Florida optical scan voting machines were hacked

This is a good discussion of how to hack an election using Diebold optical scanning voting machines. Go read this.

I'm not sure I see proof that an election has been stolen. What I do see is a strong reason to believe that it can happen. Here is an example:

"Three memory card tests demonstrated successful manipulation of election results, and showed that 1990 and 2002 FEC-required safeguards are being violated in the Diebold version 1.94 opti-scan system.

Three memory card hacks

->An altered memory card (electronic ballot box) was substituted for a real one. The optical scan machine performed seamlessly, issuing a report that looked like the real thing. No checksum captured the change in the executable program Diebold designed into the memory card.

->A second altered memory card was demonstrated, using a program that was shorter than the original. It still worked, showing that there is also no check for the number of bytes in the program.

->A third altered memory card was demonstrated with the votes themselves changed, showing that the data block (votes) can be altered without triggering any error message."

It also looks like convenience of counting is being used as a reason for not doing reliable handcounts. For some reason, politicians are prohibiting manual recounts even when such recounts are possible. This leaves election administrators taking the first answer they get in the initial count, then not being allowed to question that answer. Finality of the first answer trumps reliability of the vote count.

If I truly trusted either the voting system or the Republicans to not hack the elections, then that might be acceptable. I don't trust either.