The problem with our voting system is that many of the machines are not secure from hacking. It doesn’t matter whether you have a clean election or not, if a significant percentage of the people lack confidence in the results. If someone hacks a vote-counting tabulator the only way you will know it is if the results are wildly out of whack with the pre-election polls and the exit polls. If they are, you have reason to be suspicious. That is certainly the case with New Hampshire, with respect to the both the pre-election polling and the unadjusted exit polls.
That does not mean that the election was hacked. It means that the signs of hacking, the only signs of hacking you’ll ever see, are there. Combine this with a large contingent that is already suspicious, and it has the effect of undermining faith in our system of government. This should be obvious from the questions raised in the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections. The validity of those elections is routinely questioned. Should we, maybe, consider doing something about this?
What concerns me is that the media just doesn’t take this problem seriously. Take this piece from the Dallas Morning News. It notes that bloggers from BradBlog, AmericaBlog, Crooks & Liars, and Democratic Underground all raised questions about the Diebold machines in New Hampshire. Then it offers the smackdown from a familiar anti-voter fraud theory source:
Some of the nation’s most prominent bloggers sparred over the issue as well. Markos Moulitsas, who runs the popular site DailyKos, called the allegations “a load of bull” from “a bunch of cranks.” Mr. Moulitsas, who has said he’ll vote for Mr. Obama, also said it was typical of the blogosphere to host a “tiny minority” who pose “wild claims.”
“This is the price you pay for a medium that democratizes media access,” he said. “But really, is that any different than traditional media outlets who pushed the conspiracy theory that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction? A little skepticism from the public in regards to all media would be well advised.”
[As an aside, the inimitable DHinMI has a fairly well reasoned explanation for why we should be skeptical that fraud took place.]
The Dallas Morning News offers a rebuttal from Brad Friedman of BradBlog:
Mr. Friedman took issue with [Markos’] characterization, saying the process should be transparent and trustworthy, and that the polls were “wildly out of whack” with the results – combined with the questionable machines – should be enough to raise concerns.
“It’s no longer a theory that these systems are vulnerable to tampering,” he said. “And it doesn’t take a conspiracy, it takes one real person.”
So, they present a kind of he said/she said dichotomy, but they make zero effort to arbitrate between the two diametrically opposed positions. Look:
Online-buzz trackers said the conversation still hasn’t grown to the point where it’s more than a blip on the radar, if even that. But that could change if the objections gain traction, said Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president of strategic services for Nielsen Online, which tracks blogs and buzz on the Web.
“It could bubble into a broader conversation,” he said. “What will be interesting is, to what extent does the hoopla run into the next [contest]? … For a lot of the bloggers, they’re going to have to run the calculus of [whether] prying into this issue of alleged fraud is … a better conversation starter than the next primary.”
Those are the concluding paragraphs of the article. It leaves the impression that certain bloggers are going to push the voter fraud issue because it will earn them more pageviews than discussion of the primaries. Nowhere in the article is there any acknowledgment that there is at least something wrong with a system that creates so much skepticism and cynicism. That’s what I’d like to see, at a minimum.
As for putting people’s mind at ease about the New Hampshire results, there is an easy solution. There’s a complete paper ballot record. A hand recount would settle the issue. More than over any suspicion that the vote was hacked than as an investment in confidence building, those votes should counted by hand.
