As the nation, and the world, watched Barack Obama in Berlin last week, and public opinion polls showed the Illinois senator starting to open a larger lead on his opponent, it began to look like things might be turning toward a definitive conclusion.

Although it certainly looks good for Obama at the moment, there are still close to 100 days left in the presidential campaign and it would be a big mistake to start celebrating the return of democracy to Washington just yet.

One reason, of course, is Sen. John McCain, a remarkable and honorable man who is very earnestly presenting his case to the voters. Even though he suffers from many inherent disadvantages, he’s fighting hard for every vote.

The other reason I’m not celebrating an Obama victory just yet is because I know just how crooked our voting process has become over the past eight years. After what happened in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio in 2004, where tens of thousands of votes weren’t counted, it’s hard to have any faith in our electoral process.

Elections have been rigged before in our history — John F. Kennedy’s 100-to-1 support among the deceased voters of Illinois in 1960, for example — but never before have two consecutive elections been so blatantly manipulated. The consequences of those phony elections of 2000 and 2004 can hardly be overstated.

Hundreds of thousands of people are now dead because of the disastrous results of George Bush’s foreign policy. Our country has never had less credibility in the world — and deservedly so, because our government has repeatedly and intentionally lied to the world community.

Right now, I feel like I have no guarantee that the election results in November will accurately reflect how the people actually voted. Here in Marion County, the concept of the secret ballot has vanished forever because election officials watch you place your ballot in the scanner and can see whom you’ve chosen.

Who’s to say that my vote even gets tallied? There’s no paper trail proving that it did. I suspect other states operate the same way. And it’s difficult to ask voters to have faith in a voting system that has produced questionable results for the past eight years.

I hope things are changing on that front but there’s no way to know. I do know that another rigged election will cause civil unrest on a scale not seen in the United States since the 1960s.

Meanwhile, the two presidential candidates are drawing a stark contrast between themselves and the incumbent commander-in-chief. When George Bush travels overseas, there’s an intense aura of security all around him. Tens of thousands of protesters greet him at every stop.

How refreshing it was, then, to see an American politician visit foreign nations and be received as a hero. If Bush had visited Germany, protesters would have burned American flags. When Obama showed up last week, they were waving American flags as a sign of friendship and solidarity.

It has been years since our fellow nations of the world have regarded America as anything other than an outlaw state determined to impose its will upon the planet. Just as in America, Europe regards Obama as marking a clean break from that shameful past and as opening a door of friendship.

McCain, to a lesser extent, also represents the end of cowboy diplomacy. I may not agree with him on many issues, but I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t regard the Constitution as an enemy in the same way Bush does.

We will be spending the next few decades, at least, trying to repair the damage that Bush has done, both on a financial and a diplomatic level. We will also have to live with the fact that we as a nation allowed such a criminal administration to get away with it.

Our only hope going forward is that the votes are accurately counted this November and that the actual winner is allowed to take office. We can then start repairing the damage to the world caused over the past eight years.

That may include investigations and criminal indictments. It is regrettable that the House Judiciary Committee last week did not vote on the articles of impeachment currently pending against Bush and Vice President Cheney.

They will not be impeached, as they should have been in 2003 or 2005. That’s unfortunate, both for our nation and for the world. What we can do is make sure we hold our leaders accountable for allowing a free and fair vote in November.

This could well be America’s last chance to get it right.