looking for a few good ideas
  amongst the irregular verbiage

Disturbances

Mon, 14 January 2008 09:21    in Politics

I found a couple of things on the 'web today that I found disturbing*.

The first is a short, amateur produced documentary on what really happened in Portland, OR, in 2002, when a supposedly peaceful demonstration was broken up by Police. At the time it was reported as "the demonstration turned violent" but somehow the producers of the film got their hands on the authorities' own videotapes of the incident. Narrated by someone who says they were there at the protest.

This is What A Police State Looks Like

The second is the results of the New Hampshire Democratic Primary election. Many people have commented on the variations between exit poll numbers and actual vote counts when comparing manual counting with the results reported from electronic voting machines. The fundimental points are:

  • Why should exit polls be reliable result indicators everywhere except where electronic voting machines are used?
  • Why should the EVM results be biased in favor of any particular candidate?

We ignore questions like this at our peril. It doesn't have to be conspiracy but we'd better know what is really happening. I have no opinion on whether there was any actual vote rigging taking place. I'm not qualified. However it is really encouraging to see people from around the country collaborate online on ad-hoc analysis projects such as this one:
http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2008/1/12/191247/981

So that was New Hampshire last week or so. Meanwhile, in South Carolina, they can't even get the machines to accept votes:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5579

It is clear to me that electronic voting machines should not be used, ever, because while they are in use we will never be free of this crap.

* Only 2? Clearly I'm not looking hard enough.

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