ICYMI, there were some major voting machine malfunctions during the 2000 presidential election. It was so bad that the U.S. endured five stressful weeks where we couldn't figure out who the hell our new president was. And now, a new study released by the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law suggests that we could very well be headed for a similar disaster in the 2016 presidential election.

The drama in 2000 was the result of a bunch of ancient, malfunctioning voting machines in Florida that didn't fully punch holes through election ballots, resulting in "hanging chads," or half-punched holes, which made it incredibly difficult to figure out which candidate each voter had chosen.

Following a number of grueling manual recounts of ballots in Florida, the outcome of that election was ultimately resolved in the controversial Supreme Court Case Bush v. Gore. Bush won, but lots of people expressed concerns over the fairness of the ruling since the court ruled before all of the questionable ballots had finished being recounted.

But...how does it phone?

While Congress dumped some money into new voting machines in 2000 as a result of that disaster, very little has been done in the way of upgrades since then, and that technology is now dangerously outdated. Just imagine if we all still had to use phones and computers from 2000.

"Technology has changed dramatically in the last decade," the NYU report states, "but America's voting machines are rapidly aging out. In 2016, for example, 43 states will use electronic voting machines that are at least 10 years old, perilously close to the end of most systems' expected lifespan."

Protesters react to the Supreme Court decision in 2000

Al Jazeera notes that, "From counties still using analog modems, dot-matrix printers and software that works only with Windows 2000 to touchscreen machines with surfaces so degraded that votes can be recorded for the wrong candidates, the the 68-page report raises alarms about the condition of election equipment and the potential for Election Day 2000-style failures."

The report lays it all out in alarming detail, but this shouldn't really come as a surprise. In 2012, a shortage of working voting machines led to crazy-long lines that caused hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country to give up on voting altogether, and Al Jazeera reports that even following that disaster, "very little public money has become available for updates...largely thanks to the Great Recession."

Because counties are responsible for paying for their own voting machines, wealthy counties with lots of people in them usually have more to spend on updating their technology than poorer, more rural counties do -- which leaves the poorer ones searching ebay for ways to keep their elections going through garbage technology like laptops old enough to run Windows 2000. And dot matrix printers.

Can you even still buy paper for these anymore?

Part of the problem is that the vendors making and selling voting machine technology charge a ton of money for replacements, repairs, and upgrades. The report notes that a few counties are attempting to develop their own software so they don't have to rely on expensive vendors. But in the meantime, we should all be very, very concerned about this.

“You shouldn't wait for the wheels to fall off the fire truck before you replace them,” Virginia Elections Commissioner Edgardo Cortes told Al Jazeera.

Truth. Democracy is the best thing about America, and democracies don't work unless every single person can be confident that their vote really counts. It's long past time we treated ours to an upgrade.