A nation goes to the polls ... then the courts

BY WEDNESDAY morning, the presidential race between George Bush and John Kerry will be over, and America will have selected the leader of the Free World. Maybe. There is, in fact, a strong likelihood that Campaign 2004 has weeks, if not months, left to run. Who will win, when we will know it, and whether anyone will accept the result; these are burning questions to which there is as yet no answer as chaos threatens to engulf America’s most important election in decades.
As well as armies of lawyers poised to contest every twist in the saga, millions of provisional and postal ballots could drag out the final result. And what is emerging as one of the most pressing concerns over election day itself is whether the computerised ballot system millions of Americans will be relying on will accurately record their vote.
Voting hitches disenfranchised at least 1.5 million voters in the shambolic American presidential elections of 2000. That led to sweeping reforms of the voting system and the introduction of computer touch-screen ballots. But with the technology that was eventually chosen condemned as less efficient than a Las Vegas slot machine, critics predict this election could make the last one seem like an exercise in organisation and efficiency.
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