I was reading a diary that appeared today about the ways in which Republican governors may try to steal the election using electronic voting machines, and two questions occurred to me:
1. What federal authority sets the standards for accuracy of voting machines, and is there a process by which citizens or legislators can formally request that the machines be checked for accuracy nationwide by that department? I know that the machines were purchased by state governments, and I can understand that the federal government wouldn't have the same jurisdiction in a statewide race, but is there no federal agency that can assure the validity of a federal election?
2. Are vote-by-mail/absentee ballots immune to this form of rigging? If so, it seems that we should be going all out to encourage this as opposed to in-person voting. In-person voting is likely to be difficult anyway if those governors divert resources from Democratic-leaning districts to Republican districts, so we should probably do that even if the machines are trusted.
Given that the Republicans keep yowling about alleged voter fraud, surely they can't object to federal oversight of machines to be sure they can't be tampered with. Right? Or did I miss something here...
I would appreciate any explanations from the folks out here who know this stuff.