Doh!

Early voting has started, and all signs point to the likelihood that this may be the presidential election with the greatest voter turnout in US history. I believe that this favors Obama, but with no basis for that belief, I'll just keep punching out this blog post.

In a recent CNN poll, 42 percent of those surveyed said they were not confident that their votes could be "accurately cast and counted." That number is up 15 percentage points from a similar poll conducted in 2004. 42 percent! Funny that our President Bush claimed that the votes which were cast for the President of Iran (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) three years ago were done so "through an electoral process that ignores the basic requirements of democracy." On a similar note, politicians and journalists in many western countries (including the US, Germany, and Great Britain) questioned the legitimacy of the Russian Presidential election of 2008, which saw Dmitry Medvedev win with an overwhelming majority.

If almost half this country wonders whether their votes will be accurately counted, how democratic is our system?

As of Tuesday, 29 states were accepting early ballots, and election officials are reporting record turnouts. Voting problems, ranging from computer glitches to long lines, have been reported in a few states.

Let's take a look at Calvin Thomas, an 81-year-old West Virginian, who took advantage of the opportunity to vote early. Let's see if his vote was counted more democratically than if his name were say... Calvin Thomaskov or Calvin Thomasakbari.

Thomas, an American, has been voting since the 1948 presidential election, when he was only 21 years old. That's 60 years (or 15 presidential elections). He walked into his voting booth, "pushed the Democrat ticket, and it jumped to the Republican ticket for president of the United States." The machine just switched his vote.

From CNN.com on October 24, 2008:

The same thing happened to his daughter, Micki Clendenin, when she cast her ballot. In both cases, poll workers at the site had them touch the screen a few more times, and the voting machine changed their ballot to their candidate choice.

"The lady came in, and she was -- very nicely, she just said, 'it's just been doing that.' She said, 'just hit it again.' So we hit it again, and this time it did go to Obama," Clendenin said.

At this point, I have to laugh, and wonder. When she said "just hit it again," were they just voting for McCain a few more times? A couple votes for McCain... “touch the screen a few more times"… a couple more for McCain... and... there we go: ONE VOTE for Mr. Obama. NICE!

By this point, I am really laughing, because one would have to think "you can't make this stuff up!"

But, I know I have seen this somewhere before: Matt Groening and James Brooks, who invented "The Simpsons," DID MAKE THIS STUFF UP.

See below from the October 19th, 2008 episode (five days before Calvin's experience):

Homer Simpson vote Obama
by divertissonsnous