simple poll integration problem

hi all

i'm trying to add polls from my VB forums on my main website page. I know that there's a project someone is working on to make this slick and web manageable and also VBportal has something similar too. But I just need something very very simple but I cant get it to work.

here's a stripped down version of my code so far

<form action="poll.php" method="get">
<input type="hidden" name="action" value="pollvote">
<input type="hidden" name="pollid" value="1">
<b> does this poll work?</b></font></td>
<input type="radio" name="optionnumber" value="1">
<input type="radio" name="optionnumber" value="2">
<input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Vote">
<p>
<a href="poll.php?action=showresults&pollid=1">View Results</a>
</form>

right now i see two linked problems -

1) how to get get a session id for the vote? or is it even needed? i originally had a hidden variable for this but removed it because i had no idea how to set it.

2) when i click on vote i get the following here - The action you have attempted could not be performed as your session appears to be invalid. Click the below link to attempt this action again with a new session. .

any ideas?

oh! and the view results works

thanks in advance

chris