Illegal Elections in Maryland

It looks like there is a little more to the Maryland Diebold story than just Ehrlich's putative bellyaching. Via Raw Story, it appears that election integrity group, TrueVoteMD.org, has learned, from a documents request, that Maryland's 2002 gubanatorial election and the 2004 presidential primary race were conducted illegally on uncertified Diebold voting machines.

The Maryland State Board of Elections allowed Diebold Election Systems to operate its touch-screen voting machines during the state's 2002 gubernatorial election and the 2004 presidential primaries before the state agency actually certified the controversial machines, according to recently disclosed documents.

That is a violation of state law....

And just to further demonstrate the clueless state of the Democrats when it comes to these easily hackable machines, it was none other than Linda Lamone, administrator of the State Board of Elections and a Democrat, who was the one responsible for this illegal conduct.

Did anything odd happen during these elections? Despite the fact that Maryland had not had a Republican governor in 36 years, Ehrlich's election was not too hard to believe. Townsend was a miserable candidate and was pilloried as a cog of the "Spendening" administration. But one result was bizarre

In 2002, Democratic House Speaker, Casper Taylor, lost his seat to a near unknown, a result that was labelled as "one of the most remarkable election upsets in recent Maryland political history." Allegany county was only one of four counties that used Diebold machines. Whether this is the result of some nefarious hacking is, of course, entirely unknown, both from a technical perspective and a political one. Rural counties in Maryland have been drifting toward the GOP of late, but Taylor was a long-respected state legislator, though there has been a certain discomfiture with the Democrats, who have grown a little too comfortable in the belief that Maryland is "theirs."

And who is front and center, helping this sentiment along nicely? Why, the Democrats, of course.