Loki Pays a Visit to Ohio

(note: I wrote this entry early on election day, not knowing any of the returns. My concerns remain, even though the election results were not disputed.)

I am very angry. Of course, I recognize this as a secondary emotion, arising from a deep sense of helplessness and frustration over what is happening to my country. My rage at the election shenanigans occurring across the country boiled over last night, as I read this, regarding the installation of new, untested, unapproved software in a number of Ohio electronic voting machines:

“What ES&S has chosen to do here is extremely dangerous and exactly what you’d want to do if you wanted to plant a ‘cheat’ onto the central tabulator,” March says in his affidavit. 

Their custom application … would have full contact with the central tabulator database on both a read and write basis, while running on the same computer as where the ‘master vote records’ (the central tabulator database — the ‘crown jewels’ of the whole process) are stored,” he says.

“Under this structure a case of accidental damage to the ‘crown jewels’ of the election data is possible. A case of deliberate tampering of that data using uncertified, untested software would be child’s play.” 

He describes the process as “criminally negligent just from a standpoint of data security.”

To wit, John Husted, the Ohio Secretary of State, a Republican, has chosen to install EXPERIMENTAL software on LIVE VOTING MACHINES just DAYS BEFORE a hotly contested Presidential and Senatorial election. 

WTF???!!!

I thought more about it, seething. I couldn't sleep last night. Something deeper was bothering me. There's more to this than meets the eye. This morning, I got the whole picture a bit more clearly. Reflect on this thought:

State Sen. Turner was similarly suspicious: “They should not be experimenting in a presidential election. You know the secretary of state had previous years to try to experiment.” 

Indeed, one of the unanswered questions we sent to the secretary of state asked why they waited until Sept. 18 to begin this contract, since Husted’s been in office for nearly two full years, and they’ve carried out many elections, of lesser import than a presidential election since that time during which this software could have had a trial run. Furthermore, we asked, how did they manage without it until now during both his tenure and that of his predecessors?

It's too obvious. It's not about successfully stealing the election (although perhaps the Ohio Secretary of State would be fine with that outcome...), because it's too blatant, and his culpability is too obvious.

It is, I've concluded, about injecting chaos. And a masterful injection, indeed. 

Consider the range of possible responses. Consider any one, and how difficult it will be for that response to be accepted, and effective at restoring order and integrity. See how easy it will be to cast aspersions and denigrate and challenge that response. 

The minefield is, dare I say, unnavigable.

The end result of all this election tampering is not that the voting results will be changed, but that they will be disputed. Who wins when the results are disputed? When our form of self-governance is called into question?

I have my opinions. I encourage you to think about it, and draw your own conclusions.

A civil war is brewing. Loki is smiling.