Bruce, I agree with you completely. I never said these machines were only in Republican-controlled states. ANYONE with enough money, power, or knowledge can manipulate these machines and control the outcome of an election.

And I think you are precisely correct -- incumbents want to keep themselves in office, and will often stop at nothing to achieve that aim. In the old days, that meant doing what Lyndon Johnson did in 1948 in Jim Wells County, Texas: stuff a ballot box. My point is that with these highly flawed and vulnerable electronic voting methods, it's now possible to do that on an unprecedented scale, nationwide.

In fact, Bruce, it seems to me that conservatives like you and DougR should be among the ones MOST outraged by this, since it cuts to the heart of one of our most cherished American principles: that we live in a democratic society, and that every person's vote counts. When somebody with an agenda and a few hundred million dollars to spare can turn that principle into a joke, we're no better off than "voters" in the old U.S.S.R. Worse, in fact...at least they knew they were living in a dictatorship.

Aloha,
Mark