Prepare for chaos: U.S. electoral system warned it 'can't cope' as historic number of voters cast their ballot



A record turnout of up to 130million voters may spell chaos for America's voting system today.



The presidential election could descend into electoral farce as unprecedented numbers of voters turn out to cast their ballot in a system that is largely untested.

The U.S. has an electoral system that is not organised, designed or funded to cope with 'anywhere near a 100 per cent turnout', a director of a leading independent electoral reform group has said.

Record turn-out: Voters wait in a line that circles the block in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, DC. today

It is estimated that more Americans will vote in this election than in any other. Doug Chapin, director of The Pew Charitable Trust's Electionline.org, said voter turnout will 'dwarf' all other problems in this year's presidential election.

There were also fears that the allegations of stolen votes that marred the 2000 and 2004 would be repeated, especially if the result is closer than the polls suggest.

Widespread claims have been made in the past few days that electronic voting machines have 'flipped' people's choices, so that votes cast for Barack Obama have ended up being counted as McCain votes.

Historic election: Voters wait in line to vote at the Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington

Similar claims have been widely reported in the last week of early voting, in which 27million Americans made their choice.

Jim Harrington, of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said: "Voters reported, for example, that when they tried to vote a straight-party Democratic ticket, the machine flipped their choices to Republican candidates instead."

Local elections administrator Javier Chacon claimed that "the intensity of the election may be spurring conspiracy suspicions in some voters".

Shortages of voting machines and strict identity checks mean long queues in some areas. Protesters in Virginia are alleging that black voters are deliberately being disenfranchised by long queues.

Voters wait in line to vote at Albright United Methodist Church in Phoenix, Arizona, where Republican presidential candidate John McCain is scheduled to cast his vote today

New laws demanding photo ID in Indiana, Arizona and Florida are also said to discriminate against poor, elderly and minority voters.

Huge teams of lawyers have been drafted in to mount legal challenges at a local level. Some have tried to obtain lists of people whose homes were repossessed so that they can be disqualified on the grounds that their address is not up to date.

A USA Today/Gallup poll published this found likely voters favouring Obama by 11 points over McCain, 53-42 per cent. A survey for ABC/Washington Post showed the same margin.

With the economy in turmoil and the approval levels of President George W. Bush, Democrats look set to capture the White House and expand their majorities in both chambers of Congress.

But with the threat of electoral chaos looming, the result may not be so clear cut.

Resentment is still strong over the 2000 election when, after bitterly contested recounts, a Supreme Court ruling gave the presidency to George W Bush.

It's not over yet: A defiant John McCain rallies supporters in Florida earlier today

On top: But a confident Barack Obama was also campaigning in the Sunshine State today, where every vote will count

It hinged on so-called hanging, dimpled and pregnant chads - all terms coined to describe card ballot papers that had not been punched through properly.

In 2004 there were eight-hour queues in some areas, which critics said effectively blocked some people from voting. The hope among election officials is that the result will be so clear-cut that there will be no need for a prolonged dispute when, inevitably, some machines break down.

But today, six years after the largest federal overhaul in how the U.S. elections are run, voting experts are still predicting machine and ballot shortages in several swing states and late tallies on election night, U.S. media have reported.

About half of all voters will vote in a way that is different from what they did in the last presidential election, the New York Times reported, and most will use paper ballots rather than the touch-screen machines that have caused concern among voting experts.

But paper ballots come with their own problems: the scanners reading them can break down, and up to a third of them will be counted later at a central polling station, meaning that if a voter has made a mistake filling out the ballot it will not be caught until it is too late.

Lawsuits have been filed in the key states of Pennsylvania and Virginia by voting rights groups accusing officials of not having enough paper ballots in stock, the New York Times has reported.

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In states with early voting, there have been scattered reports of touch-screen machine malfunctions, ballot misprints causing scanners to jam and vote-flipping, in which the vote cast for one candidate is recorded for another

'The challenge is we will get closer to 100 per cent turnout on election day this year than ever before,' Mr Chapin said.

He said the U.S. typically sees a turnout in the 'high 50s to 70 per cent range' but added: 'You now see some states forecasting, 80 per cent, 85 per cent, even 90 per cent turnout of their registered voters on election day.

'And this flood of new voters is going to challenge the system in a way that it really never has been before.'

He said if there was a problem at the front of the line at a polling station, this was an inconvenience if there were ten people in the queue.

But he went on: 'If there are 100 people in line it is a problem; if there are a 1,000 people in line, it's a crisis. Given the number of folks that we have coming out to vote this year, any problem that occurs at the point of voting has the potential to be a real challenge on election day.'

He said many states were 'overwhelmed and in many ways overrun' by the number of voters during the primary season, but were 'fully prepared, or what they think is fully prepared, for record turnout across the country' on Tuesday.

'It is an article of faith and job mission of every election official in the U.S. that every eligible American who wishes to do so should have the right to cast a ballot and have that ballot count,' he said.

'The truth however, is that, given how decentralised our system is and the disputes over our system, we do not necessarily have a system that is organised, designed or funded to handle anywhere near a 100 per cent turnout.'

He said the voting system was 'startlingly' decentralised.



'It is a myth that there is a United States' election system. We have at least 50 separate state systems; in actuality, probably closer to thousands of state and local election systems', he said.



'I would be very surprised if we don't hear more of, "We need to centralise elections more" after this election.'

He said the problems caused by voter turnout were already being seen in reports of early problems related to long queues, scattered reports of machine problems, and a 'system characterised by overwhelming demand'.

Mr Chaplin also said he could see another problem such as the one in Florida which dogged the 2008 election and said three states would be worth watching closely for any problems.

Florida, the home of the 'hanging chads' and spoiled ballots of 2000, has been a 'symbol of election reform' since and has seen 'as much change, if not more, than any other state in the country'.

Ohio, a 'plumb political catch' is usually very closely fought and 'no dispute in this country has taken place since 2000 without taking place in some meaningful way (here),' he added.

And Colorado, also a key battleground state this year, is 'as unsettled in its election administration as any state in the country right now', he said.

It was one of the last in the country to complete a required upgrade to its state-wide voter rolls, its chief state election official is a candidate for the US Congress, and its state election director recently resigned.

Mr Chapin, who also wrote a report subtitled "What if we had an election and everyone came?", said: 'If we have a problem... it will be because of something completely unexpected, not because of a lack of preparation.'

He said voters had shown increased interest this year, not just in the candidates but also in the mechanics of casting their votes.

'So while we won't know until polls close on election day whether or not we have avoided the problems of the past, there are signs for optimism.'

In the UK, the 2005 General Rlection saw a national turnout of 61.36 per cent.



Last week, MPs were told that Britain should learn from the expected high turnout in the presidential election.

Commons leader Harriet Harman said a lack of voter registration and low turnout was something that had to be tackled in Britain, particularly among people living in inner cities.



'It looks set to be an election with very high turnout from people who previously have not necessarily voted, people who have registered to vote and then have gone out to vote,' she said in the House of Commons.

'One of the things that all of us should be preoccupied to tackle is lack of registration, particularly in inner city areas and among poorer people and low voting turnout.



'If there is something we can learn from the American elections about more people voting and more young people voting then that is something we should look to.'