Interesting - India Elections - Electronic Voting?

Story Snip:
BBC
Wednesday, 19 May, 2004, 10:59 GMT

Congress MPs in India are about to meet with expectations high that they will approve the man who began the country's economic reforms as prime minister.

Manmohan Singh is a former finance minister and, if selected, would become India's first Sikh prime minister.

Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi appears to have resisted late efforts to persuade her to change her mind about turning down the post.

Hundreds of emotional supporters are still besieging her house.


A Reader Comments:

I work with a large number of people of Indian descent. They are, for the most part, disturbed by the results of the latest election. The reasons for their concern are many:

1) The result was a surprise (i.e. contradicted both polling results and exit polls the day of the election)

2) The current government was "doing well" with the economy expanding, jobs being created, relative peace with Pakistan, etc.

3) The winning coalition is highly influenced and supported by the communists who, generally speaking, wish to return to a more isolationist international set of policies (which fly in the face of the economic success)

4) This was a rather transparent power grab using the magical name "Gandhi" for its own marketability's sake, by someone who is essentially a foreigner.

There are other reasons I cannot easily capture because I do not fully understand, but it is relatively clear to me that something about this smells.

There are more registered voters in India than people in the population of the USA. Historically, votes were counted by paper ballot by local committees, and these results communicated up through government channels, etc. This process took days. In our Internet "instant gratification" era, this was perceived to be backwards. The solution was to convert the voting system largely over to the automated electronic voting machines. This eliminates the delay and allows such a massive vote to be presented as a result, essentially in near real time, but most importantly, does not yield an audit trail.

I cannot pin my finger on it, but I believe the Indian election results was actually an experiment. The experiment was to rig the election of an entire country using the electronic voting machines (and of a country where the side effects of the choice were not likely to be seen as strategically important) and to see if "anyone noticed".

If this is the case, the experiment seems to have been a wild success because I have not seen any serious consideration of the possibility that the election was rigged. Of extreme interest is that the person who started this process, Sonia Gandhi, has essentially stepped aside. To me, this is a bizarre result, but I do not claim to be able to appreciate the subtleties of government forming in the Parliamentary System.

Regardless of the particulars of the election outcome, it seems that overt manipulation is not widely suspected and the illusion of democracy remains. This does not bode well for the future of "democracy" in the good ole USA, but it does bode well for the preservation of the illusion.

In the US, John Kerry also seems to be characterized as a "foreigner" with a magical name: JFK. One may also observe that the Indian election may not have been the only experiment - the train bombing before the Spanish elections was regarded by some as a "test" by terrorists. Of course, it could just as easily been a test by the powers that be.

In any case, definite links between these events are hard to pin down at this point. What isn't so difficult to see is the effects that such events are having upon the world's population: fear, confusion, and anger. E-voting systems are sweeping the globe, making it easier than ever to rig elections. Threats from terrorists, real or imagined, have nearly paralyzed the American masses. It appears that world leaders and their puppet masters are leading the sheeple in a certain direction that does not appear to be beneficial for the herd.

http://www.cassiopaea.org/signs/signs.php