Britny files for divorce.... sorry! It's the mid-terms in the US.

Back here, we questioned the use of e-voting machines. One of the issues was the poll workers and the unfamiliarity they had with the equipment. From AP, today, this:

Programming errors and inexperience dealing with electronic voting machines frustrated poll workers in hundreds of precincts Tuesday, delaying voters in several states and leaving some with little choice but to use paper ballots instead.

Ah, yes. The old fall back.

In some states, there were allegations of something more sinister: Virginia election officials called in the FBI to investigate misleading phone calls to voters, and a prosecutor in Ohio urged voters to beware of similar scams.

As this blogger suggests, it's time to clear out a few prison cells for the swine that are perpetrating this. (Yes... they are swine... in the non-porcine sense of the word.)

In Cleveland, voters rolled their eyes as election workers fumbled with new touchscreen machines that they couldn't get to start properly for about 10 minutes.

“We got five machines — one of them's got to work,” said Willette Scullank, a trouble shooter from the Cuyahoga County, Ohio, elections board.

One?!

In Indiana's Marion County, electronic optical-scan machines that read paper ballots initially weren't working right in more than 100 precincts. Poll workers had trouble using a computer port to connect those machines to new touchscreen models, which handicapped voters use, County Clerk Doris Anne Sadler said.

Election officials in Delaware County, Ind., and Lebanon County, Pa., extended polling hours because of early machine troubles blamed on bad programming. In Colorado, Democratic Party officials said they would ask a state judge to keep Denver polling places open an extra two hours Tuesday because of long lines.

OK. So there have been problems, but nothing serious... so far.

Exit polls indicate that the Republicans may well have strapped the shotguns to their legs and simply pulled the trigger. Iraq was on the minds of many, but corruption, scandal and, well, legislators chasing pages just did in a lot of voters, if the answers to pollsters mean anything.

The Iraq war hurt Republican candidates in the congressional elections, but corruption and scandal were bigger problems for them, exit polls found.

Three-fourths of voters said corruption and scandal were important to their votes, and they were more likely to vote for the Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives. Iraq was important for just two-thirds, and they also leaned toward Democrats.

In the vote for the House, Democrats were winning among several groups that have usually been very closely contested — independents, moderates, the middle class and suburban women, according to early exit poll results.

Exit polls, once thought to provide an accurate picture of an election, seem to have fallen into disfavour, if only because in the last election they were wrong. Any survey can be wrong, but generally exit polls are relatively accurate. They are not based on the hypothetical; they reflect what the voter actually did.

Unless a particular voter segment chooses not to answer questions, and then the poll results will skew.

So far, it looks like the Democrats are doing very well. That however, doesn't account for the "shift factor" of e-voting machines.

In the who gives a shit category of the day, some no-account fluff singer filed for divorce. Is that good news or bad?