Surveys of voters leaving the polls showed that turnout in the two-day ballot crossed the necessary 50percentthresholdld only an hour before polls closed.
Each time that CNN cut to a precinct, volunteer staffers were seen carefully rearranging ballots, crossing off names, counting and checking.
The only explanation, Mr. Rawl's representatives told the committee, was faulty voting machines — not chance, name order on the ballot, or Republicans crossing over to vote for the weaker Democrat.
As I walked back up the hill to my house with my mum and two brothers, thinking about the tiny implications of my ballot-crossing, I felt profoundly underwhelmed by democracy.
Even if the law is not changed, Mr. MacKay said, the party is here to stay and, in order to get the 50,000 votes it needs to stay on state ballots, would cross-endorse a major party candidate for governor in 2006 if Mr. Golisano or another well-financed candidate does not run.
Today we cast our ballots and cross our fingers with the hope that the 11 swing states that decide our president each year don't mess this up for America.
The Glasgow case was believed to have involved someone entering a polling station in the Glasgow East constituency and crossing a ballot paper under another person's name.
In this, the phone-in vote crosses lines with the ballot box.
However, there was an alternative option -- going to a curtained booth and voting for nobody by crossing out all the names before dropping the ballot in the box.
It's what gave women the courage to reach for the ballot, and marchers to cross a bridge in Selma, and workers to organize and fight for collective bargaining and better wages.
Both Williams' sisters are unable to cross a ballot sheet because of their religious beliefs, they are Jehovah's Witnesses, and therefore despite supporting Barak Obama, will not back him for president in November's elections.
