Congress Must Act Now to Prevent ’04 Election Debacle

• By Norman Ornstein
• Roll Call Contributing Writer
• March 17, 2004, Midnight

The 2000 election debacle in Florida revealed a deep and dirty secret about American elections: All over the country — with shoddy procedures in place, too few and poorly trained poll workers, inadequate funding, flawed registration systems and no link between updated voter registration rolls and polling places, along with occasional but real corruption — thousands and thousands of real votes cast are lost, illegitimized or not counted, and thousands and thousands of legitimate voters are refused the right to vote.