I got this one out on the airwaves on the Ed Schultz Show this afternoon.
Much has been made of the problems with verification of votes cast through the use of electronic voting machines made by Diebold, in particular.
The standard conspiracy theory focuses on the fact that Diebold’s CEO, Wally O’Dell, promised in a letter to Ohio Republicans to “deliver the votes” for a 2004 Bush-Cheney victory last year and that he and other company execs have contributed large sums of money to the campaign. So suspicions are high that Diebold and other companies providing electronic voting machines might rig the software to simply report more Republican votes than are actually cast. Simple enough.
Though there are
some jurisdictions that are backing away from the adoption of electronic voting because of these concerns, I think that — unlike most of the plans this administration puts together — there might be a Plan B.
My guess is, if the count’s still in Kerry’s favor on the day after the election — vote-rigging or no — that the Bush people are going to claim that problems with the machines throw the results into doubt. Without a paper trail and the possibility for recount, the whole thing could end up in court. And we know how that turned out last time.