Tuesday, November 07, 2006

It's election day in the United States

Today the Board of Elections in all fifty states is coordinating statewide network of election officers, voting machines, and all the logistics of democracy. They will be doing so in an atmosphere of unprecedented suspicion. This is long and difficult work. In Virginia election officers must arrive at the polls by 6:00 AM and stay until the votes are counted.

Though out the day local boards will field questions and deal with the inevitable controversies of what after all is a contest of power. The level of tension is very high.

After the polls close their website's site traffic will spike. Civil service IT personnel having working hard, testing their systems to prepare for the flood of traffic.

It is a remarkable process.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Re USA voting

It will be interesting to see if the electronic machines stay. They have a lot of convincing to do to have the public happy.

I can never understand the lines of people. Some waited four hours to vote because there were only two machines at the station. They must know how many are to vote and be able to work out the number of machines. Or is this penny pinching. A pencil and a good old fashion cross takes some beating.

all the best John

Alice said...

If you look at who controls the election administration and which precincts have long lines for lack of machines, it is clear that penny pinching doesn't come into it.