A record turnout of up to 130million voters may spell chaos for America’s voting system today.

The presidential election could descend into electoral farce as unprecedented numbers of voters turn out to cast their ballot in a system that is largely untested.

The U.S. has an electoral system that is not organised, designed or funded to cope with ‘anywhere near a 100 per cent turnout’, a director of a leading independent electoral reform group has said.

It is estimated that more Americans will vote in this election than in any other. Doug Chapin, director of The Pew Charitable Trust’s Electionline.org, said voter turnout will ‘dwarf’ all other problems in this year’s presidential election.

There were also fears that the allegations of stolen votes that marred the 2000 and 2004 would be repeated, especially if the result is closer than the polls suggest.

Widespread claims have been made in the past few days that electronic voting machines have ‘flipped’ people’s choices, so that votes cast for Barack Obama have ended up being counted as McCain votes.

Similar claims have been widely reported in the last week of early voting, in which 27million Americans made their choice.

Jim Harrington, of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said: “Voters reported, for example, that when they tried to vote a straight-party Democratic ticket, the machine flipped their choices to Republican candidates instead.”