Idaho Reports is a weekly news program about politics that appears all over the state on public television. Normally it's quite civil. But one recent show took an awkward turn when the host asked about Governor Butch Otter's proposal to eliminate the program's funding. "Can you give us an update," moderator Thanh Tan asked, "on where we stand in terms of the agencies that face a possible phase-out…which includes the agency that produces this program?"  Guest Wayne Hammon, the state budget director, replied that "the governor felt he had no other choice." The challenges that Idaho Public Television is facing are emblematic of the decisions that public television agencies and stations around the country will have to make if states decide that public television is no longer a business they can afford to be in. According to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), state and local funding for public television stations nationwide declined by $36 million between 2008 and 2009. CPB forecasts an additional $45 to $49 million in state and local cuts for the upcoming fiscal year.

In two weeks, the American voting system will be stressed as never before with record voter registration and expected large turnouts. But the greatest pressure will fall on 11 battleground states whose stars are aligned for an election debacle: tight races coupled with radical changes in their voting systems.