It's an article of faith among many Progressive activists that electronic voting machines are a thing of evil, that these machines are somehow programmed to steal votes from Democrats, and that any and all Democratic election losses are directly attributable to this electronic menace. And who knows, this contention may very well be accurate.

The problem with this perception is the same as that afflicting the arguments of so-called "Intelligent Design" advocates, namely that faith-based assumptions rest on thin evidentiary reeds. Despite what is alleged to be a massive, nationwide and ongoing fraud that would constitute a federal crime, no successful court case has yet been brought, let alone litigated successfully, that would support the assertions of the Dieboldistas. Now, this may be because everyone is in on the conspiracy; but the more natural conclusion, and one more in line with Occam's Razor, is that this vast conspiracy does not exist. The test may very well be the litigation underway over the contested results in Fl-13. But as things stand today, the verified-voting crowd is setting up an argument which is essentially not falsifiable – "votes are being stolen in ways we can't see or verify", and that should, in my mind, offend the reality-based community.

My personal argument with the Dieboldistas is this: there is, as noted, a bit of a disparity between the fervor with which they advance their claims, and the underlying evidentiary record; and more importantly, by engaging in a small-bore faith-based conspiracy theory, they're discrediting and hindering a realization that should be manifest to everyone, namely that our system of elections is deeply and perhaps irredeemably flawed. I'd go further and say that the Diebold crowd, by positing fraud as the proximate cause of every problem with the electoral process, weakens the case that must be made for fixing the system itself. Ironically, they argue for fraud in exactly the same way that, as noted, advocates of "Intelligent Design" argue for their designer, as the root default cause that explains everything. Tin foil hats are fashionable across the political spectrum, it seems.

Hacking Democracy on Google Video

Ok, so our own Michael is going to kill me, for publishing this. I do want to say that verified voting is not going to be an issue in New York this election. It's the 10% of the nation who is using these machines that may get screwed, like in the battleground states of Florida and Ohio.

To me it's clear : Better to go armed with a heavy dose of skepticism and information than to go blinding trusting the current system to protect your right to vote.

If there are lawyers on the fence about whether to do pro-bono voting verification work in places like New Mexico, this should be enough reason for you to make the right decision : pack your bags and just go. A lot of elections across the country will need lawyers to contest the vote.

What do you think?

With Mole333 and the estimable Marjorie Gersten away on vacation, it's a perfect moment to commit some heresy. Here goes: I think the voting machine people really need to gain some perspective.

I say this having had to endure yet another 'the republicans stole the election by hacking, and if we don't get PB/OS, we'll never win an election in this state again' rant the other day.

That seems to be the central fear of some, not all, PB/OS advocates. The problem is this: the empirical evidence that would support that hypothesis is a bit sketchy, even if this statement will probably provoke long comments alerting me to same. That's not my point, however.

Rather, what I'm missing from the conspiracy crowd - note that I don't count either Mole or Marjorie in their number - is any understanding of how elections are influenced in the real world. For example, in the polling place I was at in Columbus, Ohio, in November 2004, there were three voting machines, as opposed to five for the primary; one of which broke down within minutes, resulting in a wait time, at 7 AM, of four hours. There was also a republican 'challenger', who seemed to specialize in questioning the credentials of little old black ladies who had already waited in line to vote for a few hours.

And let's not even go near the practices in certain Brooklyn Assembly districts.

Ben at The Observer found out he will be having competition soon from Newsday.

[via The Politicker: Competition?]:

Well, I hate to blow Newsday's cover, but I hear preparations are underway for a new city politics blog and Politicker rival to be run out of the Kew Gardens Death Star.

The more the merrier, I think.

Heh.

I guess races are all the rage these days. For one, did y'all notice there's another "open-source" NYC blog called, onNY turf. I noticed the other day --and yes, they seem to have opened after us.

It gets better. Guess who is diversifying his political portfolio and starting a ... ahem ... [ cough, cough ] ... and I quote :

[via how open is the source | CivicSpace]:

By the way, you're the target competition of my coming site, and I'll be sure to steal ideas from your site regularly

Mr. Scott Sala of SlantPoint, which seems to be the only NYC Republican blog worth reading, is starting a CivicSpace run community site for NYC Republicans. And given I am active in the CivicSpaceLabs community, trying to find ways to simplify the use of the technology for grassroots organizing, yours truly here will be actually giving some open-source love to Mr. Sala.