Op-Ed Columnist: Hack the Vote By PAUL KRUGMAN, NYTimes
Inviting Bush supporters to a fund-raiser, the host wrote, ”I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.” No surprise there. But Walden O’Dell — who says that he wasn’t talking about his business operations — happens to be the chief executive of Diebold Inc., whose touch-screen voting machines are in increasingly widespread use across the United States.
For example, Georgia — where Republicans scored spectacular upset victories in the 2002 midterm elections — relies exclusively on Diebold machines. …
[Y]ou don’t have to believe in a central conspiracy to worry that partisans will take advantage of an insecure, unverifiable voting system to manipulate election results. Why expose them to temptation?
[L]et’s be clear: the credibility of U.S. democracy may be at stake.