"they were denied their right to vote because of a lack of paper ballots""

Ah ... isn't the play pretend electronic election game fun for the inept?

Ineptitude and spin, the meat and potatoes of the election system in the great democracy that is forcing itself upon the weak nations of the world.

The republican dictatorship must be proud of itself, cause no one else is.

It seems that the republican dictatorship has found a way to exonerate the voting machine companies and the teleco's.

For the first time in US history, private companies are becoming adjuncts to spying and are being protected under national security concepts:

"President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations. Notice of the development came in a brief entry in the Federal Register, dated May 5, 2006, that was opaque to the untrained eye" (link here).

This means they do not have to disclose financial data when the magic wand national security is waived.

And it even reaches the telecom companies that are doing the NSA spy dirty work:

"Telecom giant Verizon is refusing to confirm or deny participation in the illegal National Security Agency (NSA) wiretapping program, as citizens in Maine urge the state’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to investigate whether the company handed over its phone records.

In a tight-lipped 44-page response to the PUC last Friday, Verizon argued that the Commission lacks the authority to investigate a complaint that the telephone company was involved in the NSA program. The company further claimed such information is protected by the state-secrets privilege" (link here, bold added).

My guess is that this may be used to protect the big three election machine companies (ES&S, Diebold, and Sequoia) when it becomes obvious that the nation has been destabilized even in the election system.

Damn Dredd, You're right, they already claimed security as a reason not to reveal the records in Alaska. Hope that one doesn't fly!