Friday, December 29, 2006

I, for one, welcome our new overlords

This is just scary-- A recent ruling by a judge in Florida stated that an industry's trade secrets are more important than guaranteeing fair elections.

In Florida's 13th congressional district, the election between Democrat Christine Jennings and Republican Vern Buchanan was extremely close, with Buchanan earning 369 more votes. However, the actual results are uncertain because of serious problems with the voting equipment. In Sarasota county alone, there were 18.000 votes that were not counted (all on computer voting machines). Jennings' lawyers, the ACLU and People for the American Way each filed motions asking that the software, which runs the voting machines, be examined. Here is the judge's reply:
Judge William L. Gary called their request "nothing more than conjecture and not supported by credible evidence," and said that making the secret code available for scrutiny "would result in destroying or at least gutting the protections afforded those who own the trade secrets."
If this ruling holds, we are all in a lot of trouble. Private corporations will effectively own our democracy.

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