Electile Dysfunction

Two weeks until election day and quotes like this tend to put me on edge about the process:

"We know more about car tires than we do about voting machines," the Rev. DeForest Soaries, a former New Jersey secretary of state, said yesterday during a conference call with reporters and other election administration specialists.
-Pittsburgh Post Gazette

After reading that article and this disturbing one about how easy it is to hack into the new voting machines, you have to think that our leaders are either more corrupt than we can possibly imagine or as dumb as a box of chads.

People have been trying to rig elections for a long time now. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the first time a group of cavemen voted on who would watch over their food supply, one of them tried to fix it so he could sneak an extra brontosaurus leg when the others weren't looking. (I know that there were no cavemen when disoaurs walked the earth. I'm just trying to make a point, so cut me some slack, Einstein.)

Of course, mistakes happen, too. Although, the cynic in me believes that "mistakes" are more often hijackings in disguise.

The questions remain: are the people running the system so in awe of technology that they rush into using it without a paper trail as a safety net... or is the system so corrupt that they don't want the safety net and the technology simply makes it easier for them to put the people they want into power?

Stupid... or crooked?

Scary, either way. Guess we have to run for office ourselves... or head into the booth and hope for the best.

Click here for a demonstration of the voting machines used here in Pittsburgh.