Major Problems At Polls Feared

In the wake of Help America Vote, Congress has appropriated more than $3 billion to states to upgrade equipment, and Vermont Secretary of State Deb Markowitz, the president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, said many states have met all of Help America Vote's requirements. Backers credit the law with making voting easier for the disabled and people for whom English is not a primary language. And they say that when machines and databases work properly, they make voting more accurate.

As Election Day nears, however, states remain embroiled in legal disputes growing out of Help America Vote's requirements for centralized voter databases and for some first-time voters to show identification at the polls. The Justice Department has sued New York state for failing to comply with Help America Vote requirements, such as upgrading machines and building a central voter database.

Democrats and Republicans remain at odds over voter registration rolls. The Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal advocacy group, recently showed that properly registered voters in Florida, New Jersey and Kentucky were being removed from voter databases through electronic purges.

"Voter suppression doesn't happen with intimidation on Election Day, but rather through silent and sometimes secret government actions in the weeks leading up to an election," said Michael Waldman, the center's executive director.

Republicans have pressed for laws requiring voters to show a state or federal identification card -- a requirement Democrats say could disenfranchise low-income and minority voters.

A handful of states have passed expansive laws requiring voters to show state or federal ID at the polls. On Thursday, a circuit court judge in Missouri struck down as unconstitutional that state's ID requirement. That ruling followed a similar decision by a court in Georgia. A court in Indiana, however, upheld the requirement.

Further clouding the election process is the fact that, in many states, the administration of elections remains in political hands -- run by secretaries of state or other officials who run for office with partisan affiliations and who often have designs on higher office.

Robert Pastor, director of a commission on election reform organized by American University and headed by former president Jimmy Carter and former secretary of state James A. Baker III, said this tradition should be abandoned.

"The Carter-Baker commission identified 87 steps that need to be undertaken," he said. "Regrettably, almost none of them are being done right now. I would start by establishing statewide, nonpartisan election administration."