Rolling Stone has published a detailed analysis by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. looking into the numbers behind the controversial Ohio vote and other irregularities in the 2004 Presidential election. Kennedy says the numbers bear out one conclusion:

"After carefully examining the evidence, I've become convinced that the president's party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election. A review of the available data reveals that in Ohio alone, at least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted in 2004(12) -- more than enough to shift the results of an election decided by 118,601 votes."

So, was it stolen? I certainly think some weird stuff went down in Ohio that seemed to benefit one side (not to mention the Ohio money scandals), but I don't have a conclusion on Kennedy's analysis. And, of course, with that last name there could be just a wee bit of bias in his article. However, I do fully agree with Rolling Stone's Editorial that electronic voting machines pose a threat to our democracy.

Particularly when these machines are proving over and over to be unreliable and vulnerable to tampering. But, I don't view the voting machines as a political issue. This is really a national security issue. We should not have an election system that is so vulnerable to outside manipulation. With the security flaws and other weaknesses in the electronic voting system, terrorists could easily finance hackers to fix the outcome of our election. The security problems are rampant and too much is at stake to take this kind of chance.

The United States has survived 200+ years without electronic voting machines. I think we can survive another 200+ without them. Sometimes technology is not the answer.