Democracy rests on technology

Voting machines malfunctioned in the US

Yesterday, US citizens re-elected the entire House of Representatives, a third of the senators and 36 of the 50 state governors. A third of voters cast their ballots using the new machines, and in the early hours, multiple equipment failures were reported in the states of Indiana and Ohio. Florida officials, mindful of the confusion in the 2000 presidential election that resulted in a manual recount, placed additional equipment at polling stations in advance. There have already been cases across America when voters were again forced to pick up paper ballots. According to preliminary data, turnout should not be high (about 40%), so technical problems are unlikely to disrupt the voting process.

The main question is whether Republicans will be able to maintain control in both houses of Congress on the eve of the 2008 presidential elections, despite the fall in the ratings of President George W. Bush and the problems that the United States faces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Bush and his wife Laura voted in Texas, near their ranch. The President was resting after a five-day tour of the country's agricultural areas, where he exuded confidence in his success. Realizing the danger of the Iraq issue, Bush moved the discussions into the social sphere, accusing the Democrats of wanting to strangle Americans with taxes. “If a person is breathing, tax him, and if he stops breathing, find his children and tax them,” Bush quipped.

Democrats also expected to win. Hillary Clinton is running again for the Senate. She does not hide her intention to become the first woman in US history - Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (pictured) . She is running in California and is already writing out scenarios for future sessions, promising to keep the most militant Democrats from the temptation to organize the impeachment of George W. Bush. For Russia, a likely victory for the Democrats risks the return of its harshest critics to power. The important House Foreign Affairs Committee could be headed by Tom Lantos, known for his constant criticism of Moscow.

Republicans' hopes of not losing miserably depend on some vulnerability in the Democrats' position. This was noted in an interview with Vremya Novostei by Nikolai Zlobin, director of Russian and Asian programs at the Washington Institute of World Security: “Most Democrats consider the US military operation in Iraq a mistake. But many of them, including Senator Hillary Clinton, voted in Congress to give Bush the right to declare this war if he deems it necessary.”

Petr ISKENDEROV