Heh - OK, sorry 'bout that ... :embarassed:
PDiddie posted an article here that included the bit below.
Link to PD's post:
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=445769#445769
Quote:It is still unclear exactly how results from these missing cards were tabulated, or if they were counted at all. And we will probably never know, for a highly disturbing reason. The vote count was not conducted by state elections officials, but by the private company that sold Georgia the voting machines in the first place, under a strict trade-secrecy contract that made it not only difficult but actually illegal -- on pain of stiff criminal penalties -- for the state to touch the equipment or examine the proprietary software to ensure the machines worked properly. There was not even a paper trail to follow up. The machines were fitted with thermal printing devices that could theoretically provide a written record of voters' choices, but these were not activated. Consequently, recounts were impossible. Had Diebold Inc, the manufacturer, been asked to review the votes, all it could have done was programme the computers to spit out the same data as before, flawed or not.
Astonishingly, these are the terms under which America's top three computer voting machine manufacturers - Diebold, Sequoia and Election Systems and Software (ES&S) - have sold their products to election officials around the country.
I was referring to this quote in shorthand, because I'd already quoted it again (but in the other thread, it turns out) - which is when we had that follow-up conversation about "paper trails" and having the computer print out records of each vote.
(Thats when you warned against any recount that involved the print-outs people had taken home after voting, and I pointed out that that's not what any of us were suggesting - we were talking about having the computer print out a record of each vote and keeping those records secure at the pollingstation, much like its been done with regular paper votes for the past century).
This time 'round, the quote's relevancy isn't so much because of the paper trail thing, but because of the simple (and rather incredible) fact of the "vote count not [being] conducted by state elections officials, but by the private company that sold Georgia the voting machines" - in an arrangement that actually makes it illegal for the county or precinct elections personnel to even "touch the equipment".
Now we have electronic voting here, too, and I've never been suspicious about it ... But a), the "back-up" print-out of a record of each vote sounds like a reasonable idea - you gotta have something to recount, and, exclamation-mark, exclamation-mark, exclamation-mark - who the hell comes up with the idea of delegating exclusive responsibility for reviewing, counting and tabulating the votes to a private company?!
Its not just us lefties that were baffled by that, Fishin', too, wrote: "Why the hell aren't government agencies contracting to have software written where the government owns all of the rights to the code? Why are these incompetent boobs allowing the systems makers to get away with selling them software without government employees reviewing and certifying the code?"
I mean - if you're going to delegate counting the votes to a private company - and that private company then turns out to be a major funder of one of the political parties, with its director blurting out stupidities about being "committed to helping Ohio to deliver its electoral votes to the president next year" - then you're not -
helping, if you see what I mean.
Can you point me to the specific link to which you are referring? Thanks! 
)
