Bean Counters and Opti-Scanners

At least you could see the Chads Hanging

Hold on to your Mouse- and get ready for flipping screen checkmarks, hopping yellow screen highlights and a baffling mysterious count that bears no relation to the polls and multiple news accounts of who actually won.
Heaven Forbid-- please Heaven- forbid it this time.

One thing I love about the Dominicans, that white robed Order of Catholic Preachers is that since the 13th Century they have elected democratically their own leader. Two people were apparently nominated (OK- so they are all men, aside from that constitutional conundrum Mrs. Lincoln the play was fine).
The two people then are voted on by the friar brothers. Here is how they do it.
They count beans. I kid you not.
White beans and black beans. If you like candidate A you put a white bean in a jar, candidate B a black bean in a jar. Then they count the beans.
Let's look at the principle, while the numbers were decidedly smaller than a city, state or all 300 million of us now.
Let's just take one race- say Harold Ford's race where you know that Rove is going to try to pull every dirty little trick in the book to try to defeat him.
What if in every polling place throughout the State of Tennessee there were a Democratic
pollwatcher- could be an attorney election protection appointee- and that person had a jar the size of a large inverted water cooler. In places where there were larger numbers of registered people have 2, 3, 4 or 5 water cooler jugs depending on the numbers of registered voters. As people leave, ask them if they voted for Harold, have a huge sign above the water cooler jugs- did you vote for Harold? If they voted for Harold tell them they can take and eat a jelly bean and ask them to put one in the jug. Make sure you get an answer from everyone who leaves.
Did you vote for Harold? (Have another jug for people who would rather not say and everytime that is the answer put a jelly bean of another color in that jar.
Then each Democratic pollwatcher takes the jug to central counting. They all count the beans together.
It's an edible exit poll. It operates as a check against the hopping screens, the disappearing provisional ballots, the destroyed memory cards and the hacking switcheroo.
That my friends is how the Black Jelly Beans Rise to the Top of the Jug- and Harold Ford will be the next US Senator from Tennessee- the first African American since Reconstruction. God Bless Him.