NY Times Editorial, today:
Barely two months before the presidential vote, Missouri's secretary of state has suddenly announced that he will allow military voters from his state - one of the most pivotal in the election - to e-mail ballots from combat zones to the Defense Department. E-mail is far too insecure to be used for voting. Missouri and North Dakota, which announced a similar rule yesterday, should rescind these orders right away. Missouri's action also sheds light on the Defense Department's role in administering federal elections, a troubling situation that needs far more scrutiny.
The Missouri secretary of state, Matt Blunt, decided last week that military voters in combat zones will be able to e-mail their ballots to the Pentagon, which will then send them to local Missouri elections offices to be counted. This system, which has not been used before, is rife with security problems, including the possibility of hacking the e-mailed ballots, which will not be encrypted. Earlier this year the Defense Department scrapped a pilot program to allow the military to vote over the Internet, after concluding that it could not "assure the legitimacy of votes" cast online.
There is more cause for concern after the ballots arrive at the Pentagon. E-mail voters will be required to sign a release acknowledging that their votes may not be kept secret. When the people handling ballots know who they are cast for, it is not hard to imagine that ballots for disfavored candidates could accidentally be "lost." And because the e-mailed ballots arrive as computer documents, it is possible to cut off the voter's digitized signature, attach it to a ballot supporting another candidate, and send that ballot on to the state to be counted.
I'm hoping to get my good friend, Stephen Himes, who hails from Matt Blunt Country, to guest-blog on this, but until I can nag him into submission, go read the rest of this.
UPDATE: Well, that was easy. Mr. Himes, special correspondent to B@B and ModFab from the great state of Missouri, writes:
I am not above saying that I think the Republicans are trying to rig this election. All pretense is off. You've got the president of Diebold saying, publically, mind you, that they're going to "come through" in Ohio. Few of the Florida problems have been remedied. I think the Republicans rigged the elections in Georgia and Minnesota last time with voting machines. Look at the swing in the actual vote count and polling done days before the election. Notice that exit polling data system....just happened to not work during the 2002 election. What, you're going to tell me they *wouldn't* do that? The science of electronic voting is in dispute to the point that many scientists in the field are outraged that electronic voting is going to be such a wide part of this election. Republican-donor companies DESIGN AND MANUFACTURE THE VOTING MACHINES. And it goes on
and on.
The son of the House's fourth ranking Republican just happens to count the votes in Missouri, one of the most key swing states, and he just so happens to be running for governor. Do you realize what sort of shit-fit the Republican machine would stir in the public consciousness if the scenario were reversed? Are we a damn banana republic or are we the Show-Me State? SHOW ME THE CERTIFIED PAPER BALLOTS, MATT!
I'm sick of trying to be impartial. I'm sick of trying to be "fair." These people are corrupt to the core. They will do anything for power, anything to win, and that's why they do. I feel like the Manchurian Candidate. But you know what? McCarthy *was* a corrupt messiah, and I think these people are devoted to one. And they can get away with it because there's no public outrage. And whatever "outrage" there is, is simply passed off as "liberal elitist anger" or whatever. I've tried to hold it in check because I think that too often Moveon.org's manipulation of facts and quotes are part of the problem, not the solution. It's still not, and I don't like listening
to whining either. But I've had enough of this. It was wrong when Democratic
machines rigged elections in Chicago and Kansas City, and it's wrong now that the Republicans are doing it.
I am outraged. I'm outraged to the point I'm about ready to type right through my keyboard. I'm convinced that this election is about far more than whether John Kerry or George W. Bush is more qualified to lead a war on terror. Allowing the Republicans to win this time will threaten the Democracy. Don't tell me that's too melodramatic. Will you just look at what has happened in just the four years since these guys took control?
I can't even start or I won't stop. Democracy is not about winning; it's about seeking justice and truth. They don't want to be fair and let the best man win. They want to gerrymander all but the most Kucinichian Democrats out of office and create a Republican caliphate. Yes, I know, Democrats are guilty too. But weigh Democratic crimes in this regard in the last decade, and then compare that to Tom DeLay carving five honestly elected Democrats out of office in Texas. My fear is that Missouri may become the next Texas.
These guys are classic literary figures, drunk on their own power, messianic in their conviction beyond all reason. At this point, it's beyond the mechanics of health care policy, education policy, foreign policy, and any other kind of policy you can think of. It's hard for me to think of living in a world dominated by George W. Bush for another four years. They have to lose this time. Just one time, they have to lose, for the good of the country. He hangs in my mind like a fog, like the victory gin clouding over Winston Smith. You read that that it's obvious they're trying to rig the election, and yet, you look out the window at the American people and the sun is still shining. To borrow from Pope, as seems the custom these
days, it's the eternal sunshine of spotless minds.
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