The Distrust Factor

Quick observation: The New York Times editorialized yesterday on a Defense Department program to have soldiers overseas fax their ballots directly to local election officials, possibly denying them a secret ballot. Further, reported the NYT, the CEO of the company charged with this assignment, Omega Technologies, has donated $6,600 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, and serves on the committee's Business Advisory Council, inevitably raising the spectre of a confilct of interest in the system. So I went over to Slashdot to see what the world's best online technology community thought of the story, expecting a discussion of the hardware and software involved. What's there? Basically another GOP vs. Democrats battle, with folks choosing sides and making their arguments based on their political alliances. The pro-Bush technologists saw no inherent conflict and basically argued that $6,600 is small change, that IT CEO's - even those whose business involves elections - have a right to take sides. Anti-Bush technologists saw a growing conspiracy to drive more votes to the Republicans. I've seen this split on other sites that focus primarily on media, technology, and venture capital - on Fred's VC site, some posters argued he should keep his political opinions to himself. On Jeff's media site, others were shocked and hurt - hurt - that the reliably centrist blogger recommended the liberal blog of a colleague. But it continues to amaze me how wide the distrust factor is this year.