Throwing your vote away

Anyone who has paid attention to politics for longer then, oh, six months, has probably heard this phrase. It usually refers (in the United States) to voting for some party other then the Democrats or Republicans. Yeah, it's pretty rare that someone from outside those two parties wins any sort of major election.

Of course, it's not just confined to that.

Based on current polls, if you're planning on voting Republican, and you live in California, you're throwing your vote away. (On average, Obama has a 17 point lead in the polls.) Likewise, if you're planning on voting Democratic in Alabama, you're throwing your vote away. (McCain has a 21 point average lead there.)

Once again, the only states that are going to matter are the so-called "Battleground states". These are states that are currently too close to call. States like Virginia, where Obama and McCain are tied, or Ohio, where McCain enjoys only a 1 point lead in the latest polls. These are the states that will determine the next President (failing some major scandal, debilitating illness, or whatever).

And we could already have some problems. It's being reported that some of the election machines being used in Ohio, made by Diebold (or whatever they're calling themselves today) are flawed, and may lose votes, and can't possibly be repaired before the election, which is still a few months off. Frankly, I find that hard to believe. Not the part about them being flawed. There's issues with Diebold-made machines going back to at least the previous two Presidential elections.

No, the part about "Well, there's no way we can fix this problem in time." Quite frankly, that sounds like a lot of bullshit to me. At the very least, those machines should be decertified, and other systems (paper ballots? Ones without hanging chad?) should be used.

But they won't be. And I suspect only the Democrats in Ohio will be throwing their votes away.