and just to stay on topic this is an even better write on what to expect
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15593681/
nevertheless I'm still voting, so I have a right to be pissed off later.

One problem, aside from the usual trickery, is not hiring and training credible poll workers. Instead, states procure 104 year old volunteers who can't see straight, let alone learn how to troubleshoot a voting machine. And then people are "surprised" when the equipment doesn't work and no one can fix it.

BTW, clever ploy by the GOP and Diebold to have their machines 'malfunction' the morning of election day in certain districts.

Hey, Anthony - I get your point, but... scaring the hell out of the voter on the morning of election day ain't so solid a strategy, dig? Voter suppression is a job for the GOP and Karl Rove, not a progressive weekly in the bluest part of the state.

Um, Anthony's just linking an AP article, so it would be the AP, not Mr. Hecht, who's 'scaring the hell out of the voter on the morning of Election Day.'

This is the best possible result. If the machines are all fucked up and people cast paper ballots, there's a paper trail.

It's not that simple, Gitai. If someone waits in line for an hour and doesn't get to vote because the machines aren't functioning and they have to go to work, they're disenfranchised.

Gomez - Thanks for the clarification. As an unfrozen caveman, I still have difficulty understanding the subtle nuances of your era's fancy electronic media - who is linking to whom, hypertext this, hyptertext that, blog, blog, blog. I am flumoxed by this magic box you call a "com-pyut-r."

Just take your mouse and click on the button that says Start and select Shut Down. Then select Shut Down again. Then hibernate.

Or ask Geico if they got around to doing that research on cavemen you requested.

Back in MY day, we had the voting machines like we saw in the John Waters Movie "Pecker": You went into the little room, slid a lever, and the machine reset itself, while closing a curtain.

You voted, and then pulled a big lever, and it recorded your vote and opened the curtain. It was all mechanical, so they were quite accurate.

Of course, we don't make those in this country anymore. I miss those machines. You really felt like you were voting.

I'm certainly not suggesting (nor is the AP), that the proper response to this nightmare is not to vote. The only way to overcome these problems is for the Dems to win by a large enough margin that it won't matter. So this shouldn't scare anyone into staying home, Vote Anyway, it should scare you into voting and making sure everyone you know votes.

Gomez, the state doesn't "produce" these people, these are the people that choose to volunteer. You could take a day off work and volunteer if you wanted to, but you don't.

Don't blame the state, look in the mirror.

Anthony - Well said. Thanks for the update on your post.

Maybe they shouldn't be volunteers. Perhaps we should hire professionals.

Two words: Absentee Ballot.

This one's worth a read as well:

HOW THEY STOLE THE MID-TERM ELECTION

by Greg Palast
for The Guardian (UK),
Monday November 6, 2006

Here's how the 2006 mid-term election was stolen.

Note the past tense. And I'm not kidding.

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/44990.html?1162911188

This one's worth a read as well:

HOW THEY STOLE THE MID-TERM ELECTION

by Greg Palast
for The Guardian (UK),
Monday November 6, 2006

Here's how the 2006 mid-term election was stolen.

Note the past tense. And I'm not kidding.

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/44990.html?1162911188

Pay my bills, Seth, and I'll think about it. Some of us actually need our wages.

Or maybe the nation's states need to reform their policy w/r/t who works the polls.

Also, now that I think of it, that's a really dumb comment on your part, Seth, given these problems are happening across the country and we don't use such systems here.

You know, I was all set to comment on what a good post this was and how it is really important that we go vote in large numbers so the margins will not even be close (If I hear the word re-count today I might end it).
But now after reading everyone's post I am freaked out and scared to death. I will read Palast's article this evening, when I am either dancing with a lampshade on my head or crying my eyes out under a blanket.

I'm at the point of throwing up my hands about Ohio and Florida. The election machinery there is too broken, too relentlessly corrupt. And there seems to be no will to change it.

Knowing people who live or have lived there, Ohio and Florida as a whole are relentlessly seedy and corrupt in every way. Election fraud is not a huge surprise in hindsight.

Hit the polls this morning at 7: They refused to let my sister vote because she was tagged for needing ID and had forgotten it. It took 45 minutes for them to figure out how to get the new fangled voting machine to work (of which they only had two). I realized on my way to work that roughly nine initiatives hadn't been included on the ballot that I filled out.

This is going to be really, really bad. I am resigning myself to a "shocking" last minute resurgence of Republican support that keeps their majority in both the house and senate. In a few years, when things are even worse and there's no way to cover up the deception any more, we'll discover that the Republicans fixed the elections in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.

Wouldn't it be something if this Republican corruption was part of a giant power/money pyramid scheme that the Democrats were in on?