Welcome to the Machine
Glitch Wins by a Landslide

by BEN TRIPP
February 20, 2003

Computerized voting machines in the 2002 election did all kinds of weird things: if you pressed the Democrat's name in some counties in Texas, for example, the Republican's name was chosen. And in Cormal County, Texas, three Republican candidates won by exactly 18,181 votes apiece. There's the kind of coincidence the FBI loves. But it gets even more amazing: in two other races elsewhere in this great nation, Republicans won by--wait for it--18,181 votes. The odds of this are similar to the odds of waking up on the surface of Mars with your underwear on your head and a bowling trophy gripped between your knees. These results were eventually 'adjusted', proving it was all just a wacky coincidence. But how can we know? Because there is no physical evidence of how a vote was cast. No punch card, no paper ballot, no twig with notches in it. And they stopped doing exit polling in 2002 (apparently the results weren't coming out right-- I see what they mean) so we can't even get an objective comparison of the digital results with the voter's intentions by asking them how they voted as they leave the polling place, bilious and sickened. Kind of makes you feel all scared and crampy, doesn't it? But yes, gentle reader, it does get worse.

There is a complex connection between the companies that make voting software and machines and the GOP, as mentioned above. But it's not some remote connection that only folks with tinfoil beanies and radios in their fillings could understand. These are partnerships, blind trusts, corporate ownership kind of connections. Who's pals with whom. Connections that make sense of some of the most astonishing outcomes of 2002, where vast majorities of black voters voted for anti-black candidates, for example, or where Republican votes skyrocked and Democratic numbers plummeted, reversing historic trends, or machines tallied more votes than were actually cast (according to a Florida official a 10% margin of error is acceptable--that would be over ten million votes nationwide). In Alabama, Democrat Don Siegelman won the election for governor and went home. The next morning, 6,300 of his votes were gone, and Republican Bob Riley took the job instead. Don't worry: ES&S is looking into the problem. Not the government, not an independent commission. Golly.

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