Down to the final hours

The CNN countdown to election clock just reported 2 days, 10 hours, and 50 minutes until the polls close on yet another election for President of the United States. We are all suffering election fatigue. Nothing new there. Some of us were tired of this months ago.

Now the post traumatic stress disorder kicks in. Having had the last two presidential elections stolen caused a lot of PTSD among the voters.

I remember in the closing hours of the 2000 election praising the citizens of the United States for not rioting in the streets over that. Any third world nation would have and the UN would have sent in peace keepers. In 2004 while the BBC was alleging irregularities that the US press were only barely covering I thought maybe it was not a good thing there was no rioting in the streets. If they try to pull this this again I am personally going to be in the streets leading the riots until I am arrested and hauled off to Gitmo.

That said I do hope all works smoothly and in the spirit of democracy which GW Bush gives a lot of lip service to even if he has the tendency to undermine it here on our shores. I hope he does not allow a terrorist attack (or encourage one) to sway the election. I hope nobody tries to assassinate either candidate despite the inflammatory rhetoric being tossed around by McCain/Palin. I hope that there are no last minute major highway renovations in heavily Democratic precincts. Or that any new registrations have gotten lost by Republican administrations.

We still do have computerized voting machines with no paper trails that can be reprogrammed with a cellphone in the parking lot of some major precincts. But we have Federal attorneys lined up for calls on Tuesday should there be any voting irregularities. And I do believe we have gotten rid of all hanging chads.

In some areas which suffered some major issues in 2000 and 2004 the early voting has been up to 60% of the registered voters. These people do not want their opportunity to vote yanked away from them as in the past. And yet my friend in a neighboring community reports that his friends think the election is so in the bag they do not have to take the time to vote. Shame!

Wouldn't it be nice if everyone that could vote did vote? If we surpassed that 1/3 we usually hover around because we truly believe nobody counts them anyway. Went all the way up to the 60% they are projecting for this election and into that rare space of above 75% of registered voters. How historic would that be?

But I just want an honest count. I want the United States to reclaim its reputation (sorely damaged in the last two presidential elections) of being a model of voting propriety.