Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Huge Turnout: NH Running Out of Ballots

Well, Drudge has the siren out, so we all know this is big! While most people's first thoughts on this will be "Obama-mania" (which it is), my first thought was that this is yet another reason to move to electronic voting machines. I know, some of you will say (panting), "But, OR, we can't, we just CAN'T, evildoers could rig the machines, voter fraud, AHHH!" So I guess we'll just have to stay with the current system in most places of the country, because polling places running out of ballots is far better for democracy than going electronic.

Regardless, if the Dems are running out of ballots, I predict that Obama will have another huge win tonight. In addition, this also shows that far more independents are voting in the Dem primary than the Republican one, indicating to me that McCain, who is depending on the independent vote, will not have as great of a night as most people are predicting. But we shall see...

1 comment:

Rottenchester said...

If they had EVMs they'd have long lines because EVMs are expensive, so they tend to be scarce.

Also, lack of ballots can be fixed by a trip to Kinkos by untrained employees. Lack of EVMs has no quick fix, and broken EVMs require trained technicians.

Finally, in an election where every reporter is standing around, something that's probably not a crisis (shortage of ballots) becomes a crisis because they have nothing else to report.

I do agree that Obama's going to win big.