Krugman has a pretty good column about electronic voting machines. I think he gets it just about right. The only reason this is a partisan issue is that all the top voting machine companies have deep links to Republicans, but it *shouldn't* be a partisan issue. I have no idea if Diebold machines have been rigged, but nor do you and nor does anybody else and most importantly...nor can anyone else. Even if these machines aren't an evil plot being drummed up in Dick Cheney's undisclosed location, they are incredibly easy to manipulate. It doesn't take an RNC-led conspiracy to do it - just tech savvy people with access to the machines.
It's really very simple. Electronic machine prints ballot. Voter reads ballot, confirms their vote choices. Voter drops ballot in old fashioned ballot box. A random sample of old fashioned ballot boxes are manually counted every election night, as should be any locations where there are possible problems, technical or otherwise. It's so obvious - and simple - what should be done that it should scare us all that it isn't being done.
