Obama Loses Election Due To Voter Suppression

Whether vote flipping or failures to record votes are deliberate design flaws or accidental defects, asserts Brad Friedman, Democrats and Republicans alike should demand the elimination of all touch screen voting systems. A federal lawsuit against the state of Pennsylvania, for instance, seeks to require that paper ballots be made available to every voter statewide.

Beyond design flaws, electronic voting machines are still subject to tampering, charge critics like Friedman. For instance, the standardized "smart card" that slides into machines like the Sequoia Edge are used by successive voters. If an early-morning voter brings in a smart card that's been infected with a virus, it would be easy to swap out a good card for the infected card when handing it back to the poll worker. That virus could effect the voting on that machine and all other machines for the rest of the day.

So, between voter suppression and voting machine malfunctions or else outright tampering, it's possible that Obama may lose the 2008 presidential election.

The only real safeguards for Democrats are to immediately verify that their voter registration records are accurate and intact, such as through VotersUnite.org. They can vote early as a way to reduce the long lines on election day. They can demand a paper ballot instead of using the machines. If challenged at the polls, Democrats have a legal right to demand a "provisional" paper ballot, which should be counted once their registration is verified in the days after the election.

The key, of course, is for Democrats to vote in such overwhelming numbers that even voter suppression and vote fraud will not be enough to resist the wave of support for Barack Obama.

Regardless of what the polls might say, unless Democrats take steps to ensure that every vote is duly counted, Republicans may retain the White House. The risk is real.