I would add to the above "view from the developing world" imagine if you had an election in the third world where one candidate had a slight lead in the popular vote but ultimately it came down to a close call in a province governed by the self-declared winners brother and then to a tribunal made up mostly of appointees by the self-declared winners father (and his predecessor) would the US recognize such an election as valid. I leave that up to you but I doubt it.

Personally my cynical view is that the Supreme court voted completely along partisan lines (the Equal Protection line has got to be the lamest reason for their decision - because under the electoral college system peoples votes are weighted differently anyway - and there are completely different machines and ballot designs used all over Florida) I believe a just decision would have been to call for a complete hand recount in all of Florida) This will taint the supreme court jesters for years.

"The opportunities for fraud with the paper ballot are overwhelming" Troll Youve got to be kidding Troll.

And there arent with machines? Any programmer will tell you it would be trivial to throw an election based on a computer system - and undetectable. I certainly would never trust one.

In Canada, we just had an election and counted 13 million votes (on paper ballots) in under 4 hours, whats the problem down there? And what is wrong with waiting a few days to hear who the winner is, oh yeah we live in an instant society.

Anyway Good luck with president Cheney. I mean Bush. Petr.