In that I'm sure there's a slough of people dumb enough to fall for it. Next time round we'll hear how some people got calls instructing them to kill themselves. And they did.

I saw video of people in new hampshire futting paper ballots inro wooden boxes. Can't we all just go back to that?

We're always hearing how the NSA is listening to this or scanning that. So how is it that when someone (the Republicans or their operatives) accesses the system like this it's a big mystery and no one is able to say where the calls came from.

If you want a good column Cyrus, here's one for you? How can this kind of filth happen in a TIA world? The answer is it can't, someone has the records on this.

Here in New Zealand we have paper and bright orange felt tip pens. Works perfectly well. And it's paper based - easy to audit.

Here in Wyoming (I know, I know, went for McCain), people can register to vote at the polls. There were lines to do that at the polling place I went to, but the wait was only about 25 minutes. The county workers were pleasant and efficient. We filled in little bubbles with black ballpoint pens, and fed our own ballots into the optical scanner.

I wish it was that way everywhere.

According to this link (http://www.freehorseads.com/class/text.php?adnum=76021), the phone number cited apparently is a cell phone in the Alburquerque, NM area belonging to a woman named Donna who would like to sell a horse.

"i'm proud we voted for obama", are you not also legitimizing the vote, twice, for dubya?

if you really want to be proud, stop voting for whatever crook, fool, egotist, the parties throw up as would-be kings.

instead, vote for the various programs that management companies offer the country through referendum. make them carry it out in public, and fire them if they fail. refuse to go to war, save by national referendum. it's called 'democracy, and until you have it, you are pawns of money and spin-doctors, the helpless mugs of bureaucrats who lie to you to please their real masters.

mike gravel saw all this, and offers a path to democracy. look at his 'initiative for democracy' site, and ask yourself, "will we be worse off, if we can control the politicians?"

In African-American areas of Virginia email and flyers purporting to be from the State Board of Elections "announced" a new election schedule in which Democrats would vote on Wednesday, to prevent crowding at the polls. The Board of Elections described this activity merely "distribution of false information to voters," a misdemeanor. The state police also stated that this particular case was just a prank and did not file charges against the perpetrators. I've linked to the story in my signature.

Shouldn't an attempt to interfere with an election be a felony? And shouldn't it be prosecuted, even though the flyers were crudely done?

I agree that there is no practical reason for each state and county to have its own election procedures. Federal standards for registration and elections--starting with a required paper trail--would go a long way to restoring trust in the process. The long lines for early voting indicate that people didn't trust the system enough to wait until the last day, just in case they needed extra time to deal with problems.

Thanks for your posts, Cyrus. Good luck with new projects!

It's time to submit voting machines to the same kind of scrutiny that the Nevada Gaming commission uses for slot machines and other gaming machines!

Great job you've done here! Keep up the good work where you go. I wish you much cool holographic technology in the future and a warp engine!

. . . there are more people in Washington State than there are in all of New Zealand.

Here in New Zealand we have paper and bright orange felt tip pens. Works perfectly well. And it's paper based - easy to audit. -- jmzrbnsn

But I agree with the sentiment that the U.S. needs national standards for presidential and congressional elections. 50 states with I don't know how many different ways of voting is ridiculous. If physical polling is used, all states must have them open the same length of time opening and closing at the same times. Oregon and most of Washington have had great success with all mail in voting. Computer voting is problematic without a credit card purchase-like paper trail. But pick one and make everyone use it.

We also need to make the primaries a federally run process limiting their duration (regional primaries being logical) and the money that can be spent on them. The parties need to be taken completely out of the picture other than promoting candidates.

Hey, a girl can dream.

I was hoping to get your take on this story:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/167581

About Russian or Chinese hackers that got into the Obama and McCain IT systems.

Yes, I think it is time to standardize the electoral process, and not just for federal elections.

This seems like such a no-brainer to me. If you have a right that's native to all citizens, shouldn't the process of exercising that right be the same wherever you go? If democratic elections are an American process, shouldn't they be governed by American laws, as opposed to fifty sets of differing state laws? It's wasteful. I'm starting to feel the same way about labor laws, too. I have this crazy notion that one day American citizenship will mean the same thing in all fifty states. But as of now it doesn't.

In that I'm sure there's a slough of people dumb enough to fall for it.

And many so dumb are on your side of the isle. Example: believing that anyone but the very rich and powerful benefits from a republican administration.

Also: I am confused by your use of the word "slough". Would you explain?

Standards should be created for either of two reasons: they are irrelevant, or they are transparently obvious. An example of irrelevance: the size of a nickle. It doesn't really matter how many millimeters a nickle is, but they do all need to be the same. An example of obvious: school buses are yellow, because it's the most visible color.

In every other instance, efforts to promote "standards" amount to nothing more than saying "do things my way". Usually to ill effect. Do you really know the _best_ way to configure voting procedures? Really? A little chaos is the price we pay to create a system where we can compare different systems in situ, jettison the worst, and repeat the process. In other words, messy diversity enables evolutionary improvement. And if you think you have a better solution than evolution, well, you may have a Nobel prize in store.