election fucked-up-ness.

* katrina VH:

"The American people are waking up and realizing that for all the Bush Administration's talk of promoting democracy abroad, the US electoral system fails to do the same at home. With the approach of the midterm elections, there is justified alarm about how easy it is to hack electronic voting machines and that in many states these machines have no paper trail.

While it is heartening to see the increased focus on the vulnerabilities and flaws of these machines, these are not the only problems that cry out for reform. What about voting districts that are rigged to be uncompetitive? What about loopholes in campaign finance law that give corporations huge influence over legislation? What about partisan secretaries of state who decide who can vote and which votes will be counted? What about modern-day Jim Crow laws and tactics that suppress the vote?
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Isn't it time we did some democracy promotion at home? Here are ten ideas for how to repair and strengthen our broken voting system:
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The last two elections reveal why America needs a democracy-reconstruction project. No matter which party prevails November 7, small-d democrats must make these reforms their top priority."

I can't think of another western democracy that even approaches the US in terms of election fucked-up-ness.