Mid-term elections

Its coming down to the wire and here in NM its a close one between Wilson and Madrid. If the number of campaign signs in yards is any indications, Madrid will win. Her signs outnumber Wilson's 3 or 4 to one.

I've already voted and, to avoid the chance of electronic fraud, I did so with a paper absentee ballot. See How to hack a voting machine. More importantly, I read the entire Princeton report "Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine" and believe its methods and conclusions are sound. Of course, my paper ballot gets read with an optical reader and then sent to some master database of votes, so anything could happen. But I will be very upset if the exit polls and the final vote counts diverge significantly as they did in Ohio in 2004.

One thought is to take a video camera, or failing that, your camera-equiped cell phone into the booth with you and record the process. If any unusual behavior turns up, please contact your precinct voting officials immediately with your images. I'd appreciate hearing from any who experience problems. Schlepp 'at' swcp.com.

All that said, in the end it comes down to one thing -- vote on Nov. 7.