Truffle-skin ballots may be our only hope

As the media machinery drones on in its one-note post-Super-Tuesday Democratic primary coverage today, ("John Edwards dropping out...our top story...John Edwards dropping out...Kerry won big, so Edwards is dropping out...we'll be back after these messages...most of our "news team" has gone home to sleep it off...though a lot of them will get reassigned or laid off now that it's a two-man [that is if you don't count Nader] race...Welcome back...This just in...John Edwards giving up..."), let us turn our attention to the most overlooked, and most important, election day story, a story that the Cleveland Plain Dealer broke way back in August, 2003. The report quoted a letter -- that's right, it was in WRITING -- from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold, Inc., which has a subsidiary called Diebold Election Systems. According to the company's web site, "Over 109 million voters in 5,500 counties accurately and securely cast their votes using a Diebold election system solution." To familiarize voters with its "solutions," Diebold offers this handy online demonstration. (Their slogan -- I am not making this up -- is "Just say the word, and Diebold will provide a solution." No word on whether that was in the controversial letter.)

So the head of that company sent a fund-raising letter out to his fellow Republicans, stating that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

All that is a story again now, in earnest, because an estimated 10 million people will use Diebold "solutions" to vote in the primaries, and especially because an estimated 50 million people will vote electronically in November's presidential election.

So how did it go yesterday with more Americans voting via those "solutions" than ever before? Depends:

WIRED News reports "Snafus Aplenty in E-Voting."

According to The Washington Post, the new voting systems got "high marks."

The Financial Times took a "good news, bad news" approach.

The AP's technology writer reported scattered glitches, sticking closely to his beat and the assigned task.

CNET said it went smoothly.

The Tri-Valley Herald in California broke from the pack entirely to cover an angle no one else seemed to notice: Those glitches were driving some voters away.

All of which reminds us why you should always, always, always, get your news from more than one source. And it reminds us of the old three-source rule, which regrettably seems to be optional these days. But most of all, it reminds us that science-fiction visionary Philip K. Dick called it decades ago. In one of Dick's parallel sci-fi universes, counterfeiting was so easy that the only negotiable currency remaining -- i.e., the only thing left that couldn't be copied -- was truffle skins:




We need to find some of those truffle skins, and use them as our ballots this November.   ¶ 5:39 PM |