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because...
a) They spent millions in taxpayers' money for crapass voting machines that constantly breakdown and malfunction, and have to be "patched," repaired, upgraded, maintained, at yet more cost--and there is no money left to pay for extra machines, ballots, precinct locations and other needs of an aroused voting public;
b) The corporate culture of secrecy and corruption that they have adopted in lieu of public service is hostile to big turnouts, citizen oversight and majority rule, and positively seeks disempowerment and disenfranchisement of ordinary citizens;
c) They fear public getting onto what they have done--sold democracy down the river, for power, for lobbying perks, for future lucrative employment in the election theft industry--and don't want big turnout because that means bigger public awareness, not just of the cauldron of corruption in Washington DC but also of the smaller cups of corruption in nearly every county election office in the country.
Recently, the "Diebold shills" (pro-corporate, pro-secrecy) who run the election systems in San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, in California, sued the new Secretary of State Debra Bowen to prevent implementation of mild reforms in the auditing of votes (automatic handcounts as a check on machine fraud). They lost, but that is their attitude--they serve the corporate vendors, not the voters, and want no transparency, no auditing, total corporate "trade secret" control of election results. A couple of years ago, they and other CA election officials, including Conny McCormack of Los Angeles (who did a sales brochure for Diebold!), sued another reforming Sec of State, Kevin Shelley, and drove him from office (on entirely bogus corruption charges), after he sued Diebold, decertified their touchscreens and demanded to see their "trade secret" code just prior to the 2004 election. These kind of election officials--and they are not that unique--hate and fear the voters. A big turnout of well-informed, highly conscious and aware voters is the last thing in the world they want. It is the last thing in the world that the Bushite-connected corporate vendors want. It is the last thing in the world that the war profiteers and global corporate predators who have hijacked our country want. They want stupid, uninformed voters who never question authority, and vast numbers of disempowered, disenfranchised citizens who don't vote because they don't think it makes any difference, and, with corporations counting the votes with "trade secret" code, and virtually no audit/recount controls, that is a reasonable judgment to make (although there is evidence that the voters, by big turnout, can outvote the machines).
We need a Big Broom to sweep out these election officials who complain of big turnouts, and aren't prepared for big turnouts, and can't be bothered to handcount our frigging votes, and whine and complain about transparency measures, and try to prevent them, in collusion with the corporate vendors.
Electionline.org is a corporate-run electronic voting pusher, and it's no surprise at all to see its director describing big turnout as "a problem." Think about this statement of his: "The biggest problem during the primary season has been too many voters...".
They have the nerve to describe the highly expensive (corporate profits) replacement of touchscreens (paperless voting) with optiscans (paper ballot that is rarely or never counted, "trade secret" code central tabulators), as "Back to Paper" ("Back to Paper: A Case Study" - electionline.org). A total shuckin jive position on corporate vote counting.
This is the corporate fallback position--after their total screwing of the voters and the taxpayers with paperless (no audit) voting machines. "Too many voters," my friggin ass.
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