Just A Preview

In Search of Accurate Vote Totals - New York Times:

The most troubling evidence comes from Ohio, a key swing state, whose electoral votes decided the 2004 presidential election. A recent government report details enormous flaws in the election system in Ohio’s biggest county, problems that may not be fixable before the 2008 election.

Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, hired a consulting firm to review its election system. The county recently adopted Diebold electronic voting machines that produce a voter-verified paper record of every vote cast. The investigators compared the vote totals recorded on the machines after this year’s primary with the paper records produced by the machines. The numbers should have been the same, but often there were large and unexplained discrepancies. The report also found that nearly 10 percent of the paper records were destroyed, blank, illegible, or otherwise compromised.

Notice the use of Diebold and the "large and unexplained" discrepancies. Guess which way the counts were off. Just guess.

This is going to be a very interesting year at the polls and afterward. What do you want to bet the Republicans complain about counts and new machines when they start losing more races than they expected? And what about the ones the Dems should win but don't? Will they have the cajones to put up a fight this time? And will any of these problems be solved before the 2008 presidential election? Stay tuned.