Tomorrow is election today in the United States, as voters line up at the polls in the hopes that their votes will actually count. In many parts of the country, many voters will be asking if their votes will actually even be counted, thanks to defective, if not rigged voting machines, and the legalized franchise suppression of the so-called Help America Vote Act. Given that these tactics clinched the White House for Republican candidates in 2000 and 2004, one would think that a Democratic candidate would have a lot to say about the issue of electoral reform, but to date the response of Barack Obama's campaign has been to send out a rapid deployment force of lawyers in the event election 2008 devolves into another judicial fistfight.
If any Americans are reading this page, could you explain to this page (and my readers) why America can't administer Federal (i.e. Presidential) elections through an independent, non-partisan agency similar to what your northern neighbours have in Elections Canada? Is it because of the principle of States' rights? Is it the institutional entrenchment of the Democratic and Republican parties to the exclusion of all others? Are political leaders afraid to advocate for standardized election procedures lest they be accused of being paranoid and less than confident of their electoral prospects?
The lack of fair and effective electoral oversight changed the course of American history for the worse over the past eight years, and may do so yet again tomorrow. This page finds it disturbing that voter supression and electoral fraud are regarded as so instrinsic to American elecations that jokes can be made about it on The Simpsons:
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