In much of
the world, democracy
is still a ‘low-tech, old-economy business: ballots are
marked by hand —
with crosses or
stamps or fingerprints — and then counted by hand,
with an assortment of officials supposed to
guarantee impartiality looking on.

If manual counting is “subjective,” as George W. Bush
suggested this week, then global democracy is
overwhelmingly a subjective thing. ‘ New York Times