Election Night : Local

If Nick Lampson wins TX-22 tonight, I would expect extreme voter outrage over E-Voting machines. Here in Houston, machines were sent to the wrong polling locations which resulted in votes cast for the wrong races or ballot initiatives. The Chronicle has more:

Manvel resident Cynthia Vasquez, in the congressional district of Ron Paul, R-Lake Jackson, said that during early voting she was given a ballot for the 22nd District, formerly represented by Tom DeLay. She protested but officials insisted the ballot was correct.

"Instead, I got to weigh in on the Nick Lampson/Shelley Sekula-Gibbs race, which was great, but not legitimate," she wrote.

She said she had tried to fix the problem with Brazoria County officials during the past week, but got nowhere.

Fort Bend County had other problems. Its voter information phone bank was not installed properly and did not work until mid-morning, Perez said. His department also has realized it does not own enough electronic voting machines, he said, leaving long lines at many precincts.

Manuel Silva, election judge at Sienna Crossing Elementary school in Sienna Plantation said few people had asked questions about the electronic voting machines by early afternoon.

Debra Walker said she used the write-in option to cast her ballot for Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. "Once I figured out you can go backwards (in the alphabet), it made it a whole lot easier.''

Insanity. Just realized today that there aren't enough machines? Voters casting a ballot for the wrong race?

I guess it hardly matters who loses tonight, because they will contest the election results. But I guarantee that the Republicans will mount a vicious, vicious campaign to invalidate the winner.

Is Democracy supposed to be this ugly?