Two very important things: I have every confidence that the NH Primary results were correct and accurate, and, most importantly, unmolested. And, I’m also quite happy with them. But that doesn’t mean I’m not anxiously awaiting the results of the hand recount that Congressman Kucinich has requested.

Conspiracy theories abound, and Diebold is a despicable company worthy of general derision, but at least our AccuVote OS machines have paper ballots. The company says they’re the greatest thing (though they seem to have withdrawn them from the market in favor of their touch screen systems), but they’re easy to open, and the software is a complete unknown. Kucinich figures they’re all basically broken, and he may be right.

What I don’t believe, however…. What would really destroy me, is to learn that the people involved with our primary might have manipulated the results. For, despite their faults, these machines can’t throw elections on their own. Perhaps the most disturbing thing is that there are people who might take advantage of these machines to do that, or that there’s such widespread fear that such people exist. Democracies are built on the character of their people, not their machines, and if there’s anything New Hampshire prides more than our primary, it’s our yankee honesty.

Okay, even if this Diesel Sweeties cartoon is a little disheartening, please vote. The fact is, vote suppression is probably more likely than vote fraud.

A tip of the hat to Lichen for alerting me to this, and for making the point that our users’ notions of “authority” are among the fastest changing features of our post-Google world.

DIEBOLD, Democracy DIEs BOLDly, Diesel Sweeties, diebold, election, vote suppression, voting, electronic voting, vote, vote manipulation, voting fraud, voting machine, voting machines