Tired of all those post-election news stories about how voting-machine maker Diebold’s touch-screen technology was so faulty that it threw the election to . . . the Democrats?
What’s that? You say you haven’t seen any post-election stories or complaints heaping accusations and blame for the election results on Diebold?
Imagine that!
For the past six years, since the 2000 presidential election where ballot issues emerged in Florida, liberals have been accusing Diebold of (1) making voting machines that were easy targets for manipulation and fraud and (2) intentionally undercounting or ignoring Democratic votes in an effort to throw elections to Republicans.
And that barrage of accusations ratcheted up significantly over the past few months, as articles, surveys, talk shows and even books made the case that the November election results would be suspect.
While most of the complaints were clothed in ostensibly nonpartisan garb, it was hard not to suspect that liberals were laying the foundation to claim massive voter fraud and challenging race after race if most Republicans won their elections.
Take, for example, a recent article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—hmmm, wonder what party he’s from?—entitled “Will the Next Election Be Hacked?” The article is mostly an indictment of Diebold and of letting the private sector provide voting machines. “The simple fact is, these machines not only break down with regularity, they are easily compromised—by people inside, and outside, the companies.” He continues by claiming that “touch-screen technology continues to create chaos at the polls.”
But a funny thing happened on the way to the vote count: Democrats won, throwing control of both the House and Senate, and a number of governorships and state legislatures to the Democrats.
Now, we don’t claim to be experts on voting-machine technology. And some important concerns were raised in an analysis by the Government Accountability Office, among others. But if the system was so untrustworthy in the weeks leading up to the election, it probably wasn’t fixed by November 7.
So where are the news stories bemoaning all of the “chaos” and uncounted votes? Where’s the liberal outrage at the results and calls for recounts? Where are the post-election accusations against Diebold?
The silence is, well, telling.