Too Much Excitement?

American voters are ready for tomorrow. The primary elections registered record voter turn out, and the early voting available at many polling stations already shows signs of an all time high. I'm not sure about you, but my doorbell has been rung by get-out-the-vote canvassers, and I've gotten election reminders in the mail over the past few weeks. The people are definitely ready, but is the system?
How will this election fair after the problems of the past two? Record voter turn out could create painfully long lines at voting stations, scores of first-time-voters, eager to participate in this landmark election, could be slowed by unfamiliar protocol, the sheer number of voters might cause low-tech stations to run out of ballot paper. This level of enthusiasm has already led to 3.4 million new voter registrations in battleground states, as opposed to 1.8m in 2004. Of course this phenomenon feeds right back into the ACORN controversy. But it seems that problems like new voter identification laws in many states and voting machine shortages in minority areas give us enough to worry about without considering fraud. Whatever concerns the American people may face tomorrow, apathy is most certainly not among them.

bwA