Voting Glitches 

On November 7th, 2006 Americans rushed to the nearest facility to vote. However, I was not one of them. It is my belief that many Americans vote without being knowledgeable about whom they are voting for or what that person represents. Since, I was aware that my knowledge about the elections was inadequate to make a decision, I decided that I would withhold from being a part of the chaotic lines and people looking over their shoulders. However, there are many things that interest me about politics including the extraordinary amount of money each representative spends on campaigning, the candidates tactics, and of course our voting system. Also interesting is the fact that this year’s election was the first time the entire nation voted electronically. The new electronic voting system claimed to make life easier for voters, reducing waiting time and eliminating complications of the old fashion paper ballots. The government spent over 2.9 billion dollars in producing electronic voting machines as well as optical-scan voting equipment. However, there were several complaints that the machines would not boot up, malfunctioned, and did not properly deliver many of the voter’s votes, forcing many states and voters to switch to using the paper ballots. The fact that every year something seems to go wrong for voters scares me, considering Americans are not voting on some new Top Model or new American Idol, instead we are voting for the people that will represent us in the next couple of years. I feel that the money spent on the new voting system was not money well spent. Also voters should not have to worry about whether the candidates elected were by their votes or through a faulty system. It is ironic that Americans have been voting for over 200 years and to this day we are still ironing out the kinks in the our system. Yet, despite the systems flaws I still believe that our democracy is the best system in the world and beats living in a totalitarian society.