[: hacktivism :] > Pretty scary... > Imagine ... > > 1. Imagine an election in a third-world country in which the > self-declared winner was the > son of the former prime minister - and > imagine that the former prime minister was himself the former head > of that nation's > secret police. > > 2. Imagine that the self-declared winner lost the popular vote, but > won based on some old > colonial holdover from the nation's pre-democracy past. > > 3. Imagine that the self-declared winner's "victory" turned on > disputed votes cast in a > province governed by his brother. > > 4. Imagine that the poorly drafted ballots of one district - a > district heavily favoring the self-declared winner's opponent - led > thousands of voters > to vote for the wrong candidate. > > 5. Imagine that that members of that nation's most despised caste of > former slaves, fearing for their lives/livelihoods, turned out in > record numbers to vote in > near-universal opposition to the self-declared winner's candidacy. > > 6. Imagine that hundreds of members of that most-despised caste were > intercepted on their way to the polls by state police, operating under > the authority of the > self-declared winner's brother. > > 7. Imagine that six million people voted in the disputed province, > and that the > self-declared winner's "lead" was only 327 votes-fewer, > certainly, than the vote-counting machines' margin of error. > > 8. Imagine that the self-declared winner and his political party > opposed a more careful, by-hand inspection and re-counting of the > ballots in the disputed > province, or in its most hotly disputed district. > > 9. Imagine that the self-declared winner was himself a governor of a > major province, and that his province had the worst human-rights > record of any province in > his nation, and actually led the nation in executions. > > 10. Imagine that a major campaign promise of the self-declared > winner was to appoint > like-minded human-rights violators to lifetime positions on the high > court of that nation. >
