When Congress certified the Electoral College vote the 2004 election was over. There was a Democratic congressional staff report on the vote in Ohio (Conyers Report) that suggested the Ohio electors should not be certified. The report makes it looks there were serious shenanigans in the vote that could have affected the outcome. There are probably always some challenges. Read it for yourself. Our congressmen didn't take the challenge seriously. They certified the electors by an overwhelming margin with only 31 Representatives and 1 Senator objecting.

Ohio was decided by 165,000 votes for George Bush. Its 20 electors were the final margin in the 2004 Presidential Election. Bush got 286 total and Kerry 252. Whoever won Ohio won the election.

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The 2006 elections seem to have gone better. Much better if you are a Democrat, but that is not what this article is about. Even without auditable voting machines the widespread claims of vote stealing were not heard this year even though HBO aired a cheap "documentary" a few days before the election showing among other things a programmer hacking an outdated Diebold machine.

It looks like the 2006 Florida-13 Congressional District may have been awarded to the Republican through some sort of error, but the machines offered no audit trail that could resolve the controversy. The crux is that in that race the final margin of 286 votes was far less than the undervote in Sarasota County which leaned heavily Democratic. The undervote could not be explained statistically and a recount would have been indicated, but the IS&S machines used provided no independent way to confirm the electronic totals already recorded and counted.

Reminds me of the old Louisiana joke:
"When Louisiana installed new Siemens electronic voting machines in 1992 they sold the old lever pull machines across Central and South America. Since then Edwin Edwards has been elected governor of Oaxaca twice and John McKeithen came in third for president of Chile."


Many issues remain.

• A few ultra close elections decided the national balance of power.
  
• Out of 435 House +33 Senate elections only about 10% were competitive.Once again the electorate returned 90% of the incumbents to Congress.
  
• 50% of the members Congress have held the same office for more than 12 years.
  
• Voter participation and turnout was low in most places
• Gerrymandered district boundaries mandated by federal decrees and partisan state politics
  
• Election by plurality (absence of IRV or better voting system)
  
• A few locations experienced snafu's that resulted in long lines and voter dissatisfaction.
• Motor voter registration rules compounded by the aggressive (possibly illegal) actions activist groups like ACORN leave the integrity of voter registration in doubt.
  
• Last minute robot phone calls are an annoyance and in some cases illegal. Examples involved intimidation (you are registered elsewhere so you will be arrested if you attempt to vote) and misinformation (change of polling place).
• Inability to audit votes cast on electronic only voting machines
• Voting machines and components left unguarded or guarded by partisan forces between final testing and use
  
• Excessive TV, junk mail, signs and other forms of paid advertising
  
• Negative campaigning in many races when the trailing candidate got desperate
• Partisan talk radio and superficial TV news coverage
  
• Transferring campaign funds donated to "safe" candidates to same party candidates in competitive races is emerging as a primary party strategy (good or bad?)
• Absence of viable third parties
  

A few positives worth mentioning:

• Mail in voting continues to gain traction. Internet voting must ultimately follow. Auditable machine vote counting could be in place by the 2008 elections.
• Netroots forces provide more and better information about candidates and issues on demand via the internet.
• More and better public debates (TV mainly)