Posthuman Blues

Vote count at mercy of clandestine testing

"'I find it grotesque that an organization charged with such a heavy responsibility feels no obligation to explain to anyone what it is doing,' Michael Shamos, a Carnegie Mellon computer scientist and electronic voting expert, told lawmakers in Washington, D.C."

I don't care for protests. In a digital age, I think they're an insufficiently savvy means of self-expression. They're along the lines of big street parties -- the quintessential Vonnegutian "granfalloon." The mass protests at the Republican National Convention, for example, were a complete waste of time. But I have to wonder if there would have been any effect if anti-Bush protesters had taken their act to Diebold. Probably not; I think we all know the score here.

The irony is that even if this were a real election, Bush would probably win.

Grotesque, indeed.