more on pre-marked electronic ballots ?

Begin forwarded message:

From: Herbert Striner <[email protected]>
Date: November 8, 2006 10:50:25 AM EST
To: "'David Farber'" <[email protected]>, "'Ip Ip'" <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: pre-marked electronic ballots ?

When I was born in 1922, in Jersey City, the Mayor, "Boss" Frank  
Hague, had
been Mayor for 5 years.  When I got out of the Army in 1946, Hague  
was still
the Mayor.  'Nuff said?  On the other hand, when I last checked out my
source material, Moses was "Boss" of his bunch for a good bit longer.

The problem has never been Process but Cause and Results.  Much of  
what took
place during the Hague Regime was largely the reaction and product of a
predominantly immigrant culture in need of a means of alleviating  
conditions
resulting from the absence of institutionalized mechanisms for  
helping the
hordes of new arrivals in our cities to adapt to a laissez-faire,  
uncaring
society -- one that finally helped to produce the Great Depression.   
A good
bit different from the motivations and products of our Bush scion's six
year's in office.  These six years marked the development of the most
ingenious mechanisms for circumventing in-place regulations and laws
calculated to guard against purloining from public coffers as well as  
the
wholesale strategic placement of political "foxes" in our public
institutional "chicken coops."   Like the FCC, FTC, etc. as well as our
federal courts.

This is not meant to rationalize; only to place events & practices in a
cultural context that better permits analysis & a learning process  
that may
possibly help to promote the goals we say we desire.

Herb Striner

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2006 5:29 PM
To: Ip Ip
Subject: pre-marked electronic ballots ?

Being born in Jersey City, I would not be surprised. djf

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email protected]>
Date: November 7, 2006 5:18:54 PM EST
To: [email protected]
Subject: pre-marked electronic ballots ?

http://www.nj.com/newsflash/jersey/index.ssf?/base/
elections-0/1162916948212820.xml&storylist=jersey
reports that

	Republicans alleged ballots on electronic voting machines in
	Bergen, Camden, Hudson, Middlesex, Passaic and Union counties that
	were supposed to be blank had already been marked with a vote for
	Democratic U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez.

		--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb