I wonder if any of you are aware of the connection between Romney & the company that supplies the voting machines that are used in several states?

Yes, I am aware. Should be against the law for conflict of interest in my opinion. At the same time, I am not trying to say I believe Romney to be fixing the vote by some sort of machine tampering, but I just think the connection is a bad idea in general, and a bad idea for Romney.

The polls right now have the candidates at dead even, depending where you get yours. And the ballot results would show that after all is said and done. If Romney shows a sudden unbelievable surge then I would be suspect…maybe. As for the hacking, there are bound to be as many clandestine hackers who would like to see Obama win as the other. Would that disappoint you? if the pro Obama hackers got it tipped?

These voting machines should be 100% open sourced, with a paper trail and election officials from both parties should have access to the machines during the election to verify that they are running the correct software, have not been tampered with, and that the digital vote counts are matching the paper vote counts. I’m utterly baffled at the total lack of transparency in the digital election process.

@woodcutter I would be pissed if Obama won because of hackers, because it means our entire democratic process would have been subverted, and millions would have been disenfranchised. Ultimately that would be a much greater loss to the country than having a weasel like Romney in the White House.

Also, if they’re going to cheat, do you really think they would make it obvious and get themselves caught? The code could be much more subtle, like changing every 100th Obama vote (randomly distributed) to a Romney vote.

In our state we have to use #2 pencils to fill in the circle next to the name we want and never have had a snafu, that I can recall. We insert the ballot into a machine that pulls it in like dollar changer does. Vote counted. There are some things where paper is better.

I still request a paper ballot every time I vote. It may not make a difference, but I do it as a statement. I haven’t trusted the electronic voting machines from day one.

I read a lengthy article in this month’s Harper’s magazine entitled “How to Rig an Election: The G.O.P Aims to Paint the Country Red.” It explores the dark side of elections in the U.S., citing corrupt elections in the recent and older past (on the part of both parties) and documenting the connections and conflicts of interest that make the 2012 election look like a one-sided game with loaded dice. After reading it I have no illusions about the prospect of a fair election.

In the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election fiasco, and not long after there’d been a lot of press about election rigging in one of the former Soviet states, I toyed with the idea of a movie script in which a Russian “mission impossible” team sneaks into the U.S. with a secret mission to ensure legitimacy in the American election process.

I am aware, and think it’s insane that this type of thing is allowed. Clear conflict of interest.