I'm sorry if I'm like a broken record on this, but even if you're happy Chavez won, you should care that he might have stolen the election. Electronic voting is dangerous and does not provide any benefits for the added danger. We're about to experience the wide-spread joy of electronic voting here in the US, which is why I *can't* believe the way the media is treating the Venezuelan election.
From the Associated Press:
Any casual observer of the 2000 U.S. presidential elections knows exit polls can at times be unreliable. But the poll has become an issue here because the opposition, which mounted the drive to force the leftist leader from office, insists it shows the results from the vote itself were fraudulent. The opposition also claims electronic voting machines were rigged, but has provided no evidence.
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But results of the Penn, Schoen & Berland survey were sent out by fax and e-mail to media outlets and opposition offices more than four hours before polls closed. It predicted just the opposite of what happened, saying 59 percent had voted in favor of recalling Chavez.
Basically, this article is about how one of the exit polling organizations is in deep doodoo for giving a report that was the exact opposite of the election results. Since fraud is alleged, I don't see how they should be vilified at this point.
As far as I can tell, the opposition hasn't been given access to come up with any evidence to show that the election was a fraud. From the NY Times:
On Wednesday, though, leaders of the anti-Chávez movement in Venezuela announced that the audit should not proceed because they had evidence that hundreds of machines had been manipulated to limit yes votes on the recall.
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Officials of both the Carter Center and the Organization of American States said the audit was an infallible method of detecting irregularities. They also said that the voting machines had worked flawlessly on Sunday and that there was no evidence of tampering.
The opposition took part in a smoothly conducted pre-election audit of a sampling of voter machines, after tamper-proof software was installed that allowed the machines to record votes and transmit results to a central vote-counting bank.
That's right -- they can't provide the audit that the opposition would like to do, and they dare to call this system "infallible"? Who on earth believes that a black-box electronic voting system is "infallible". Check the blogs I referenced recently if you want to see how "smoothly" and "flawlessly" the machines behaved on Sunday.
I think, I hope at least, that the news media is out of step with what real people think about electronic voting and the Venezuelan elections. Here are some letters to the NY Times that might indicate they are leaning the wrong way:
Jimmy Carter has served as an independent election observer in many countries, including the recall referendum in Venezuela last Sunday. In January 2001, when asked about Florida's system, he said, "If we were invited to go into a foreign country to monitor the election, and they had similar election standards and procedures, we would refuse to participate at all."
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The possibility that my vote may be counted toward an unintended candidate is the issue. The voting machines are just the vehicle.
Dysfunctional or rigged machines enable a form of theft and should be viewed as a crime rather than just a technological boo-boo.
That any government would shrug at this potential tells me that it has no regard for the individual vote or, chillingly, that the fix is in.
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It is ridiculous that federal elections can be hijacked by states with uncheckable voting machines.
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There is nothing more important right now to the American people than the integrity of the fall election. As a Florida voter, I am doubly concerned. I believe that the 2000 election was stolen in this state, and I do not, as Paul Krugman put it, fear "sounding conspiracy-minded" (column, Aug. 17).
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I think this is bigger issue than the media does. The only people I see talking about this are technical types, libertarians and people from the left and right who are unafraid of sounding like wack-job conspiracy theorists. Clearly, the media thinks we *are* wack-job conspiracy theorists.
Waiting until after the election and alleging fraud looks like sour grapes. This needs to be addressed *now*, before a likely close election turns into a circus in multiple states instead of just one.
Posted by nicole at August 19, 2004 01:54 PM