Well, here I go again… I told myself that i wouldn’t mention politics or the election any more until at least mid-November. But… I watched the third debate last night, still of the opinion that it’s my civic duty to learn as much as possible about both candidates before I vote.
I honestly can’t say I learned anything new about either side, but I was a little disturbed that one candidate indicated that he might possibly not accept the outcome of the election based on the popular vote. I’ve heard the “this election’s rigged” banter for a while now, but trying to be generous, was willing to chalk it up to “campaigning.”
I’m certainly not an expert on the electoral system, but I don’t consider myself stupid, either. From what I know, I think it would be very difficult to “rig” a national election. I do not think any of the voting machines are connected to the Internet, or even to each other and machines and the voting process is under the control of various states and counties. It would seem to me that it would take a conspiracy of tremendous magnitude to affect the election.
I guess I do think it’s possible to mess with voter registration because one can register to vote via the Internet. But even if those data bases are “hacked,” I’m pretty sure there back-up procedures in place to prevent wide-scale voter fraud. I know that if you show up at the polls and for some reason your name is not on the registered list, you can still produce a voter registration card and vote and if worse comes to worse, you can vote a provisional ballot until the issue is resolved.
So I’m not terribly concerned about election fraud, I’m more concerned that someone may try to influence public opinion of a system that’s worked pretty well for 250 years or so.
Go vote — trust me, it’ll count!!
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