I think the actual ballot counting is pretty accurate and not totally fraudulent. I don't believe in the Siebold machine-rigging conspiracy theory or other similar theories. Any kind of counting system will have some small amount of innaccuracy, and all systems are subject to some small amount of fraud too --- but I don't think it is enough to actually sway a presidential election in most cases. They should be as accurate and as open as possible, but I do not think it is a huge problem.

What I think is a problem is the system that actually selects the nominees and the president --- the delegate systems for the conventions and the electoral college.

This Superdelegate thing is one example. The idea is that if the race is truly deadlocked, then party insiders (who are supposed to be most familiar with the goals of the party and the qualities and electability of the candidates) could step in and cast the deciding votes for the nominee that is most electable or best represents the party. But now that we are having a situation like that play out, everyone is opposed to the Superdelegates actually doing that. So if their only purpose is for this kind of situation, but it turns out to be unacceptable for them to do their role, it seems like to me it is a useless system.

The 2000 elections was one of those Perfect Storm moments where all the problems came to a head at once. The electoral college system created a situation where all the electoral college deleagtes were alotted without a problem, except for Florida. Because there were not enough delegates for either to win without Florida, it came down to counting votes in a few contested counties in one state. And because of counting problems and also becasue of irregularities in the ballots, it turned into a nightmare scenario.

If we hadn't had the Electoral college system in 2000, it would have been clear that Gore had won, becasue he had more votes nationwide. At the very least, it would not have come down to recounting votes in a few counties.

The 2000 election also showed the problems involved with counting ballots and why it is not as simple as it sounds. The machines did a fine job with ballots that had been properly punched. But for those where the "chad" had not been fully punched through, the mahines did not count them. Then in the manual recount, it's left to human judgement. Should you try to determine what a voter meant to do with the ballot, or just count it in the condition in which it was cast in the first place? I think that becasue of the way the exit polling had inidcated the voters were voting, and how that did not match the actual count in Florida, while it matched pretty well everywhere else, probably those votes were not accurately counted, and probably Gore should have won.

And for thoise who are now about to flame me for trying to relive the 2000 election --- DON'T. I'm over it. I'm just trying to answer the thread's question using the most obvious example. In general I think the system works, but when it is a really close election, the Electoral College and the inevitable innacurracy and fraud do come into play --- doesn't happen very often though.