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Who could have imagined something like this?

The computerized voting machines used by many voters in the 23rd district had a computer virus – tainting the results, not just from those machines known to have been infected, but casting doubt on the accuracy of counts retrieved from any of the machines.

I believe these type of problems are things the left has warned about for years, and when we yelled and screamed about them the right decided to paint us as some conspiracy theorists. Well guess who is joining the chorus now? Yup – the right. You got wingnuts here and here talking about the “stolen election”.

If a virus did alter the outcome of this election then a new one should be held immediately. I think anyone who cares about our democracy would agree, but it should also set off a bipartisan effort to finally go after these machines. We can’t just take NY-23 as an example, but need to look back at elections over the past decade, when electronic voting machines started becoming a big player. Both sides of the aisle must be willing to accept whatever outcome the investigation shows. If it does show that John Kerry won in 2004, then the Republicans can’t start whining about “conspiracies”, just the same as if Doug Hoffman won in NY-23 the left can’t complain.

What is at stake here is our democracy. If people don’t trust the machines they vote on and rather their vote will be counted or not, then our democracy can’t survive. So will the right wing bloggers, who have suddenly opened their eyes to the problems of electronic voting machines, join the left in getting these machines standardized and put under greater security?