More on Diebold, GOP electoral fraud...

Check out:

• RFK Jr.'s article "Will the Next Election Be Hacked?", which makes several important points, in particular:

  The United States is one of only a handful of major democracies that allow private, partisan companies to secretly count and tabulate votes using their own proprietary software. Today, eighty percent of all the ballots in America are tallied by four companies - Diebold, Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Sequoia Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic. In 2004, 36 million votes were cast on their touch-screen systems, and millions more were recorded by optical-scan machines owned by the same companies that use electronic technology to tabulate paper ballots. The simple fact is, these machines not only break down with regularity, they are easily compromised - by people inside, and outside, the companies.
  
  Three of the four companies have close ties to the Republican Party.



• Art Levine on "Salon's Shameful Six," the six states where GOP vote suppression tactics could most likely impede fair elections in 2006. The quote in this week's 'toon about keeping "the wrong kind of people from voting" comes from a comment by Arizona Secretary of State Janice Brewer (AZ's equivalent to Ken Blackwell and Katherine Harris) at a fundraising event.


• Vochi J. Dreazen on "Why Some Republicans Want to Lose," in which Bruce Bartlett makes what is probably a very good point:

  "Every Republican I know thinks Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are the best things they have going for them," wrote Bruce Bartlett, a Treasury Department official during the presidency of Mr. Bush's father, referring to the top-ranking Democrats in the House and Senate. "Giving these inept leaders higher profiles would be a gift to conservatives everywhere"...



• In case you didn't recognize it, the tirade by the wiseguy voting machine in this week's 'toon comes from the DeNiro/Capone rant in The Untouchables...
  

Had a good time in DC last week. The Politics & Prose signing was fun, and I met a lot of great people there and at SPX. Sales at SPX stunk, which put me into a pretty sour mood, but hanging out with the cool kids in CWA (along with a few stiff drinks from the Marriott hotel bar) made me feel much better. A great many thanks to my wonderful friends Jim and Karen for putting me up in our nation's cap-i-tal last week!

Next up, Stumptown... hope to see lots of Northwest peeps out there picking up t-shirts!