For Those Disenchanted with American Politics

I've become very disenchanted with the political process in our country.  Mostly I believe -- REGARDLESS OF PARTY -- campaigning has become about money - who has the most to run an election, compensate high-paid political consultants, pay for high-cost ads, etc.?  

While I can ultimately come to grips with this reality, more dire is that I've become extremely skeptical of the election process.  Every time I go to a poll I wonder if my vote will really be accurately counted.  But today I came upon what I think might be a helpful solution to my plight.

Now more than ever, political skeptics should volunteer as poll workers and election judges.

Those of us who are skeptical need to put that skepticism to good use, and I can't think of a better way to do that than to put your skepticism to work in overseeing the election(s) of 2008.  Especially the presidential election.  Given the nightmare that touch-screen balloting in particular, or ALL forms of balloting for that matter, will wreak on our elections this year, our entire nation (not just the Democratic party) needs skeptics who are suspicious of the entire process  (it would help to have some familiarity with computers) to help man polling stations and call out vociferously when voting machines malfunction.  After reading the article in the NYT Magazine (linked below) about voting machine errors, it's a sure bet they will malfunction.

Link to NYT Magazine Article by Clive Thompson

I can't think of a better place for political skeptics to be than at a polling place overseeing the election.  The more skeptical you are, the more important it is you participate.  

Michael Shamos, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University who has examined voting-machine systems for more than 25 years, estimates that about 10 percent of the touch-screen machines “fail” in each election.
--NYT Magazine, Jan 6th, 2008

People need to be on hand to call loud and ardent attention to any instance of malfunction or irregularity at the polling places.  And if you're skeptical you're more likely to call it early on rather than after it's too late.

Also, isn't it rubbish that private companies are in charge of making our voting machines, training the poll workers on their systems, and writing the proprietary software code that is run on their systems?  As taxpayers, we have no right to inspect the software code WE PAY FOR for errors on the grounds that it's proprietary and secret.

This is not democratic, it's corporate fascism winding it's way into the ultimate democratic process -- the vote.  Until regular americans at the polls call bullshit when the sytems break down it won't change.  As a skeptic you have a responsibility to cast light on the breaking points in the current election system.  This is the only thing that can bring about the transparency our election system desperately needs.