I have said it on this blog before, but let me repeat it: I am not a big conspiracy guy. I think that man did land on the moon, I think that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, and I don't think that the government created the AIDS virus to kill black people and Gays.....well, I take that back, I am not too sure about that one.
But having said that, this story has me troubled. I first caught a glimpse of it on CNN tonight, where some old guy from West Virginia (who if you just looked at him, you wouldn't believe he would vote for the O man in a million years)tried to push the button on an ES&S touch screen voting machine (more on them in a minute) for Obama. Apparently, the poor old guy kept pushing the Obama button on the touch screen, but the machine kept registering, McCain. This is not some conspiracy buzz, I actually saw it happening live on my television, and the story is all over the Internet. Of course the republican county commissioner swears that there is nothing wrong with the machines,and the old guy just happened to get a bum machine. To CNN's credit, the followed up on the story, but the company said that this machine might just not have been calibrated properly. Hmmmm, not calibrated properly. And just what does that mean? And who is doing the calibrating? (Can one of you computer savvy field Negroes help me out with that one please?)
This whole ES&S touch screen thing got me to wondering: How many of these machines are in use? And what states are using them? "When I pushed Obama, it jumped to McCain. When I went down to governor's office and punched [Gov. Joe] Manchin, it went to the other dude. When I went to Karen Facemyer [the incumbent Republican state senator], I pushed the Democrat, but it jumped again. The rest of them were OK, but the machine sent my votes for those top three offices from the Democrat to the Republican.."
Okay, now is the time to cue in the Twilight Zone music. I must confess that I have heard some folks obsessing over these shaky voting machines (which are always controlled by some company with a connection to republicans) before, but I never paid much attention to them. I viewed the folks who were always complaining about them, kind of like I always viewed the folks who believe in UFOs. I hear them but I really don't listen to them if you get my drift. Now....I am not so sure. The more I read about these Es&S folks, the scarier the shit gets.
Hell, I am even learning that they used them in Ohio for crying out loud. Be afraid Obamaholics, be very afraid. Where there is a will (and a republican with money) there is a way. So don't go counting your fried chickens just yet.
And you gotta give the rethugs credit. All I have heard about is ACORN and their shaky voter registration drives. Nothing about ES&S and their shaky touch screen voting machines. Distract. Distract. Distract.
Folks, could we be far away from a time in this country, when the best man you can have on your political team is a good computer programmer, or hacker? I dare say that we might be there already. Obamaholics, you better pray that isn't the case.
Okay Rod Sterling, you can get out of my head now.
0 Comments