Yes, Charley, I do get the sense from all the news out of Maine that in part the huge turnout caused a lot of the Chaos. Good on the one hand, not so good on the other.

Big Mick: thanks. I'm sure we'll both be voting for the same candidate in November.

I agree that "progressive" is a confusing term. It is, of course, what many of these people call themselves, but we can't go by that. I am referring to Democrats who do NOT want to go with well-connected, special interest-funded insider candidates.

Gareth, I've spent some time with professional security consultants who have taught me to think critically about security issues. One point they make frequently is that your security breaches will be directly proportional to the degree of opportunity built into the system. It's pretty naive to suggest that a sealed ballot box is an impregnable security device, if you give yourself 72 hours of private, unobserved opportunity to crack it.

Secondly, she is eventually going to open the box and count the ballots. Depending on the regs as to how that event is performed, who is present, and how closely they observe the box before she opens it, there may be no chance for anyone but her to look at the box again until it's officially opened. In that case, it won't matter how careful she is.

As to your stuffing question, the result could be altered by throwing out all the old ballots and replacing them with new forged ones. Blank ballots cannot be THAT difficult to obtain or indeed to make. Also, in some caucus sites in a state like Maine (obviously not Portland) we are literally talking about 25 people who show up. Caucuses in general draw fewer voters than primaries.

Again, I'm not accusing any of these people of actually doing this. I'm just suggesting it would be better to have a system with fewer opportunities.

And, finally, as to your point that The US of A and the World would be better served by you utilising your efforts to supporting a
Democratic Candidate who can defoliate the Shrub rather than whinging; that's exactly my plan. I think, as I said above, that Kerry is NOT that candidate. Despite what the media are telling you now, the man is a disaster in many ways.