Broken Voting Mechanisms?

i really think we need a federalized system for voting. each state doing it's own thing is jut too difficult to sort. they say only about 60% of eligible voters turn out but still that equates to about 220 million votes by my estimation. most of which will not be cast until election day. so, the difficulty in casting and counting those votes lies in the sheer numbers. my concerns center more around who is counting and how are they counting. computers are programmed by people, who's to say those people are honest? paper ballots are counted by people, who's to say they're honest? there are so many ways to commit voter fraud i really wonder how accurate and honest any of our past elections have been.

You are right with being worried about this. In 2000 there was a big deal in Florida over counting the votes and with the election promising to be a close one this year, bad polling machines could mean the Apocalypse of Democracy in the United States. The basic process can be difficult because there is so much pressure to get it right, and various voting machine types have various advantages and disadvantages. Overall, we should not worry about this years election but long term we need to make reform a big issue for future elections.

In keeping with my knowledge of the last 2 presidential elections, I fully expect there to be MAJOR problems, not only with voting equipment, but with massive numbers of people not being able or allowed to vote for a variety of normally reasonable reasons. The Republicans stole the last 2 elections, why shouldn't they try to steal this one? I hope the turnout for Obama is so big that they cannot fiddle with the voting without getting themselves in deep trouble.

Having worked on elections since 1984, I have seen most of the things that can happen with problematic voting equipment. I just hope that polling places have paper ballots to hand out if there is a power outage, or other malfunctions of the voting equipment.

I have a feeling like you that this election will NOT run smoothly unless it is a landslide. Right now, it is a close election and we all know how that turned out before. it might be November 12th before we know who our next president is. God, I hope it goes well, but I am not optimistic about it.

Well, now when Obama wins the Republicans can demand a recount!

Machines are as smart as the person who made them. That should say alot about the human race.

It's only the way McCain can win...If he can't win the "right way"..then he has to win the "Republican way". He learned from Bush.

Welcome to Florida, home of the Republican voting machine.

Odd they are only 'broken' in Democratic-leaning counties.

in florida anything is possible.