Chris Adams

Clive Thompson's recent voting machine article was generally good but I was disappointed to find the condescending dismissal of the first criticism coming “from the fringe — disgruntled citizens and scared-senseless computer geeks”. This problem happened because government officials, including some of the ones now approvingly being cited for their wisdom, had been grossly negligent when making the initial decisions to purchase conceptually flawed systems were incapable of ever meeting the legal requirements for election systems; this initial mistake was followed by years of denial until the problems become too widespread to ignore.

Given that "the fringe" accurately understood and reported the risks which have only recently become common knowledge years before either those in the government and media did their homework perhaps "scared-sensible" might have been more accurate?