So while we want to play up the reefer angle on this -- the Bay Area being pothead heaven and all -- since we've been so politically inspired, we're going to have to go with the voter-disenfranchisement approach on this one.

So Berkeley's Measure R, which would have loosened the restrictions within the city on opening new marijuana dispensaries and how much a patient with a prescription could purchase at a visit, lost by a grand total of 191 votes out of over 50,000 cast. With such a slim margin a recount is easy to come by. But what supporters allege is that the recount process, which upheld the original decision, didn't question the votes from Diebold's electronic voting machines, which represented some 53 percent of the total votes cast. With no analysis of the raw data from individual machines or scrutiny of the transfer process to the central voting database, the only numbers available were those originally given. It looks like Ohio isn't the only place where Diebold's poor testing and results verification shadow has been cast.

Of course the Berkeley-based Electronic Frontier Foundation has thrown in their lot, arguing that a limited understanding of the technology by voting officials may have played a significant role in the confusion over the count of electronic ballots. But other improprieties, like the lack of information on student voters from Cal, may have played as significant a role. If the residents of Berkeley feel disenfranchised by their own local representatives, what hope do the rest of us have?