Politics and Election Trends to Follow in 2008

The road to the White House in 2008 promises to include one of the most bitterly contested elections ever held on American soil. If the Iowa Caucus is any indication, we may not be able to see the candidates through all the mud being hurled during debates, television commercials, etc. Honestly, the presidential race is just starting to heat up, and here are the three broad categories which will be making headline news leading up to the 2008 Presidential election: campaign and election reforms, domestic issues, and international issues.

Since the founding of our nation, the use of a secret ballot during elections has been paramount in maintaining our form of government. Dr. Aviel D. Rubin, a Professor of Computer Science at John Hopkins University, has recently been appointed the Director of the NSF sponsored ACCURATE (A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable and Transparent Elections.) After testing the security of the latest electronic voting machine, his team went on record as saying "Our analysis shows that this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts." They went on to state, "We conclude that this voting system is unsuitable for use in a general election." (IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, Oakland, CA, May, 2004) Does this shock you?

According to a survey published in 2004, 42 percent of those surveyed said they were concerned about potential problems with vote tampering in electronic voting machines, while 57 percent said they were not concerned. Thirty-eight percent said they were concerned about the accuracy of electronic voting machines, compared with 61 percent who said they were not. (Findlaw.com) Here's the problem with voting machines: the general voting population will always distrust devices that can hacked into, tampered with, or rigged to favor a particular candidate.