It is interesting that the current issues in this campaign revolve around the economy, war and the always critical issue of the candidate's integrity. One side or the other will win the battle of the tar brush and that may swing the election in their favor. Beyond that battle lies the reality of who these men are and what they hope to accomplish during their term in office. Mr. Bush has one swing at the piñata so far, and the promised goodies are not raining down on all of the people in our nation as yet. Mr. Kerry wants his turn as the person who presides over a two and a half trillion dollar budget, and an over ten trillion dollar economy. The business community has a big stake in this election and it does a lot to help us choose one candidate over another. The large businesses in that community are resoundingly behind Mr. Bush. The smaller businesses are not so sure but their votes will go to the candidate who they believe is likeliest to bring prosperity back to Middle America.

The last election swung on the voters in a state where a significant number of political dirty tricks carried the day in an almost equally divided electorate. The basest of those dirty tricks was the purge of voters rolls based on an inaccurate list of felons. This list, which was applied to the voter rolls inaccurately, caused the removal of thousands of black voters who were legally entitled to vote from the list of those who were actually allowed to vote. Do your ethics allow for such tricks in any election regardless of the office at stake? If the answer is yes, don't bother to read the rest of this piece, it will be a waste of your time. I am writing this piece for those among us, regardless of their party affiliation, who believes that fair elections are an essential part of our democratic system of government.

We have two potential problems in this coming election that concern me, the use of electronic voting machines that leave no paper trail or record of a voter's actual vote. This means that no recount is possible and no way of verifying the accuracy of the machines record of votes exists. These machines are easily tampered with and the tampering is hard to detect once it is accomplished. That means we have an electoral process that is flawed at the core of its value to our society, the verification that the voters chose the candidate that the machines say was elected. This is not a replay of the Terminator movies script, the machines are not going to rebel any time soon, they are just too vulnerable to tampering to make a fair election likely where they are used.

The second problem is the older one of voter rolls that are in bad shape and not safely kept by a nonpolitical entity dedicated to maintaining their integrity. These important lists are not safer from tampering than they were during the last election, if anything they are less safe. That is because the lesson of the last election to some people is that stealing an election by tampering with these rolls is possible. The end justifies the means in the minds of a lot of people in this nation. Are you one of them? This is more than just an idle question; it bears on the viability of our democracy and our society. If cheating is OK because it means the policies that you judge are good for the nation will be implemented, that is an indictment of the purpose of democratic elections.

Are you a person who believes in the viability of a democratic system of elections? Or are you a person who thinks that sometimes the system needs a little help arriving at the "right" conclusion regardless of what the majority of voters may think. Most of us have moments when we doubt the viability of our political system, but those among us who act on those thoughts will destroy democracy if the rest of us let them. Boss Tweed won elections by any means necessary. There have been many others but the electoral system of choosing leaders always got better over time. Reform movements have saved this nation from the destruction of faith in the electoral process many times in our history. It is time to remind ourselves again of a central fact of democracy, elections must actually reflect the will of the electorate. The end of implementing policies that are superior to others embraced by the majority must never cause us to accept the means of stealing an election as acceptable.

It is impossible to have a Democracy in a society that believes in dynasties. Inherited power is antithetical to Democracy. So is manipulation of the voting process as opposed to manipulation of the electorate. It is one thing to use every means at your command to change the minds of voters before the election. It is another thing entirely to prevent some people from voting or to change the balance of votes cast by other means. One is campaigning in all of its glory, the other is electoral fraud and should be the greatest crime in our society because it defeats the purpose of our democracy's existence. God bless you and keep you all safe in your faith in our democracy, it is the greatest system ever created for arriving at the good of the many over the power of the few.