Elections '08 Presidential Race

Myrtle Beach Voting Machine Debacle

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Okay, maybe sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
But, this sort of thing does not calm fears about election fraud that have given American voters the jitters since 2000.

According to CNN:

Malfunctioning voting machines plagued Horry County, which contains the cities of Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach, according to poll workers. “Human error” put the machines offline in 80 percent of the county’s precincts during Saturday’s voting, according to county spokeswoman Lisa Bourcier

Horry County is a McCain enclave, and McCain tried to counteract the tech problems by asking for a court order to keep the polls open in the county a little bit later so excluded voters would have time to return and vote. The judge turned down McCain and company.

As BradBlog puts it:

This is happening in a state where election officials were recently asked about their paperless ES&S iVotronic touch-screen (DRE) voting system and the fact that other states have found the machines to be insecure, poorly designed, inaccurate and not accessible for voters with disabilities. These officials have all said that they anticipate a smooth voting process for both the Republican presidential preference primary on Jan. 19 and the Democratic primary on Jan. 26 in South Carolina.

TRANSLATION: Other than the malfunction thingy, the easy hackability, the all-round dreadful design, and the fact that physically disabled people can’t use ’em at all, the machines are just swell.

Also, according to BradBlog,
the “Virus-Vulnerable Voting Machines Had Been Sent Home with Pollworkers on ‘Sleepovers’ Prior to Today’s Republican Primary.”

Great.

PS: Apropos of absolutely nothing,
the entrance song playing as Mitt Romney’ walked on stage for his speech in Jacksonville, Florida, was Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation,” the lyrics of which may be summed up: “Shut up and let’s screw.”

Oh-kay, as I was writing this, Romney
just closed his speech by making a reference to his wife having hot sex dreams about him, or words to that affect. Hey, dude, whatever works. (Trying to counteract the genital-free Ken doll image, are we?)

American politicians: Gotta love ’em.

5 Comments

  • I was fine with paper ballots and especially like those where you filled in the bubble with a pencil, like the SAT exams, which made computer counting fast and manual counting possible.

    But, look at what we used to have. A long time ago, most places used those purely mechanical machines with the levers and spinning counters–none of which provided a trail.

    But someone will complain about any system in place.

    P.S. My observations are that the biggest screw-ups in polling places occur in heavily Democratic areas where the stupid Democrats put in a bad system, the poll workers are stupid, and the voters are even more stupid. To please the Democrats, they would have to invent a voting machine that was idiot proof.

  • Yeah, I’ve read several reports saying that the machines were not reset properly. That shouldn’t cause an attack on the system but on those who are supposed to know how to work the equipment–and, resetting the machine for a new election doesn’t sound all that confusing.

  • Turns out that McCain had his own weapon – a “Blocking back” named Thompson. If Fred dropped out Huckabee wins South Carolina. So I bet that McCain (who was friendly with Fred when they were in the Senate together) is urging the Tennessean to stay in the race to maintain “Law and Order.”

  • BTW in SC independents could vote. Among Republican voters only, Huckabee won by one per cent.

    When Rush Limbaugh is telling his listeners that a McCain nomination would “Destroy” the GOP and he (Rush) couldn’t support the ticket I thin John’s got problems. Of course he does have the press on his side and that would be worth something against a Hillary candidacy – which might also draw the oxycontin man back into the fold.

  • rlc comes down on Limbaugh for his opinions and editorial comments but overlooks the fact that the “neutral” press is backing McCain.

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