Governer's Mess in Washington State posted by Ben

Take a look at this essay from the Seattle-based blog Orcinus: The Washington State Microcosm

For me, the link above just nails the difference between normal (i.e. Democrats or Republicans-of-the-Past) and Neoconservative approaches to voting and voting rights. The gist of Orcinus' post has to do with analyzing how the Democrats and Republicans chose to fight to win the big Governer's Recount Fiasco.

He also links to this article from the Seattle Weekly which I found particularly stunning, especially this quote:

[The authors of the study] contend the outcome of the Nov. 2 election was affected by electronic irregularities. Their 29-page report found that problems of switched votes or machines freezing up occurred at more than 50 polling places. Under their scenario, Gregoire likely beat Rossi in Snohomish County or, at worst, lost by a much narrower margin—meaning she likely lost enough votes to account for Rossi's 261-vote statewide lead shortly after Election Day. Two-thirds of Snohomish County voted with paper absentee and provisional ballots, favoring Gregoire over Rossi by 97,044 to 95,228. The remaining one-third, voting electronically Nov. 2, favored Rossi—and by a much greater margin: 50,400 to 42,135. Though they can't prove it, Lehto and Hoffman think many Democratic votes were switched to the GOP. They believe it was "a mathematical impossibility that Gregoire's 1,800-vote lead on absentee paper ballots was completely overcome by an 8,000-vote Rossi landslide on Election Day on the Sequoia touch screens, ultimately leaving Republican Rossi with a 6,000-vote margin in traditionally Democratic Snohomish County."

Strangely, I remember reading how a similar bizarre margin in the electronic voting machines tally occured in analysis of results from a number of other states that had statistically relevant non-electronic samples to draw from.

What I can't understand is why the political party (hint: the Republicans) benefiting the most from electronic voting is the one most opposed to machines that leave a paper trail, or to letting votes be counted and managed by a non-partisan entity. Then I read an account like in the quote above and it all makes more sense.