I have been following the elections fervently to watch, listen and evaluate the plans that each candidate - Obama vs. McCain have for our country. Like most fans of rap music that deals with real life social issues, I have been feeling my own share of depression over the economic issues that have developed.

The political man-made economic crisis was fueled by deregulation and sub-prime mortgage problems that developed from around mid-February and earlier. The $700B financial bailout of wall street banks as last-ditched effort to save the stock market and our entire capitalist system from collapse was a source of my growing aggravation.

I was looking forward to the elections and thought that voting would herald the end of what had emerged as a bad dream. I am sure that this was not the dream that Martin Luther King, Jr. had but my greatest nightmare is about to happen.

I read an article on republicans exposed in September that warned about numerous elections irregularities in Colorado and Florida. The article focused on fraud as it relates to the malfunction of Diebold PC computer software used in recording and counting the votes cast on November 4, 2008. This software was miscounting votes, not recording and these machines were being used in 35 states without checks and balances.

So this is a heads up to all you rap music fans who have been interacting with us here, arm yourself as I have with a pencil that I will use as a pointer when I go to the polls and you should do the same. Don't use your index finger because it will trigger a vote for McCain. The machines are rigged to limit the space in the box for each candidate to the diameter of a pencil or ball point pen.

When you go to the polls, carry a pencil or a ball point pen and use it to pick the name of the candidate so that they can't use these faulty machines to cheat and blame it on voter error as they did in Florida in 2004.

An 81-year man from Virginia took his daughter to the polls, he had problems with his eyesight, and discovered this when he voted. He voted for Obama and the machine selected McCain. This old gentleman protested and it was finally fixed by an elections official.