What if we had an election without electronic voting machines?

[merrily]

26. As I stated upthread, if you want to discuss the importance of a clean vote, availability of

verification in the event of a recount--not just a receipt that voters leave the polls with, etc. I am right there with you. However, I think the Coakely Brown election is not the example to use to make that case. That election raised a LOT of other questions in my mind, but rigging of the vote itself was never one of them.

If the election Brown-Coakley election had been rigged, it would have been Democrats rigging it against a Democrat. The Governor was a Democrat. Most poll workers are Democrats. Most votes come out of Boston, which is a Democrsatic machines and has been for many years. For the last mayoral election, there wasn't even a Republican and a Democratic primary. There was only a uni-primary in which about 23 Democrats and one or two Republicans competed.

I have zero doubt that bad things go on with the vote. There's just too much money and power involved for everything to be Sunday School. However, I, for one, am a little worn down by Democratic politicians claiming prior elections were stolen, then doing nothing to prevent the next elections from being stolen. When Democrats start increasing penalties for messing with elections, requiring paper ballots, etc., I'll believe they want actually want clean elections. Right now, I'm only wondering why they do nothing but complain.