Bev Harris and Andy Stephenson in Seattle Weekly

[woofless]

Here is a great article w/pics. Enjoy http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0410/040310_news_blackbox.php

[PATRICK]

1. Interesting and dismaying

concentration on the person of the activists and their "strident" tactics. At the same time, despite a good deal of historical detail it glosses over the various security issues as much if not more than the newspapers. Plainly the writer personally cannot or will not conceive of vote fraud as a possibility nor the tempting easy large scale implications. it invades his comfort zone apparently.

Of course you can't get proof. Newspapers hardly go out of there way to get any either. The concerned political pros who could be demanding facts won't or can't. Meanwhile a lot of smoke fairly screams for accountability and investigation. The list starts with the questionable "gold standard" of paperless touch screen machines with the code owned by a private company as sole proprietor. From there it gets much worse down to documented and glossed over flaws and irregularities in elections of all kinds. Kicking and screaming against the relatively smaller expense of a paper audit is just one warning sign among many. And the Internet voting may be a separate issue, but it has even worse implications, especially as it comes down to the incumbents controlling the Pentagon- the other new arbiter of election counting. "Hacking" IS a provable threat yet it is distraction from what is really hidden and really important.

Anyone sidestepping or missing the point will never stop the secrecy or the insecurity and will enable the pickpocket to take the vote. So far, confronting the target head on is well nigh impossible, the battle over the paper audit being the only contest allowed and that far from being won. The fact that Diebold has lied, illegally used their pieces of crap and gotten their junk recertified with promises of yet more patches? Avert the eyes, change the discussion. Do nothing. They should be under investigation before a Grand Jury.

Still, the issue is blunted enough to save November at least if there is a substantial Kerry victory evident by then. Conspiracy? What do you call Florida 2000? We know what the media calls it and then tries to push Harris into the same mold while clucking over machines and mess and ignoring the crooks and the motivation.

At the end this bemused, somewhat admiring reviewer then gives a personal critique of the message and messenger, somewhat amazed when the common public gets the picture very easily. Never does punditry dare think that the most clueless blinded people are those guarding the gates and the institutions, people like the media and the political and advocacy institutions. THOSE lambs are leading US to the slaughter.