I just LOVE this Diebold quote

[Kelvin Mace]

David Bear, a spokesman for Diebold Election Systems, said the potential risk existed because the company's technicians had intentionally built the machines in such a way that election officials would be able to update their systems in years ahead.

"For there to be a problem here, you're basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and nefarious election officials who would sneak in and introduce a piece of software," he said. "I don't believe these evil elections people exist."

Does this idiot actually believe that people who want to tamper with election results don't exist? This is a spokesman for a voting machine company and he just basically said that vote fraud does not occur, or at least when it does, it is not perpetrated by election officials. You would have to have the mental capacity of a box of cake mix to believe such a thing, or, I guess, be a corporate spokesman whose pay check includes his soul.

Can you imagine the spokesman of Diebold's banking side making this statement about defects in a its banking security products?

"For there to be a problem here, you're basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and nefarious bank employee who would sneak in and exploit the defect," he said. "I don't believe these evil bank employees exist."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/12/us/12vote.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

The man would be laughed out of the press conference.

[central scrutinizer]

1. most importantly

the spokesman is NOT saying that it is impossible, or even difficult, to introduce a piece of software. He erects a straw man to divert attention, not realizing that his straw man could easily be flesh and blood.

[Hugin]

2. LOL! Beautiful!

:thumbsup:

Have I thanked you for your hard work lately Mr. Mace?

If not... Thanks again.

[Kelvin Mace]

5. Your servant, sir.

[yellerpup]

3. Believe? What does belief have to do with voter fraud?

I'm sick of all this mystical jargon. Get the facts, then believe!

[Kelvin Mace]

6. Now, now,

*feel* the Truthiness. :)

[yellerpup]

8. Thanks for the calm down

Got my truthiness goggles on now. Aaaah. Much better.

[peace13]

4. We got Diebold machines in Ohio this spring

When I went to poll worker training I asked the fellow representing Diebold (he was a contractor naturally) if the machines were hooked to the internet. His actual response to me was...'did you see me connect these machines to the internet?' What an ASS. He never did answer my question. I let him know that people sit at wireless machines everyday connected to the INTERNET and his hooking a cable anywhere was no indicator. They expect people to be stupid and uncaring in training. They gave no info on how to make an election safer, such as reminding the voter to check the actual printout to see if it recorded the vote properly. There was no process to record the memory card used in the machine to verify later that that was the actual card used on election day. It was a very sad experience for me.

[mod mom]

7. Guess they forgot about Katherine Harris and J Kenneth Blackwell-nefarious

elction officials extraordinaire. Just trust them-right!