Ghost in the Machine

I know it may sound unlikely but voting in this country is not valid. We use to have real discussions about poll taxes, voting site discrimination or the rare (wink wink nudge nudge) occurrence of gerrymandering. I pine for the good old days. Alas we are now in an era of technological change and PROGRESS. The ministry of truth i.e. – The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has come out with an under the radar report finding that voting machines used to elect the Bush were faulty. Now this finding is not as sexy as a good old discrimination case or taxes levied on the poor before a vote; however it is much more damaging.

This is the new poll tax; a tax on the ignorant levied by the powerful. In other words, the ones who control the software and hardware (you get one guess- and it is not the blacks, poor, immigrants, Hispanics, lower middle class, teachers, pink or blue collar workers, professors or working mothers) control your vote. For example, the GAO’s report of Sept 2005 – if you have any questions (you should) please call David Powner (202) 512-9286 - found six extremely disturbing trends connected to electronic voting:

1. Cast ballots, ballots definition files and audit logs could be modified
2. Supervisor functions were protected with weak or easily guessed passwords
3. Systems had easily picked locks and power switches were exposed and unprotected
4. Local jurisdictions misconfigured their electric voting systems, leading to election day problems
5. Voting systems experienced operational failures during elections
6. Vendors installed uncertified electronic voting systems

The first question is: Was there malice intent and efforts to commit voting fraud?

Yes

The next question, Marxian in its nature: Who benefited from these irregularities?

The GOP

The next question and the most important: Does anyone care?

No

Thus we are back to the old anarchist slogan:

When a reporter asked whether or not the anarchist voted, he replied “NO”

Then the reporter seeing the ignorance of this answer asked, “Why not?”

The anarchist simply stated, “If voting actually worked, they would have ended it long ago!”

Can you hear the history books laughing....