In 2004, a list of 100 voters in a state like Indiana had only about 75 real, qualified, live and kicking voters on it. All over America, states have been cleaning the dead wood off their lists, with millions of purges in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Though the word "purge" has taken on an aura of disenfranchisement, and indeed purges have been used to disenfranchise eligible voters, what happened after 2004 was in large part cleansing the list of voters who had moved away or died. 2004 lists were chock-full of names that couldn't show up if they tried. Not so in 2008!
In 2004, 100 voters might really mean 75 people but in 2008, 100 voters means 100 people.
This means the estimates for voting machine allocation are still too low.
SO HERE IT IS IN A NUTSHELL
The Help America Vote Act, HAVA, successfully strong-armed the nation into getting DRE voting machines. HAVA didn't cover the full cost, and costs keep coming, strapping local jurisdictions into killing off neighborhood polling places and dipping into the general fund to cover losses.
HAVA didn't fund buying more voting machines, so now that we have more voters headed to the booth, we can't buy more voting machines.
Now you know why elections officials are out there like contest hawkers at the carnival pitching absentee and early voting: There aren't enough machines for the voting population, they can't buy any more, and the only way to avoid the train wreck is to push people into absentee and early votes. Those have other problems, which we'll address in another article.
Welcome to SPEED VOTING. Aargh.
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