"Stephen Harding" wrote in
message ...
The Reids wrote:

Following up to Richard Steiner

The majority of people that I know in my area
of the US are simply not
in agreement with many of the current
administration's policies, and
some are in very strong disagreement.

I find it somewhat shocking that citizens of
the US are being portrayed
as all lining up behind their leadership.
That simply isn't happening.

the news we get is the election race is 50-50

The election is indeed looking to be another
50-50 vote, like 2000.

Furthermore, the infamous punch ballots
("hanging chads") are
still very likely going to be present in some
voting districts!


SMH


What's worse is the fact that the new electronic
voting machines are subject to software
manipulation, and the company (Diebold) that makes
the majority of them is a heavy contributor to
George W. Bush. The companies say that the
software is "proprietary" and not subject to
scrutiny. In addition, there is no paper trail in
most cases, so a recount is impossible. You have
to accept what the machines say. There were many
cases of highly questionable results in the
primary elections, like a district where lots of
people went to the polls but no votes were
recorded.

Some saint at Diebold leaked information on bugs
in their system to the media. That information
was posted on the web by others, but was quickly
pulled by Diebold (who acknowledged that the memos
were real.) At least one copy remains at:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/09/...nt.php#1653041

Tom