The debate, the chart, and the vote

I'm feeling rather good about last night's debate. Romney's constant attempts to revert to domestic topics seemed desperate. On foreign policy, he couldn't really differentiate himself from Obama without attacking from the left -- drone policy, kill lists and so forth. The phrase "horses and bayonets" was a slight error, since bayonets are still used. ("Cannonballs" might have served better.)

I'm not sure whether I'll make a video about this one. Mitt did tell quite a few whoppers.

ThinkProgress supplies a chart which tells you all you need to know about Mitt Romney's domestic and foreign policy...

Nuff said, as Stan Lee used to say.

I have one problem with ThinkProgress: This story, titled "Why Romney Isn’t Rigging Voting Machines." The article slams the work of Brad Friedman and Truthout without offering any real counter-argument. Instead, we get this:

The rigged machines myth is not only distracting, but harms the effort to get out the vote.... Spreading the myth that the system is so corrupt that these votes don’t matter tells voters they may as well sit out the election.

Neither Friedman nor Truthout has ever discouraged voting. Quite the contrary. The best way to encourage a higher turnout is to make sure that the vote is clean, and you can't accomplish that goal by imitating the ostrich.

Writer Aviva Shen argues that any focus on the possibility of rigged machines might distract from the other well-known and much-discussed tactics Republicans have used to dissuade Democrats from voting. But Friedman and Truthout have spoken about those other problems tirelessly -- as Aviva Shen has not.

Shen correctly notes that the Hart Intercivic machines are being used in just two counties in Ohio. But those are two key counties -- and over the past eight years, questions have been raised about all manufacturers of these devices. See (to cite but one recent example) this fine piece by Bob Fitrakis and Gerry Bello:

The Free Press has previously reported, Scytl, a Barcelona based e-voting company will be counting votes in 26 states. They will be doing so through something called the Federal Overseas Voting Program or FVAP. FVAP is a program designed to allow military personnel and other overseas Americans to vote in their home districts seamlessly through electronically delivered absentee ballots.

Intercepting and changing these ballots, as well as voting electronically on behalf of service people that have no idea such a thing is happening, is something that Scytl is uniquely positioned to do because of their cellphone spyware sister company, CarrierIQ. These stolen votes, distributed throughout jurisdictions across the country, could become a critical component of any scheme to defraud the 2012 presidential election. By means of changing a relatively small number of votes, and laundering those stolen votes in the correct places, the net effect would be a near silent theft.

Sources at Smartech, the company responsible for stealing the election in Ohio in 2004, revealed to Free Press journalist Jill Simpson that the next man in the middle attack would be launched by Scytl from its US headquarters, a location in suburban Virginia that was formerly owned by its managing director, Hugh Gallagher, and seems to serve as his private home.

The day after Fitrakis published this information, the company relocated to a "virtual" address located in Baltimore -- 400 East Pratt Street, very near the Barnes & Noble where I like to hang out.

Brad Friedman's excellent response is here.