Not to mention that the state of a diebold box can be undetectably altered by someone in around 5 minutes of screwdriver-access time with the machine.

fear propoganda anyone?

btw, just because their smaller districts means that it’ll be easier for local cronies to make “subtle” changes here and there.

I really hope you are right Rose. I believe that we can fix things via the democratic process. We just need to watch their hands, call them on their bullshit and stay vigilant.

Now that federal courts ruled that Bush violated the constitution with his wiretapping program, republicans will be really hard pressed to maintain control. If they loose it, Bush may likely face impeachment and/or criminal charges for the violations of the NSA program…

The stakes are high so they will be playing dirty – there is no doubt about it.

Perhaps we can take small comfort in the fact that congressional races are local, meaning that there are less voting districts and voting machines to keep track of (meaning that it’ll be harder to get away with something such as that) and, since the shenanigans of the last 2 presidential elections, more people will definitely be watching closer to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

how can a canidate say with a straight face that a paper trail isn’t needed.

Well, it might be kinda hard to get away with rigging election if exit polls indicate a total landslide for one candidate.

But if the candidates are going head to head in popularity, you can do all kinds diebold shenanigans and no one will be able to tell.

How do you audit a machine which uses super sekrit proprietary technology? How do you verify vote count if there is no paper trail?

it doesn’t have to be a close election for it to be rigged:
http://blackboxvoting.com/s9/
the electronic voting machines will do it for them. if not that hackers will have their fun on the system

Jon Stewart might be a good pick for president. But i have yet to see him throw his hat in for the election. in case he doesn’t run may i suggestion Christopher Walken

One of the characteristics of fascism is rigging elections. That what worries me. If the vote is close again, they could easily tip the scale by tampering with the funky diebold machines, voiding votes and etc..

We really need landslide victories just to be sure that the right people get elected for appropriate offices. But for that we need the Democrats to get their shit together and start calling the current administration on it’s bullshit.

Bush and co. will of course use their old security gambit: “ZOMG! TERROR ALERT RED! DANGER DANGER! The national security is at stake! You must vote republican or else we will die! Democrats are weak on terror! Etc…”

Democrats are flaky as shit lately, and republicans are riding this fact like it was their pony scaring the crap out of the population. They are almost guaranteed a very close elections every time. We really need strong, straight talking, no-nonsense opposition to bush-o-cratic agenda.

I say John Stewart for president! :P

Hey! I was the one who sent James that video that he posted on his lj. Anyway, the way we fix it is continue to resist, in many different ways. Most importantly, we need to get out the vote this November and elect new leaders (senators, congresspeople, governors, etc.) who will combat the facist leadership with true progressive values. Next, we need to bring this facist administration – Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Rice – to justice through the avenue left to us by our Forefathers: Impeachment. We need to call on our leaders on Capitol Hill to hold Bush and his cronies accountable by starting investigations into their High Crimes and Misdemeanors, including the 26 different laws that they clearly have broken while in power. Go to http://www.afterdowningstreet.org, http://www.impeachbush.org and http://www.articlesofimpeachment.net to read up on this and find plenty of opportunities to take action. When the shit hits the fan, it is up to We the People to defend our fragile democracy from those who would destroy it for their own personal benefit.

Well… The thing is, it was not really self repair. It took a lost war to actually set things straight in there. I’d rather not repeat that pattern with US.

I’d much more prefer a gradual internal healing process rather than governmental hard reset via foreign invasion.