Voting Fraud. Nothing we can do about it?

After white-knuckling my way through HBO's award-winning movie, Recount, which manages to portray the 2000 election's Florida recount as a gripping and suspenseful story (despite the fact that we all know how that one turned out), I was incredibly disheartened to read this piece by Marty Kaplan about voter registration fraud and sabotage.

"Josef Stalin is reputed to have said, "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." I think he had it half right. Those who decide who cast the votes also decide everything."

What can we do? Is there any recourse? It seems hopeless.

Yesterday during my jog, I listened to a Bill Maher podcast from the Real Time episode (9/19/08) where Andrew Sullivan, Naomi Klein and will.i.am were discussing the huge part race will play in this election. A great episode, by the way. They all agreed that Obama needs at least a 5-7 point lead in the polls on election day just to break even and overcome the racial prejudice that will play out in the privacy of the voting booth. The odds are so tight—it's staggering.

I feel like all we can do is hope McCain/Palin continue to slip, and the public really wakes up and starts to take notice. And doesn't that feel pathetic. Do we really need a landslide to get Obama into the White House? It sure looks that way.