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Kennedy contends that Kerry's vote totals in the presidential race should have exceeded Connally's in the Supreme Court race in these rural counties; you wouldn't expect a relatively unknown liberal to win more votes than a well-known moderate in a rural area.

Who the hell is the "well-known moderate"? Certainly not Kerry.

I was a presiding precinct judge in Toledo, Ohio in 2004. Yes, there were some very long lines at the polling stations. They were caused in part by the new optical scan voting machines that HAD to be used in the wake of the 2000 Florida debacle. The county had been using the same old manual "flick the lever next to your guy" machines for decades without incident, but because a few numbskulls iun FL couldn't correctly match a name to it's corresponding circle, we had to change to brand new technology that simply wound up confusing a number of people including those of us who were charged with manning the polling places.

Add in the surge of newly registered voters who went to the wrong polling place and random dumb dumbs who were trying to vote even though they weren't registered (they got a nifty provisional ballot anyway) and you have a recipe for chaos.

I will say this about my little corner of the world, Democrats and Republicans worked their butts off alongside each other to get the job done. Given the fact that all we had to work with was a 2 hour training class and 12 or so page manual (along with a cell phone to call the board of elections) we did a pretty damn good job.