The Florida Mess

The majority opinion on seating the Florida delegation seems to be "they knew the rules and they broke them", so no seats for them. Many people even feel that a revote would be unfair; inconsistent messages equals bad parenting, or something.

What I'm not hearing in the media or the blogosphere is the fact that moving the Florida primary got tacked onto a larger election reform bill, the major component of which was getting rid of the paper-less touchscreen voting machines that have become the subject of mistrust.

"Black Box Voting"? "Diebold?" "Hackable votes?" Any of this ringing a bell? Does anyone remember the hysteria of four years ago at the prospect of stealable elections? Because no one seems terribly worried about hackable voting machines in this cycle... I wonder why?

In any event, blaming the Democratic wing of the Florida legislature for voting for the bill is kind of cruel. How kind would the blogosphere have been to them if they had voted against a ballot that leaves a paper trail? I can hear the epithets now.