Apparently, Elizabeth Edwards has guaranteed there will be no election night riots, as long as Kerry/Edwards wins. Um, thanks for the reassurance, I guess. However, I tend to agree with the sentiments of "Republican Trooper" in the comments section of the Blogs for Bush post on the subject:

I think people will riot whether Kerry wins or loses. People like a good riot.

Exactly. Some people just want to riot about something. Right now, my hometown of Madison is gearing up for our own annual Halloween riots (this year brought to you by Sports Illustrated!). For weeks now, the papers have been filled with talk about riots. Past riots, who's to blame for rioting and what the cops will try to do to stop rioting this year. It's all "riots, riots, riots". With everyone in the mindset of rioting, all it will take for an actual riot to happen is a single spark (for example, a past riot happened because some young ladies stopped exposing themselves from windows overlooking State Street, thereby upsetting the crowds below).

I think the more people talk about rioting over the election result, the more likely it is to happen. It's almost like it's now an acceptable response to defeat. In the past, if your side lost, you gracefully accepted it and moved on. Now, you get a team of lawyers to fight it and in the meantime your supporters run amuck. It's already happening, with all the reports of vandalism, theft and even bullets fired against the political opposition. Civility is gone.

The irony is that I always associated riots with sports victories: you win the Super Bowl, you riot. Now, it's the losers who will riot. They'll cry about the other side cheating in order to justify their own violent behavior. The best thing that could happen is for this election to be a landslide. Wait, check that. The best thing that could happen is for this election to be a Bush landslide!