New York never ever ever EVER should have abandoned their reliable old lever machines! They were the last holdout and one of the great hopes that our democracy could be saved from ES&S/Diebold sooner rather than later. When they caved, I despaired of a quick democracy revolution, starting with throwing these frigging rigging machines out of our election system. Now we have vote counting in every state largely (75%) controlled by ONE. PRIVATE. FAR RIGHTWING-CONNECTED. CORPORATION. with NO audit controls in half the states and miserably inadequate audits in the other half.
It was one of the most sickening things that has happened in this country, in a decade of sick, perverted events and leaders. New York, New York, New York, WHY DID YOU DO THIS?! Well, I shouldn't get on New Yorkers too much. I'm Californian and I know how it happened here, so it shouldn't surprise me when any other progressive state succumbs to the UTTER CORRUPTION by which ES&S/Diebold has gained this power over our elections. But, jeez, it was such a blow. New York's lever machines were not only reliable and verifiable, they were PAID FOR. They belonged to the PUBLIC. None of this HUGE expense of on-going repairs, 'fixes,' delays, long lines, voter purges and so forth that PRIVATIZED vote counting has brought about--and what a bloody irony it is, since 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting was sold as "more efficient." Yeah, it's "more efficient," all right--more efficient at putting fascists and assholes in Congress, in governors' mansions, in state legislatures. It's more efficient at making the military-police-industrial complex impregnable. It's more efficient at producing massive looting by the rich, and rule by transglobal corporations.
It's a sorry tale that our great, great grandchildren are going to tell about us--if the human race survives climate change and all the other dangers of our "privatized" world that NEEDN'T HAVE BEEN (nuclear power, nuclear war, GMOs, pesticide pollution, bacterial resistance to medication, bee die-offs, oil wars, water wars, mass unemployment, mass starvation, social mayhem....). Corporations are BAD rulers. They operate on a principle of chaotic destructiveness. Corporations are now in control of vote counting in the most powerful country on earth. Truly, the human race may not survive it. But if they do, they are going to curse all of us for our blindness, our quietude, our selfishness and our stupidity. HOW COULD WE LET THIS HAPPEN--that chaos-producing private corporations even took over our vote counting?!
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