I was wrong

[King Rat]

When I am wrong and KNOW it, I'll be the first to admit it. Here goes:

I have recently defended the use of electronic voting machines against those who feel they are wide open to hackers. During this past week there has been a rash of thefts of the flash cards used to initialize the machines. Dozens, it appears, of the cards have been stolen in TN alone. This is not good.

I suppose I had too much confidence in our election officials but obviously the electronic machines are not being kept secure. Determining who is responsible for the lax security should be as simple as finding out who was responsible for minding the store in the places where these cards have come up missing. Those people should be prosecuted for failing to properly secure the machines.

While I still stand by my original belief that the machines will cause a decrease in fraud WHEN treated with at least the same security given our paper ballot system, I must admit that I have been terribly mistaken in thinking the election officials would provide that security.

What we seem to have is criminal dishonesty at the very local levels and that cannot be accepted by a society which wants to remain free.

The solution would be to aggressively investigate these thefts and severly punish all involved. Make examples out of them. Let people know that, like destruction of mailboxes, hacking voting machines will not be tolerated.

Some crimes so threaten our common interests that they should be treated with severity. Among those crimes I would place creation and purposeful distribution of computer viruses, hacking computers via the internet, and, of course, voter fraud.

Without confidence in the voting process we cannot call ourselves a democratic people. I, for one, will touch that screen Tuesday with far less confidence than I feel comfortable with.

I admit it. I was wrong.

[rutrow]

Don't be too hard on yourself KR. There have been many incidences in the past 6 years of which I thought I knew what was the right thing to do, only to find out I had been deceived by the information that was given to me. I made decisions through somebody's elses deception and their neglect to tell the truth to me. My bad for not listening to all sides of the issues. Nobody wants to admit that they were duped. It is a hard pill to swallow, and one that got stuck in my throat for a time.

HBO is suppose to be showing something about the lack of integrity of our electronic voting system and how votes were added to the machines this weekend. It was already aired a few days ago and the people's response was so great that they are going to air it again. Some of it sounded quite outlandish as thousands of votes were added to towns who only had less than a thousand of registered voters.

Let us see who wins the elections next week and go from there. Personally, I think that a paper trail is the best way to go, not fraud-proof but certainly we can look back and check if needed. Electronic voting machines just disappear into cyberspace. It is certainly frightening at what is becoming of our nation with rampant fraud on all levels.

[King Rat]

I have to wonder just a little bit if some of the local election officials aren't purposefully allowing the machines to be compromised just to get rid of them. I agree we need a paper trail from the machines but I still feel the paper ballot method is wraught with fraud.

I'm not beating myself up for being wrong, though. What really bothers me is the degree of fraud we are seeing and how blatant it is. These same people, remember, who are allowing these flash cards to be stolen are the same people who have been overseeing the paper ballots. Do you think they just started being dishonest this year? I don't.

This is just more proof that our federal government needs to pass a nationwide voter ID law that will require voter ID in all federal elections. Each state can then decide if it wants honest and free elections for states and counties. Certainly the Mississippi legislature does NOT want that for Mississippi. You have to ask yourself why. Why would any honest person oppose showing an ID when they vote?

[King Rat]

Okay, I voted yesterday with the new machine. It was very simple. Now for the card:

I feel better about the electronic machines now after using one yesterday. I didn't know that the card causing so much fuss was the one the voter sticks in the machine to bring up the ballot. Suppose someone did have their own card and it cast extra votes for a candidate. Or, as a worst case, suppose it changed all the votes from one candidate to another. Without corruption on the part of election officials for that county or district, any substantial change in the actual vote would not go unnoticed.

So, in the words of John Kerry, I was for the voting machines before I was against them but now I am for them again.

[Frey]

The voting machine was simple to use. I especially like the fact that it printed a hard copy of my choices. I would, however, like to see Mississippi polls requiring voter identification. Not that it would matter so much where I vote; everyone knows everyone else.

It is a simple fact that no matter how we vote, whether by machine or by ballot, some are always going to find a way around the safeguards built to protect our elections. Nothing is ever foolproof.

[King Rat]

As long as Billy McCoy and his band of brothers control our legislature we will never had voter ID in this state. Only a corrupt person, in my honest opinion, could possibly oppose voter ID at the polls. If Joe Bloe has a warrant out for his arrest and is afraid to go to the polls and show his ID then great - I don't want the likes of him deciding my representatives anyway. All this talk about blacks being afraid to go to the polls and show and ID because the evil white republicans will come get them after dark is just plain nonsense. Jim Crow has been dead for a couple of decades now.