In 2000, Al Gore received more votes than any democratic candidate in any election in U.S. history. As we all know George W. Bush lost that election. No one will ever convince me that since November 2000, Bush has pulled anybody over to the Republican camp who voted for Gore in 2000.
In 2000, Al Gore received more votes than any democratic candidate in any election in U.S. history. As we all know George W. Bush lost that election. No one will ever convince me that since November 2000, Bush has pulled anybody over to the Republican camp who voted for Gore in 2000. In my opinion the only new Republican votes at this point are going to come from the children of staunch Republicans who have turned or will turn 18 by this November...and I'm not even convinced 100% of that demographic will pony up their votes to the G.O.P. On the other hand, it is to me entirely plausible that the Republicans have lost votes; in fact I believe significant numbers of 2000 Republican votes have been lost. So mathematically, the numbers just don't look good for Republicans.....
....in a legitimate election.
Call me paranoid, but it seems pretty clear to me that the Republicans have decided that only suckers try to win elections legitimately, by concerning themselves with how people are going to vote. There is plenty of cheap, low hanging fruit out there in the form of easily breakable voting machines, easy-to-harass would be voters waiting in long lines, lost bags of punch card votes, gerry mandering, recall elections and if all else fails, the Supreme Court. But the biggest, juiciest, lowest-hanging plum is electronic voting software.
The numerous vulnerabilities of voting software systems have been discussed ad nauseum. Ultimately I believe it doesn't matter who owns the companies that develop this software, because there is no such thing as, and there will never be, an absolutely secure, uncompromiseable electronic voting system. There are plenty of interested, motivated and capable parties, outside the employment rolls of these companies, who can (and probably have) manipulate the election results. Not only are their people out there interested in specific election outcomes, there are people out there who get their jollies just causing havoc in general.
Certainly there are "secure" software systems out there that are used every day to automate and expedite "mission critical" processes such as securities trading, national security, air traffic control, etc. However serious or potentially lucrative hacking and manipulating these systems can be, controlling the United States general elections is on a whole other scale. After all, you can only embezzle so much money before someone is going to take notice. If you manage to boost NORAD to DEVCON 5, it won't go unnoticed (at least, I hope not, September 11 didn't boost my confidence there). But what if you spend, say, 100 million dollars to maintain the appearance of an electorate cleanly split between two major political parties? And then produce an election outcome with only a featherweight majority in your party's favor? Who will question it, or raise enough doubt to actually launch an investigation? And judging by how easily it has been to stonewall an investigation of September 11, what difference would it make if there were an investigation (and what would be investigated, on a national scale, anyway)? If you can gain control of the White House and Congress, well you've got a license to print money. Literally.
I make my living as a sofware developer so I am perhaps more sensitive to the possibilities here than the average person, but I think all that is really required here is common sense. For 200 years plus, this nation has managed to stage national elections without the benefit of computers. The hue and cry that we can only resolve the problems we saw in 2000 by spending a zillion dollars on electronic voting systems is just plain disingenous. I don't mean to fan the fear-factor flames of the still-technophobic majority (after all, a relatively small majority of the population actually have computers in there homes even at this late date, and even some of those people get hives looking for the "Any Key"), but the simple fact is that not all problems are solveable with computer technology and this is one of them -- we're going to find ourselves out of the frying pan and into the fire.
My proposed solution to this dilemma is the absentee ballot. However it takes time to get a ballot, and the rules are different in every state. Here is a link to find out how it works in your state: http://www.politicsnationwide.com/docs.asp?ID=32.
Throw a monkey wrench in their plans and circumvent the electronic process. Advocate a November 2005 Voter Sick-Out!