Reply #23: Part of the reason--The old threads used to get so long [View All]

[DrBB]

...because of the long wrangles with people who denied there was any real problem, accusations that Bev was just a self-promoting fraud, etc etc etc. Some of those were honest disputes, some were vengeful ravings by a particularly unbalanced person (know who I mean?) and some may have even been agents of the voting machine companies themselves blowing smoke. The main reason most of that noise has gone away is that the technical argument has been won, among intelligent people who know anything about this stuff.

I'm not a programmer, but my wife is and is involved at the highest level of groups like USENIX (Avi Rubin is a fellow board member), and when I started mentioning at parties back a year or so ago that the new voting machines were based on Access, people instantly knew that something fraudulent--or at least very very amateurish and shoddy--was afoot. I never encountered a single person at that level who didn't instantly recognize this--it wasn't even a question.

I think most of the people who were trying to defend these systems have been silenced by the facts--things like Rubin's report, and this current one--so the threads are shorter. I always check 'em out, but I don't necessarily contribute--I'm sure there are lots of others here doing the same. It remains a vital issue, but more of the work of convincing people of that fact has been done at this point.