I just called the superintendent of elections in my county in northern NJ to check that my registration was received. She said yes, I'm all set. But what she then volunteered bothered me a bit: 1) they accepted faxed applicatons this year because 2) the volume of registrants was so high.
I am suspicious--normally the rats are involved in election fraud to some degree (see 1960 Illinois presidential race) but this year it is wholesale.
thanks for the post. your concern is well founded. there is a margin of error in the election process, which those involved in systems theory call noise, which runs from about .25% to .5% if memory serves me correctly. some democrats i know and republicans i know (these are elected officials or those supporting their parties) feel that the system is skewed toward democrats by .5% to 1.5%, for a variety of reasons, some involved cheating, and some involving the skewing of noise toward the democrats.
personally, i think the tables against the republicans has been skewed by less than 1%, but this year things seem to be ugly. my greatest hope is that there are enough people out there in charge of voting that are professionals that things will not get out of hand.
i have not personally studied this, but do have degrees in math and have significantly studied statistics, so i am capable of looking at data and drawing second hand conclusions.