Editor’s note: The following is a re-print from the Nov. 6, 2006 edition of Planet Waves Astrology News that we find particularly interesting as the election approaches. It may not be completely up to date, as it is two years old. Compare the following cases of voter fraud and technical mishaps to recent accusations against ACORN. The Planet Waves archives dates back through ten years of Eric Francis’ writing and horoscopes: access is available only through subscription.
11 of America’s Worst Places to Cast a Ballot (or Try): Machines that count backward, slice-and-dice districts, felon baiting, phone jamming, and plenty of dirty tricks
By Sasha Abramsky
Mother Jones – 11/04/06
WE USED to think the voting system was something like the traffic laws — a set of rules clear to everyone, enforced everywhere, with penalties for transgressions; we used to think, in other words, that we had a national election system.
How wrong a notion this was has become painfully apparent since 2000: As it turns out, except for a rudimentary federal framework (which determines the voting age, channels money to states and counties, and enforces protections for minorities and the disabled), U.S. elections are shaped by a dizzying mГ©lange of inconsistently enforced laws, conflicting court rulings, local traditions, various technology choices, and partisan trickery. In some places voters still fill in paper ballots or pull the levers of vintage machines; elsewhere, they touch screens or tap keys, with or without paper trails.