...what is more important is the "trade secret," proprietary programming of the machines. Auditing and recount processes are miserably inadequate everywhere in the country, which renders even a paper ballot backup almost useless. You can't verify the results with a 1% audit, even with a paper ballot. And recounts are severely limited by law. As for a mere "paper trail," many of them merely regurgitate the machine results, or, can be tossed out in a recount in favor of the machine results. They are worse then useless, because they give the illusion of transparency.
So, Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia are basically free to invent the "results." There is no transparency. There are no "checks and balances." Their vote tabulation code is SECRET. (This is not normal. No other democracy in the world would put up with it. It is egregiously non-transparent.) Furthermore, the two corporations that tabulated 80% of the vote in 2004 are run by major rightwing Bush supporters. (As for Sequoia, see below.*)
There is bipartisan corruption in the electronic voting boondoggle. Check out this post by Amaryllis, on the hogfest at the Beverly Hilton this August--a week of fun, sun and high-end shopping for election officials from around the country, sponsored by Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia. It'll set your hair on fire...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340Did Nevada election officials attend this lavish lobbying event? Other lavish lobbying junkets? And who is being paid off with future "revolving door" jobs and other perks?
These are the questions to be asking. Sequoia's current spokesmen and lobbyists, former CA Sec of State, Republican Bill Jones* and his chief aide Alfie Charles, were the ones who introduced "trade secret," proprietary programming, and all these extremely insecure, unreliable and hackable voting systems, to California. They then went to work for one of the companies from whom they had bought these election theft machines. "Revolving door" employment is a huge problem--especially since the esoterica of electronic voting gobble-de-gook severely limits general understanding of how our votes are being tabulated, and creates a special class of "professionals" who are the only ones who know what's going on, and they lord and lady it over everybody else (the peon voters).
Bad scene. Bad, bad, bad. Corrupt Dems. War Dems. And Bushite criminals.
Although the citizens of Nevada can't easily throw these election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor,' surely there is some comparable body of water, or dustbin, they could throw them into.
Wake up, Nevada! They audit your slot machines a million times better than they are auditing your votes!
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See "MythBreakers," an excellent pamphlet on the perils of electronic voting:
http://www.votersunite.orgSee, a project for statistical monitoring of the 2006 and 2008 elections:
http://www.UScountvotes.org 
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