Democracy?

In carrying out its international affairs, the US often prides itself on being 'the land of the free' and often cites its mission as bringing democracy to countries where it doesn't exist. A noble mission indeed, one might say, so it was with some sense of dismay (although not suprise, I freely admit) that I read a well-researched article on the 2004 presidential election. Now, far be it from me to cite one article as being the truth - in considering these matters, one must take all the evidence from both points of view. However, this article succeeded in raising a number of interesting questions - citing available references (I checked) to back up the conclusions drawn. In a nutshell, the article addressed the possibility that the last presidential election might not have been as fair as thought.

A major fact of evidence for this is the large discrepancy between the exit poll forecast (by their nature, these are almost always the most accurate) and the end result - a discrepancy that had odds of 1 in 3 billion of occuring. That, by itself, raises eyebrows - but subsequent digging and further research into some of what was going on in key states such as Ohio (the state that swung it to Republic in the end) suggest even more that things were not what they seemed. For example, the distribution of electronic voting machines appeared to be geared towards Republican-heavy precincts. One precinct had an apparent voter turnout of 98.6% meaning all but ten people voted - yet the magazine managed to find at least 3 times that number who did not. The secretary of state of Ohio placed many obstacles in the way of people wishing to register to vote, and also managed to get a considerable number of people taken off the register (because they had not voted in the last three years) yet did not inform them of this until it was too late. Ultimately, it's hard to go into the depths that the article does - but it certainly made me think that for such a 'guiding light' for democracy, the US should perhaps do some tidying up in its own backyard first. What i couldn't believe even more is that when i discussed this with a couple of students at work, one of them said 'well, if they cheated to keep themselves in power, good for them for being smart' - a true democracy?? I have a few doubts.