i
          • What about Brownback? He seems good.
            • I have to agree he is NOT one of the standards that the 2 parties seem to whip out, but little chance of being nominated, let alone elected. Personally, I am a ron paul fan, but another person who will not be nominated. In addition, while I do not agree with his politics, I have thought that Hucklebee looked interesting. He has governed a state and been pretty good at it. But again, zero chance of being elected.

              But a good example of what I talked about earlier is Tom Tancredo. The man got out of 'nam by
          • Obama says what people want to hear. He cant actually do anything he says.

            • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

              by loganrapp ( 975327 )
              Obama talks a good talk. I think he would make a great first black president - one that does very little, thereby doing very little to make people nervous about having elected a black president. Chappelle made a joke about being the first black president, but in essence he's right - it's a very "hot" proposition. Elect one, let him do very little for four to eight years, then next time around, a black president with real chops won't have to jump those hurdles. I mean, really, a president that does nothing?
          • Hows about a little bit more detail on point 2 there? I'm immensely curious.

            I always thought it was just that the Iranians themselves had decided to wait until the next president was in before releasing the hostages.
        • If nobody on the ballot seems acceptable, write in someone who is. That could be yourself, if you are eligible to hold that office. Or arrange with a small group of like-minded people to use the same write-in protest candidate.

          There's your CowboyNeal vote. Too bad it won't win, unlike on /.

          Mal-2

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hxnwix ( 652290 )
          --WELCOME TO DIEBOLD VOTING SOFTWARE SYSTEM--
          --GO AHEAD AND SELECT YOUR SELECTEE FROM THE SELECTIONS BELOW, ALREADY--

          [ ] Cowboy Bush
          [X] Not Cowboy Bush
          [ ] Meat Popsicle

          --CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE ELECTED TO SELECT COWBOY BUSH--
          --DIEBOLD - BECAUSE YOUR INPUT MATTERS--
        • I once saw a proposal for "None of the above". It would be always present on votes. It would be treated as a candidate. A vote for "None of the above" would disqualify any of those candidates from ever running for that office again, and force a re-election for that position.

          Right now, people end up voting for the candidate that sucks the least. A "None of the above" vote would put the power back to the people, by giving them a safe "Cowboy Neal" option that actually might have some teeth.

          Which is why the Re

      • Re:Score.. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Daniel Dvorkin ( 106857 ) * on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @10:12PM (#18598501) Homepage Journal
        Frankly, I think this country would be better off the sooner we start *really* fucking it up than later. Shock people into realizing their fragile little world is on the brink of becoming glass shards...

        It's very easy to say that, sitting in your office or bedroom, comfortable with a cup of coffee and your browser pointed at Slashdot ...

        Revolutions are ugly, ugly things, and so are the circumstances that create them. Anyone who seriously wants things to get much worse, much faster, is either a psychotic, or just isn't thinking things through. (Usually the latter, of course.)

        • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

          by WhatAmIDoingHere ( 742870 ) *
          At this point, Revolution is the easiest way to get the US of A back on track. It sucks, but it's true.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Daniel Dvorkin ( 106857 ) *
            Except there's no guarantee of "getting back on track" with a revolution, at all. In fact, the odds are pretty well against it.

            We got extraordinarily lucky once -- we could very easily have turned into the first in the long, sad series of colonies that have won their independence only to sink into a morass of dictatorship and self-inflicted poverty. The fact that we didn't is due to the group of great minds that happened to gather around the idea of independence at that particular moment; it's not the usu

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by xero314 ( 722674 )

              Except there's no guarantee of "getting back on track" with a revolution, at all.

              Doesn't that depend on what "on track" means? Some would say that any change would be better than what we have now. Remember that Malevolent Dictatorships do not last. So either things getter or they get worse, forcing people into another revolution to improve things. Historically, revolutions have always led to "better" conditions even if they were not immediate. Remember it took genocide by the Khmer Rouge (which I in no way condone) to bring democracy to Cambodia, which is something the US has yet b

              • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                by Telvin_3d ( 855514 )
                If, "Malevolent Dictatorships" really do not last, it is only true from a historical perspective. From the point of view of the people living through them, I bet they drab on and on and on. After all, dictatorships have certainly proven to be a lasting think in much of South America, Africa and the Middle East. They haven't always been the same dictator for long, but the dictatorship goes on.

                Actually, I can't think of a single example in the past half century that a people got fed up with a dictator, thr

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by jimicus ( 737525 )
                  Actually, I can't think of a single example in the past half century that a people got fed up with a dictator, threw him out of power (with or without outside assistance) and then were still a democracy 10 years later.

                  Russia? (Generally considered fairly corrupt, so I don't know if that counts. Mind you, I daresay they're just not as good at hiding the corruption as most of the West as they've not had the practise.)

                  Serbia? (though Serbia hasn't had 10 years yet)

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by xero314 ( 722674 )

                  Actually, I can't think of a single example in the past half century that a people got fed up with a dictator, threw him out of power (with or without outside assistance) and then were still a democracy 10 years later.

                  First of all Democracy is not necessarily the best form of government, and second I said "Malevolent Dictatorship." Not all Dictatorships are disliked by it's citizens. Many people would prefer a Benevolent Dictator over Mob Rule. The Problem in recent years is that certain world powers think they know what is best for all countries and prefer to overthrow foreign governments before their own citizens learn there may actually be other ways of living. Iraq is a fine example, but even better would be Nica

              • > Some would say that any change would be better than what we have now.

                The technical term for those people would be "idiots".

                > Remember it took genocide by the Khmer Rouge (which I in no way condone) to bring democracy to
                > Cambodia, which is something the US has yet been able to accomplish through non-revolutionary change.

                If you honestly think Cambodia (where the election are well and truly *actually* rigged) has more
                democracy than the US, I'm just going to have to assume you no longer have any con

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by xero314 ( 722674 )

                  If you honestly think Cambodia (where the election are well and truly *actually* rigged) has more democracy than the US
                  The United States does not have Democracy, not Representative Democracy (regardless of the oxymoronic nature of the term),or even Corrupt Democracy. The United States is not a Democracy. The United States is a Corrupt Constitutional Republic, that believes Democracy is good for everyone else. Hopefully that makes the point a little bit clearer.
        • I don't think the revolution stage is necessary, at least not yet, but something needs to shake up the voting public so they actually start caring about the government and what they do in regards to economics and diplomacy rather than abortion or evolution. Require the branches of government to have accountability on all levels.

          I, personally, don't see a way to spark that interest given the current environment outside of a jolt. I would be happy to be proven wrong though.
          • America has come close to the brink before -- we very nearly made the monarchist mistake after the Revolution, the savage-suppression mistake after the Civil War, and either the fascist mistake or the communist mistake (or both at once; imagine the Spanish Civil War writ large ...) during the Depression -- and every time we've pulled back. I'd like to think we can do the same this time around.
            • Those, though, are all major events that happened on US soil that had visable impact to everyone. If we compare this to the Civil War, where are we? Missouri Compromise? Dred Scott? John Brown? Restocking Fort Sumner? We're certainly not at the Civil War point yet.

              I would imagine the sooner we have something that invigorates public involvement in the government, it'd be less damaging. The longer we wait, the more devistating the Event will end up being.

              • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

                by Anonymous Coward
                If we compare this to the Civil War, where are we? Missouri Compromise? Dred Scott? John Brown? Restocking Fort Sumner? We're certainly not at the Civil War point yet.

                We're at the whinging-crybaby stage. There was much greater civil unrest in the 1930s, the 1960s, and the 1910s than there is now.

                Just listen to the revolutionary wannabes. One of the things they find most sinister is that, although most people say they dislike the government, very few are willing to do anything about it, whether violent or

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by vux984 ( 928602 )
                  few really believe that it's particularly oppressive

                  More accurately, few really believe THEY are being oppressed.

                  The government is already operating under enough offensive and oppressive policy to trigger real civil unrest.

                  But so far they haven't applied it wide enough publicly enough for people to really feel it yet. Most of us still assume, we personally aren't being wiretapped, DHS isn't knocking on our doors or interrogating our neighbors, few of us know anyone personally who's been whisked away to secr

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by xero314 ( 722674 )

          Anyone who seriously wants things to get much worse, much faster, is either a psychotic, or just isn't thinking things through.

          As someone that has pushed the "fuck it up so things can get better" line more than once, I have to disagree. For those that studied Plato, Marx or any other revolutionary visionary knows that real change only happens when people become fed up with their current lot. This is arguably why Soviet Communism failed and why Soviet Capitalism is showing signs of collapse, things just weren't bad enough before making the change and then change without revolution. It may be possible that we have evolved past th

          • Plato was a believer in government that knew what was good for you and would make sure you got it whether you wanted it or not. Marx built his entire political theory on an economic basis that made absolutely no sense at all--the Labor Theory of Value has to rank as one of the most absurd ideas to ever see widespread acceptance; a few moments' thought will give you many obvious disproofs. Not the people I would choose for applied political theory.

            Chris Mattern

      • Re:Score.. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by lawpoop ( 604919 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @10:20PM (#18598549) Homepage Journal
        I think you're right. In America, our system still works well enough that people's daily lives aren't yet too much impacted by fraud and cronyism.

        There's a quote I encountered somewhere in my anthropology studies that says "People don't protest when their bellies are full." Everyone loves to say that nobody in America cares, but when the shit starts hitting the fan, you will witness a sea change in the US, on the scale of the 1930s. The kindling is building up, sooner or later some event will spark the whole thing aflame.

        • I think you're right. In America, our system still works well enough that people's daily lives aren't yet too much impacted by fraud and cronyism.

          Bingo! There are some things about this country that bother me, but right now they're things I'm reading about, not things I'm experiencing. My daily life is much like it's always been, and my belly is not only full, but somewhat large.

          I'm not sure what will happen in the future, but for the moment, things are too comfortable for too many people for any "revolut

          • America was founded on a revolution that occurred because people were anything but comfortable, but in those days the colonists were anything but complacent, understood the stakes very clearly, and as the British found out were truly a force to be reckoned with. At that, we needed some help from the French, but we still pulled it off.

            The problem with revolutionary thinking is that nowadays America is no longer sufficiently independent to survive what would happen in the wake of a major economic collapse.
      • It's important to save the frog.
      • How would you propose "cranking it to 11"? I figure canceling "24" _and_ "American Idol" would send a shock that reverberates through the country... but short of that anything you did would go unnoticed by the masses.
        • I'm open to suggestions.

          I'm sorta hoping Congress or the Executive Branch will take care of it on their own. Running TV ads wouldn't work, too expensive to get good time slots assuming people even watch em.

          I'm also not exactly partial to running for office (not that I'm electable to begin with, especially not in my district...)
          • Running TV adverts... bad idea. Producing a show/film about it... better idea. It seems to have marginally worked for Al Gore. His "climate change" agenda is starting to pick up... and he has started this website [stepitup2007.org] to gather a grass-roots movement.

            In addition to "Incovenient Truth", there is "Loose Change" which discusses the 9/11 attacks.

            On the other hand... if you really want to see transparent voting become a reality, head over to the Electronic Voting Machine [sourceforge.net] project which is sponsored by the Open
      • or do the words "hanging chads" and "ohio vote count" mean anything to you?

        paper ballots. the past is the secure future.

    • The Diebold Distraction (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      ES&S is the corporation which made the machines used to steal^H^H^H^H^H carry out the Presidential election in Ohio in 2004.

      I don't know why we're congratulating ES&S on its victory over Diebold. Why is one black box maker any better than another? Let's use a sensible system instead.
      • The same reason Apple is good and Microsoft is bad.

        It's completely arbitrary and based on a naive world view. If Diebold is bad, their competition HAS to be good.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by EvanED ( 569694 )
          It's completely arbitrary and based on a naive world view. If Diebold is bad, their competition HAS to be good.

          To be fair, hasn't that been the US's foreign policy for, like, half a century at least?

          "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"?

          So it's not just /.ers screaming "M$! OMG TEH EV1L!11!!"

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Volante3192 ( 953645 )
        We're not congratulating ES&S, as much as being happy that justice is working. The judge rejected all of Diebold's whiny claims. ES&S is irrelevant to that point.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cheapy ( 809643 )
      The Government of the Orange Revolution (was that what it was called?) is falling apart. President just dismantled Parliament, Parliament refuses to dismantle, etc.

    • Re:Score.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Kandenshi ( 832555 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @09:46PM (#18598301)
      Indeed, it's disturbing and scary how apathetic people are over here about the political system. I for one propose that we immediately

      Oh, crap! The newest episode of "So You Think You Can Dance" is airing!

      bbl

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Spleen ( 9387 )
        Any mod who has modded the parent "insightful" instead of "funny" should be flogged accordingly.

        • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

          by WhatAmIDoingHere ( 742870 ) *
          Funny moderations continue to be broken and result in 0 Karma, and that's why when I have mod points, I tend to go Interesting or Insightful when I find a funny comment.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Sparr0 ( 451780 )
            Maybe enough people have set custom moderation filters with Funny=-3 that slash has finally figured out that its not really a +1? Like my sibling post, I also meta moderate against people abusing the moderation system like you.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Cylix ( 55374 )
              Then there are some of us who browse with Funny=+5.

              I enjoy comedy, it's a great thing and it is a bit annoying that no one can earn any points from it.

              However, you can meta-moderate me all day and even mod me down. The youngsters might worry about karma, but I've got a bit built up and it won't take long to replenish it.

          • But underrated moderations do give the karma. As long as one person mods it funny, the rest can mod underrated to their hearts' content.
    • It's not that they don't care. It's that if they do anything more than talk about the problem, they'll be punished severely, and even talking about it can get dangerous if the words are effective enough.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by UbuntuDupe ( 970646 ) *
      The reason, I think, is that in other countries -- those ones with all the revolutions -- political corruption is *the* way to get rich. In developed, transparent countries, your livelihood doesn't depend much on which party is in power in the first place. You can still get a job, you can still start a business, you can still buy farmland or a house, etc. While Congress still doles out a HUGE number of special favors that lobbyists fight over, that "corrupt" spending doesn't take such a large *fraction*
    • in America you have blatant evidence of fraud, and very few people care


      For some Americans the apathy comes from the perception that there isn't a lot of difference between the main choices available. So I vote this guy or that guy, what's the difference ... kind of mentality.

    • Can you show me some of this blatant evidence?

      All I've heard is the same anti-Bush rumors and conspiracy theories I hear about every other subject these days. Bush makes hurricanes, Bush crashed planes into 9/11. Bush invented muslims as a scapegoat. Bush staged the moon landing. Bush stole the election.

      I'm no fan of Bush, but I absolutely cannot stand the pure bullshit thrown around these days.

      Theres a whole congress and senate just sitting around looking for a reason to impeach the guy.

      If you have evi

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Seumas ( 6865 )
      Yeah, but who cares? It's not like we're talking about voting fraud in something that Americans care about - like American Idol or which Elvis to stick on the postage stamp.
    • Possibly because of the same reason why noone votes.

      Or maybe both sides are trying to commit voter fraud at the same time.
    • You have a typo. You accidentally typed "blatant evidence" when you meant to type "blatant accusations".

      You're welcome.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by StarkRG ( 888216 )
      Yeah we insist on having UN oversight on voting in places like Iraq, but never here in the US. Dammit, I want to head to the polls and see a UN inspector standing outside...

      No, really, I'm being serious, and while we're at it we should be forced to stop our aggressive behavior, if it were any other country we'd be in there going "Look, look Mommie, Iran's being mean!" Then, when Mommie UN either isn't looking or doesn't care (because the big brother US gives her big presents (and is permanently on the Secur
  • Supreme Court: 5-4, ES&S wins! Diebold: 9-0, we win lol!

  • Diebold is the SCO of politics (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @09:48PM (#18598311)
    Diebold is the SCO of politics

    • Backfire (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Chris Burke ( 6130 )
      And like SCO, maybe this suit is set to backfire on them?

      They tried to get an injunction to stop the contract going through so as to damage their opponent, but they also tried to keep the feds from being able to view their internal documents in the process. Well they didn't get their injunction, and now the feds are going to have access to those documents during discovery. Do these documents contain things they really don't want anyone to know? It's happened before, but are they afraid that even more doc
  • It is truly a pleasure to watch common sense take its proper seat in our judiciary. It's all too rare in this American life these days to see the government actually assert itself over a corporation.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by UbuntuDupe ( 970646 ) *
      If a corporation gave me 35% of its profits every year, before I asked, regardless of what I ever did for it, I think people would characterize that relationship as "me asserting myself over that corporation".

  • Of course... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Arceliar ( 895609 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @09:59PM (#18598405)
    Why do I get the feeling that according to Diebold things went more like 4:1 in their favor?

    Oh...right... well, *ahem* let's just hope their court case continues to..uhhh... die boldly?

  • Massachusetts (Score:5, Interesting)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @10:11PM (#18598493) Homepage
    "The Clue State"

    Or maybe just call it "Massa-clue-setts"

    First OpenDocument. Now this. Love it.

    • Re:Massachusetts (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @10:35PM (#18598655)
      Yeah, um, Massachusetts is the state that thinks that anything with blinking lights on it is a bomb, forcing them to evacuate Boston over some signs with blinking lights and batteries on them.

      Then there's the Big Dig, where a tunnel with 2-ton tiles which were held up with bolts that were simply GLUED to the roof fell and killed someone.

      Not to mention that if you go looking for any Open Document files from the Massachusetts government, you won't find any. They were supposed to switch over to open formats completely starting in January, 2007.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by iabervon ( 1971 )
        It's actually the city of Boston that thinks everything is a bomb. State government and neighboring cities are a lot more sane.

        And all of those documents are available in PDF, which is what they always said they'd use for distributing documents to the public (i.e., people who don't need to edit the documents).
    • I'm guessing this has something to do with MIT.

      Although, of course, it hasn't gone very far -- but no other state has even considered this kind of thing.

    • What about PWDs? (Score:3, Informative)

      by beetle496 ( 677137 )

      1) I find it highly offensive and irresponsible that the discussion on /. for this case (both this story and the one before) has automatically presumed that the disabled community is being used as a witless proxy for larger battles.

      2) Having read and digested the entire nuanced thread, particularly posts like this [teitac.org] and that [teitac.org], I have come to the reasoned conclusion that disability access is being used as a proxy for larger battles. I also duly note the similarly with the Massachusetts fight over ODF, but dis

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by yuna49 ( 905461 )
        This is likely the last big contract outstanding and could add to the sale price of the election division when Diebold decides to sell it. The new CEO already has said in Fortune magazine that the election division is not a long term strategic fit for the company.

        This is the best answer I've seen so far to my question [slashdot.org] in the earlier thread asking why Diebold was putting up such a fuss over such a small contract. Now that the Massachusetts courts aren't showing them much sympathy, the suit doesn't even seem

    • "The Clue State"
      Does that mean Diebold did it in the Study with the Candlestick?

  • Isn't it time for open source? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Toe, The ( 545098 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @10:32PM (#18598637)
    There are several open source voting machine projects on SourceForge. WTF is our problem for not getting our governments to use the auditable machines?

    Or what about open source governance? Isn't it time to get rid of the institutions that are based on those of our pre-human ancestors? How about a little technology in our government?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_governanc e [wikipedia.org]
    http://www.metagovernment.org/ [metagovernment.org]

    We have everything we need.

    • Re:Isn't it time for open source? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Rob the Bold ( 788862 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @10:45PM (#18598717)

      There are several open source voting machine projects on SourceForge. WTF is our problem for not getting our governments to use the auditable machines?

      ES&S has an x86-based iVotronic machine that does run Linux. The project was shelved in 2003. It's got a touchscreen (with working Linux driver), pushbuttons (with working driver), audio-out (working under Linux) and a printer option. I bet you could compile several of those to run on that platform.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BCW2 ( 168187 )
      Most of the people making the decisions don't understand the technology. We have to figure out how to educate them first. The same problem applies to Washington, how else do you explain the stupid laws proposed? They fall for the best song and dance with the biggest donations!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lawpoop ( 604919 )
      I am in favor of such forms of government as you listed above, but I think three things have to happen in order for them to be implemented on a large scale.
      1. These have to be shown to work on a large scale. This is where I give hippies credit -- they tried creating communes and 'intentional communities' in the sixties stretching to today. To a large part, they didn't have staying power, much less spreading power. There are still intentional communities up and running today, but more or less, they failed. B

  • Same Sh*t, Different Flies (Score:5, Informative)

    by lagartoflojo ( 998588 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @10:49PM (#18598737)
    Are we supposed to be cheering because Diebold got rejected? From here [wikipedia.org]:

    Thom Hartmann stated in CommonDreams.org (Nov 4 2004, [32]): "About two years ago [Jan 2003], I wrote a story for these pages, "If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines," that exposed how Senator Chuck Hagel had, before stepping down and running for the U.S. Senate in Nebraska, been the head of the voting machine company (now ES&S) that had just computerized Nebraska's vote. The Washington Post (1/13/1997) said Hagel's "Senate victory against an incumbent Democratic governor was the major Republican upset in the November election." According to Bev Harris, Hagel won virtually every demographic group, including many largely black communities that had never before voted Republican. Hagel was the first Republican in 24 years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska, nearly all on unauditable machines he had just sold the state."
    As we would say here, ES&S is the same shit with different flies. Until the law changes [slashdot.org], it doesn't matter if you vote on a Diebold machine or on an ES&S machine, you will still have not idea what really happened to your vote.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by edwardpickman ( 965122 )
      This is exciting news. I wonder how long it is before an unknown hacker gets elected President? Hey an unknown redneck got elected it's about time a hacker got the job.

  • On the brightside (Score:4, Funny)

    by edwardpickman ( 965122 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @11:15PM (#18598905)
    Diebold takes the mystery out of elections. It might be a more efficent use of campaign funds to stop wasting the money on political ads and just use it to bribe Diebold.

  • This (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Quzak ( 1047922 )
    Who ever wins, we lose. Pure and simple. Wake up folks.
  • I don't know, maybe Diebold has some kind of Braille plugin or voice prompts, but how is a guy without arms and legs supposed to vote, unless he is a truly great lower. I would hope disabled people can get a special poll assistant, who ideally sends the voter back with a videotape documenting the transaction.
  • See, the irony of Diebold suing Massachussetts for not buying their defective vote rigging/eating machines is that Diebold markets the machine that Mass is buying from ES&S. Thats hipocritical to the max. Diebold - News ReleasesALLEN, Texas -- Diebold Election Systems and AutoMARK Technical Systems have ... The AutoMARK(TM) accessible device can be used with Diebold's optical scan ... www.diebold.com/news/newsdisp.asp?id=3292

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