Rigged Elections or Rigged Politics?

Over at Tech Central Station, Glenn Harlan Reynolds is voicing all the familiar worries about voice fraud, that some shadowy conspiracy or gang of old time ward heelers will hack into high tech voting machines and rig the elections. Reynolds feels that such electoral games will increase distrust in the electoral process. I have to agree and disagree with Mr. Reynolds based on my latest experience at the polls.You see I voted on Saturday afternoon, they have early voting in my home state of Colorado, the experience was about the same as at the last election but it was a pleasant Saturday afternoon not a hurried weekday. Voting itself was simple with the new electronic machine that even printed a paper version of my ballot. Those overseeing the election were honest and efficient civil servants, and there were no old time political thugs in sight. There was also a large crowd of voters of all ages, races and backgrounds lining up to vote. No what worried me was the actual vote itself, our civil service did a good job setting up the democratic process, the problem was the ballot itself and what was on it and what was not on it. In many if not most of the races, most of the candiates were running unopposed, in only a few statewide races could residents of Denver, vote for something besides a Democrat.
Take my local race for the House of Representatives, Democratic Congresswoman Diana DeGette, a politician I really despise, had no Republican Challenger. I would have voted for any Republican against DeGette but nobody was running. In other words I had no choice, okay I had a terrible choice, a Green, an ecofreak, I voted for an Ecofreak figuring well the imbeciles in the Republican Party deserve to have that extremist sitting next to them in Congress. Yes I know Denver is a supposedly safe Democratic seat but what if Diana Degette gets run over by a bus the week before the election or she gets caught accepting bribes from a North Korean spy? Then the seat would be empty and the extremist idiot would win.
Still what sort of Democracy is this? Yes we have a safe and efficient voting system but no real choice. So what's the point? Why should we vote if we have no choice. I'm sure a lot of people are thinking this. How many good Demcorats and liberals out there are as frustrated as I am, they charge down to the polling place to vote against Bush only to discover there is no Democrat on the ballot? I wonder how many liberals out there voted for a right wing extremist of some sort because there was no Democrat on the ballot. I voted for a left wing extremist to spite both parites.
The system of course is rigged, the two parties and the corrupt elites that control them don't want to give the public a choice because the public would take it. The whole system, campaign finance (read an attempt to stifle free speech) and primary elections (the most undemocratic inovation since the one party state) is designed to deprive voters of a choice. Obviously the party leaders know how little the people think of them so they rig our elections. These are the same people who ask our soldiers to lay down their lives in Iraq to protect the principal of elections. Yet they rig our electoral process so that we have a choice of voting for A) a party hack or b) a kook. In other words our leaders have no faith in Democracy so why in the hell should we?