GOV'T INTENDS TO DISQUALIFY VOTING SYSTEM TEST LAB

This Is The Funniest Post Yet

America – October 29, 2008. Thanks to the many of you who have written to Dido in appreciation of these posts. Scatology, it appears, has not driven too many of you to unsubscribe to our jaundiced view of our electoral process. I mean this stuff has got me in stitches.

And it’s a good thing, too, that you haven’t unsubscribed, because out of Washington comes the funniest post yet. We all know that truth is stranger than fiction; but did we know that reality is funnier than jokes?

We gave you Henny Youngman, Dido Dupre, Max Tucker, a urologist named Aimée, and anonymous fictitious sources. We now give you Election Day.

OK. Here it is. It’s five days before Election Day. The United States Election Assistance Commission (http://www.eac.gov/) announced today that it intends to suspend the certification of a test laboratory that was responsible for approving for use one of the nation’s most commonly used voting systems. In the words of former late night TV comedian Jack Paar, “I kid you not.”

Be careful while you slap your knees. You can hurt yourself. You see it’s been alleged that that maker of voting machines has been responsible for “flipping” votes from one candidate to another. Dido is not saying that such a thing happened, just that it’s been alleged. And, if that isn’t funny enough, it’s the same manufacturer who made the machines in which 18,000 votes may be missing from an election in Sarasota in 2006.

In a press release issued today, the EAC references a notice to the manufacturer of “possible inappropriate influence by a manufacturer in the development of test plans” in July 2008. We’re just quoting.

Then, earlier this month, the EAC writes the test laboratory again about “possible manufacturer influence over the test plan process.”

Hang on.

Today’s EAC press release ends with a statement that “NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) suspends accreditation of” the test laboratory.

The EAC was created by an Act of Congress known as the Help America Vote Act or “HAVA.” We kind of figured that America doesn’t need help voting; it needs help counting.