No Fraud. Great.

This is from a week or so ago - from Verified Voting, Franklin County Pinpoints Cause of Inflated Bush Numbers (there's a longer article, but it requires an annoying (though free) registration).

The director of the Franklin County elections board says a review showed no fraud or tampering.

Gurnee-based voting machine manufacturer -- Danaher Controls -- has inspected the counting system and concluded the laptop was busy completing another task just as numbers from that precinct were being fed into it.

As a software developer, this comforts me not; in fact it makes me ill. Basing our democracy on the (non-verifiable) results of crappy systems that can't handle the volume is barely, if any, better than out-and-out voting fraud.

New voting systems, whether they're electronic, punch-cards or scrawled in blood on cave walls, should be proven, tested and proven and tested again before they're ever even considered for adoption by a state.