R.I.P. The Electoral Process in the U.S. - First of a Series

As anyone who knows me will tell you, I've been barking about the touch-screen voting problem for the last three years. Anyone not familiar with this situation is hereby ordered to visit the following Web sites immediately:



Black Box Voting



Verified Voting



We already know that Florida's elections in the Jeb Bush era have been totally bogus, but what's astounding is how blatantly they're getting ready to do it again. First it was the infamous felons list that contained mostly African-American (read: Democratic) names, but NO Hispanic (read: Republican) names. Now a report has been issued which affirms that these so-called miracle voting machines, guaranteed to eliminate the undervote/overvote problem which confounded vote recounters in 2000, merely EXACERBATE the problem.

The Florida Division of Elections' report found that the rate of so-called undervotes, or blank or incomplete ballots, in the 2002 gubernatorial election was nearly three times higher in counties using touch-screen machines as in those with optical scan systems.



In the election, which incumbent Republican Gov. Jeb Bush won by a wide majority, more than 44,000 votes were ruled invalid because of undervotes, overvotes (when a voter chooses more than one candidate) or flawed absentee ballots, the report said.

Read on, McDuff.



Meanwhile, at the same time Jeb Bush is extolling the virtue of touch-screen voting, the state Republican party didn't get the message. They've sent a flyer out to Republican voters in Florida recommending that they use absentee ballots.



Once work about this got out, however, Jebbie must have sent Clemenza and Tessio to break someone's legs, because the Republican Party in Florida has since apologized for the flyer.



Although Florida is supposedly a swing state, does anyone really doubt that a loyal family soldier like Jeb Bush has things under control to deliver the state for his brother, no matter what the intent of the voters? Of more concern is Ohio, a TRUE swing state which for some bizarro reason is still leaning towards Bush, though only by a hair. The Family isn't taking any chances there either. Turns out that Hamilton County, Ohio election officials (and those in 20 other counties) are giving misleading information to ex-felons.

Hamilton County elections officials are providing "misleading and erroneous" voting information to ex-felons, a Cincinnati-area prisoner advocacy group said Tuesday.



The Prison Reform Advocacy Center surveyed 140 former state prison inmates and talked to all 88 county boards of elections. The group found that one in five ex-felons don't realize they can re-register to vote, and some election boards were unaware of the law.



"This is absolutely unacceptable that boards of elections that are supposed to know Ohio law ... are giving misleading, inconsistent and flat-out wrong information to ex-offenders," said David Singleton, executive director of the center.

At this point, I don't know that we can ever have any faith in how any election turns out ever again. As long as party hacks are permitted to run the process and count the votes and buy the voting machines, and as long as the process has no value, only the victory, we are no better than any other banana republic.