Normally I am not an "I told you so," type person, but this issue is so serious and can have such a devastating impact on the coming election that I must repeat it and shout it from the rooftops.

When I logged on to my computer this morning and checked my email, which I generally do even before I have my coffee, I checked out my daily updates from blogger Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs - http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/
There I found the following article from the Washington Examiner:

Nevada voting machines automatically checking Harry Reid's name; voting machine technicians are SEIU members
By: Mark Hemingway
Commentary Staff Writer
10/26/10 6:12 PM EDT
Clark County is where three quarters of Nevada's residents live and where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's son Rory is a county commissioner. Rory is also a Democratic candidate for governor.

Since early voting started, there have been credible reports that voting machines in Clark County, Nevada are automatically checking Harry Reid's name on the ballot:

Voter Joyce Ferrara said when they went to vote for Republican Sharron Angle, her Democratic opponent, Sen. Harry Reid's name was already checked.

Ferrara said she wasn't alone in her voting experience. She said her husband and several others voting at the same time all had the same thing happen.

"Something's not right," Ferrara said. "One person that's a fluke. Two, that's strange. But several within a five minute period of time - that's wrong."

Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said there is no voter fraud, although the issues do come up because the touch-screens are sensitive.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Voting-machines-in-Clark-County-Nevada-automatically-checking-Harry-Reids-name-Voting-machine-technicians-are-members-of-SEIU-105815608.html#ixzz13ZdKLziO

Let me remind you of the column I wrote back on January 14 of this year, when Scott Brown was still in the race for Senate in Massachusetts and hadn't won his big victory yet. Here are some excerpts from that column:
If Scott Brown Wants to Win in Massachusetts, He Should Guard The Vote Scanners

A subplot of the movie Office Space involves three programmers inserting a computer virus into their firm's accounting system to surreptitiously transfer fractions of a penny to a secret bank account hundreds if not thousands of times each day.

Their theory holds that in any transactions resulting in balances figured down to fractions of a cent, which is common in their firm, the accounting department rounds down for simplicity sake, leaving daily balances that no one notices. What the accounting department doesn't need certainly wouldn't be missed, especially if the virus took only a little bit each day.

Movies being what they are, the chief code writer in the group misplaces a decimal point and the results are not at all what they expected.

I bring this up because all the polls in Massachusetts, which rivals Chicago for corruption in politics, are showing a very, very close race for the US Senate seat that opened up after Democrat Ed Kennedy died.

Scott Brown, the Republican candidate, is ... swarming all over the once insurmountable lead in the polls no longer being enjoyed by the Democrat's handpicked successor to Kennedy, Martha Coakley. ... Brown is surging while Coakley hopes she can hold him off for a few more days - but the spread is razor thin, well within the margin of error. ... So what will be the deciding factor in which side wins?

Perhaps the vote counters will determine the race. Not the people - the machines. What with the movement away from mechanical voting machines to optical scanners that operate based on commands from computer programs, it would be wise for Republicans who are making a massive effort on Brown's behalf to keep a very close eye on the scanners on election day.

How can pre-programmed computerized vote counters change the outcome of an election?

Well, you start long before election day, by writing what amounts to a virus into the program that gives instructions to the software that in turn gives instructions to the hardware that displays the counts.

(If) the vote scanners have a virus in the program that automatically advances the count for the "appropriate" candidate 3 percent of the time ... each time 100 votes are cast, the counter "slips" and adds three votes on the Democrat side.

The only way to find out if the number registered by the scanner counter is accurate is to go through the check-in logs and manually count each person who was logged in. The chances of this happening on a widespread basis are virtually zero.

Because if the program ... is tweaked to give a 3 percent preference to one party over another, in a precinct where 5,000 votes were cast, the counter would add three extra votes every time 100 ballots were scanned ... . The final outcome would be 2,584 to the winner and 2,416 to the loser if 5,000 votes were cast. (I realize these numbers are approximate, so don't get all squirrely with me. It is the principle I'm talking about here.)

If that number, or something close to it, came up - and was mirrored across the state - the pundits and pollsters would all go "SEE, it was within the margin of error just like we predicted. But the Republican just couldn't pull it off in such a Democrat leaning state."

And while the results would be within the margin of error that the polls predicted, they would be way outside the margin where a recount is required - usually if the results are closer than one-half of one percent of the total number of votes.

You can read the entire column here: http://ronaldwinter.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html.

Since I wrote that column and discussed this scenario with others, a friend with more information on computer programming said the program could even be written to make the counter "slip" on a random basis so poll watchers couldn't predict when it might happen. I ended that column by strongly suggesting the same thing I am suggesting now, in every precinct in this country, large and small, every polling station, every scanner, machine or computer vote tabulator.

The local GOP chairman should order the Republican committees in every community to check the scanners at every polling place in their jurisdiction by running a known number of test ballots, with a known number of votes for each position, through the scanners - and the backup scanners - before the actual voting starts. I would use more than 100 ballots, maybe 500 would be better, and I would do the test between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m., just before the polls open.

Then I would keep GOP poll watchers stationed near the scanners all day to discourage tampering. Then I would run another test right after the results are announced, but before the machines are moved out of the polling place.

We all know the outcome in Massachusetts last January and I don't know for sure if my suggestions were followed or not. But I know this: I have an analysis program that keeps tabs on this column for advertising purposes and it tells me how many hits I get each day and where they originate.

Last January 14 my daily hits went through the roof, and a ton of them came from Massachusetts. So, here we are again. And as the article at the beginning of this column points out, there already are questions in Nevada, where a three-point difference could give Harry Reid exactly what he wants, and the country would be unable to do a damn thing about it.

Remember the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Be vigilant when you vote, check and double check, and make sure that every polling station in the country has alert, aware and active GOP poll watchers doing their job.

The fate of the free world hangs in the balance.