I have the foreboding feeling that by early Wednesday morning, an avoidable but all-too predictable problem of voters being unable to cast their ballots, through over crowding at polling stations, will overshadows the 2008 presidential election.

The message, however, is clear. If you’re in line before polls close, you’re entitled to cast your vote.

In 2000 and 2004, electronic voting machines which were incorrectly (or deliberately) calibrated, so that a vote for one candidate actually tallied against his or her opponent, was subsequently proven (not least thanks to testimony from ex-employees of the Diebold corporation who made the defective-by-design machines) to have affected thousands of votes in tens of counties right across America. The worry this time is not just that those same machines are still being used, but that wards which traditionally have a low voter turn out–predominantly lower income African-American homes–have fewer of the machines available than in the middle class, predominantly white neighbourhoods, more likely to vote republican–so long lines, hours in wait-times, are highly likely.

More on this story from CBS and the BBC