lorida and Texas, indicating that a massive voter turnout may be necessary to counter voting irregularities on a larger scale on Tuesday.

Unchallenged and constitutionally questionable early voting in a few states adds additional problems to reports of malfunctioning e-machines with no paper trail for a recount which added GOP votes at the expense of Democrats, raising questions as to the accuracy and honesty of the November 7, 2006 election as millions of e-votes are cast on controversial touch screens.

“This is terrible. I voted for Jim Davis [Democrat gubernatorial candidate], but Charlie Crist [GOP candidate] came up,” said Hollywood, Florida attorney Joan Marek last Thursday after casting her votes as a Democrat, after which she saw GOP candidates selected for the review screen—this, when poll workers told her that same machine had experienced problems before.

No report was made to the Supervisor of Elections office and the machine was not removed, according to Broward County Supervisor of Elections spokeswoman Mary Cooney in a Miami Herald report.

“I was really outraged, I mean, that was really disgusting to me. And it’s not like I could have made a mistake while voting. There’s no way,” said Marek after reports added that she said it would have been very easy for her to have made a mistake by pressing the red “vote” button without correcting the ballot.

“It worries me because the races are so close,” said the Fort Lauderdale resident said, after her boss Gary Rudolf showed her what happened when he touched the screen for Democrat gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis, but the review screen repeatedly registered the Republican Charlie Crist.

Debra A. Reed confirmed Marek’s assertions further south in Miami-Dade county, saying “I’m shocked because I really want·to trust that the issues with irregularities with voting machines have been resolved,” said the South Florida paralegal according to the Herald.

Mauricio Raponi planned to vote a straight Democratic ticket in Miami last Thursday but each time he tried to select a candidate, the GOP candidate showed up on the screen.

Across the state in Sarasota, evidence was confirmed that elections workers were not able to get into a database containing voters’ registration numbers, voting histories and more importantly, whether voters in question had already voted via absentee ballot, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

U.S. and international intelligence agents will closely watch the activities of satellites during and after the American elections Tuesday according to government sources who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, even as reports indicate that electronic vote tabulators in some states are now being linked to and monitored by global positioning satellites.

The federal and international agents are reportedly concerned that satellite activity of a criminal nature could render the U.S. election vulnerable to changes in certain key vote counts without polling place volunteers or county election officials knowing that clandestine vote tampering was taking place.

Texas two-step

“The machine I was using recorded a vote for a Republican three times instead of the Libertarian I chose in three cases for individuals listed in succession on the [electronic touch] screen,” said Dallas voter Marilyn B. Blankenship in a letter to the Collin County Election Bureau.

“I was so shocked I spoke out loud that the machine was not recording my votes, but giving my votes to a candidate I did not choose,” she said, adding “please take seriously my complaint about voting on a rigged Diebold machine and please do not pass this off as a glitch in the machine I was using. I consider the errors as fraud on the part of someone who tampered with the computer in that machine.”

Similar switching of Democrat to Republican candidates was also experienced in Beaumont, Texas according to Jefferson County citizens to KFDM-TV who said it received complaints from “voters who say the electronic voting machines are not registering their votes correctly.”

KFDM reported about “people who had cast straight Democratic ticket ballots, but the touch-screen machines indicated they had voted a straight Republican ticket.”

Jerry Stopher told KFDM that when he voted Democrat the Republican candidate was highlighted, confirming reports that the problems in Beaumont were not just related to straight ticket voting.

Tennessee waltz?

Memphis voter Shirley Neely said she does not live in Germantown, Tennessee but her electronic voting machine had Germantown candidates on her ballot.

Neely found a poll worker to register a complaint, but during the process her screen went blank, flashing a message that her vote had been canceled, releasing her election card.

She had to vote on a provisional paper ballot that is only counted if there is a problem with the machine.

Lamika Cole was also given the opportunity to vote in the Germantown, Tennessee election even though she also lives in Memphis and also casting her vote at Greater Middle Baptist Church in Memphis: “They [Germantown candidates] did show up right at the beginning of it. I didn’t ask any questions. I just voted. I did what I had to do. I did not vote in any of the Germantown races, because I don’t live in Germantown.”

The House and Senate races have ominous implications for the impeachment of George W. Bush and the possibility of his removal from office should both bodies fall into Democratic control, giving both subpoena power to extract damning evidence and public testimony from White House officials which could potentially force more senate votes to convict and remove after articles of impeachment are voted out of the House and onto the Senate floor for trial.

Since polls indicate that Republicans will suffer a major loss of congressional seats, evidence of altered vote counts similar to the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections could well cause incumbents to benefit from dishonest and inaccurate vote counts causing possible chaos, even as close polling statistics make fixed vote counts more believable to a trusting but unaware American voting public.

American taxpayer dollars are buying $5,000 electronic voting machines to do the work of a paper ballot which only requires a pencil to record a vote.