[lbo-talk] RE: Diebold/Democracy

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Fri Oct 24 06:21:59 PDT 2003



> Joe W:-
>
> The fight against Deibold and its hold on voting methods is here:
> read, download the documents (they may not be around too long), and
> ask questions about your city or town or state voting methods.

Two observations:

1. Fighting any perceived compromises in the vote tallying system peddled by Diebold & Co is rather easy - all it takes is to ask the voters to request absentee ballots. Absentee ballots do leave a paper trail and subvert the paperless electronic system. And they are perfectly legal and do not require any action on the part of the so-called "elected representatives."

2. Focus on the real or perceived dangers of the electronic vote tallying obscures the fact that US elections are already a farce - they are mostly a public ritual similar to those in x-Soviet countries design to create a perception that the ruling clique has a popular mandate. How the votes are tallied is irrelevant because the system is rigged elsewhere: in the selection of candidates, in the preponderant influence of corporate interests, and in the turning the elections process into silly celebrity contests. All that the corporate elite needs to do is run a pliable to its interest celebrity figure and orchestrate a media blitz to frenzy up support for him (something that they routinely do in their marketing campaigns) - to virtually assure their candidate's success at the poll. They do not need to rig tallying the votes - it's too cumbersome, too risky, and totally unnecessary. The latest California recall farce is a living proof of that.

Wojtek



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