Election Fraud? : Let the Games Begin...

What is the potential for election fraud in the coming election?

While everyone is so busy worrying about who will become President (as they should be) it is increasingly more difficult to worry about how the elections will be run. Although the US is not yet in the situation of some countries where citizens vote in a pseudo-election with only one candidate on the ballot, I often wonder how far off we really are from that. If our democracy is based on the right to vote shouldn't we be concerned about whether or not the votes are being cast?

Are electronic voting machines secure and accurate? Will paper ballots be misleading? Will ballot boxes be stuffed or will voting cards be discarded? 

Recent election history in particular the last 2 presidential elections has proven that this is a real concern.

While the republican side is worried about fraud by single voters (e.g. voters not really being legally eligible to vote), the more serious concern is regarding large-scale intentional election fraud which involves systematically manipulating the votes after they have been cast. 

A blogger on WordPress. com reported in January that the biggest concern is electronic voting machines:

"Elections in this century will be digitally, not physically stolen, unless and until our election procedures and laws effectively and quickly address this reality. And they certainly won't be stolen by the few people who mistakenly or foolishly try to cast a ballot when they can't legally do so. Without precautions in place against computer election fraud, a inevitable 'Titanic' shipwreck of democracy may occur without the public even being aware."

Last week on the Brenner Center for Justice website, a center that has tracked election fraud, a fellow blogger warned that the Election fraud games seem to already have begun:  Thousands of absentee ballot request cards were going to be thrown out by the Ohio Secretary of State, due to them being deemed "invalid" because although the person registering signed the card, they did not check a misleading check box saying they were a legal voter. 

Strangely enough the registration cards were developed by the McCain team.

Fortunately the Ohio Supreme court ruled to allow the absentee requests!

How many more of these cases are still to come? Is there action we can take now to prevent fraud in November? 

At the very least I would say, let's keep our eyes and ears open for cases of injustice...