Parties Prepare For Voting Problems

Lines out the door. Empty boxes where ballots once sat. Election officials peering through thick glasses at possibly-punched holes. These are the familiar sights of an all too close election, and across the country, elections officials and both parties are ramping up their efforts to limit problems on November 4, or to take fast legal action.

Republicans have been most vocal about their pre-election concerns, worried that the surge of new voter registrations filed across the country could lead to a rash of voter fraud. Democrats are quietly preparing to propel their own massive turnout. And independent groups are gearing up to drop thousands of lawyers in key states on Election Day and, if necessary, beyond.

The new focus comes as elections officials in key battleground states are expecting near-record levels of turnout. "With all of this excitement that we have surrounding this historic election, we still are faced with challenges," said Susan Pollard, a spokeswoman for the Virginia State Board of Elections. Pollard said her state, a battleground for the first time in generations, is anticipating that 90% of the nearly five million registered voters there will cast ballots, about twenty points higher than the 71% who turned out in 2004.

In Colorado, another state expecting record turnout, Secretary of State Mike Coffman and county elections officials have been "very aggressive" in promoting permanent absentee ballot sign-ups, said spokesman Richard Coolidge. Coolidge expects nine in ten of the state's 3.15 million registered voters will cast ballots. Elections officials, he said, "are prepared and they're ready to go for this election."

But with such massive turnout expected, "there is certainly a recipe for serious problems," said Jonah Goldman, of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Goldman's group heads a coalition of about 150 groups that is running 866OurVote.org, a voter education and advocate organization that will assist voters in casting ballots.

Goldman cites a funding gap as the source of potentially emerging problems. "There's this incredible excited rush to register, but there doesn't seem to be an ancillary increase in resources elections officials have," Goldman said. "We're still not quite up to snuff when it comes to election administration."

Goldman says voters in traditionally troublesome states like Florida and Ohio could be in store for more difficulties, but that it's new battlegrounds, including Virginia and Colorado, where real problems may surface. "They're frankly not used to the turnout and types of pressure that comes with being a battleground," he said.

The Republican National Committee and John McCain's campaign are worried about the prospect of voter fraud in those new battlegrounds. While hundreds of thousands of new registrants are on the rolls -- 300,000 in Virginia alone, according to Pollard -- at least some shouldn't be there. Making voter lists accurate "is the purview of the state elections officials and elections administrators," said RNC communications director Danny Diaz. "It is their job to clean those and we commend their efforts."

Republicans have been most focused lately on ACORN, an independent left-leaning community group that registers thousands of voters in predominantly minority areas around the country. Recently, the group has come under scrutiny for fraudulent voter registration forms filled out in about a dozen states.

"We've been very concerned about ACORN now for multiple cycles because we've been face to face with their activities," Diaz told Real Clear Politics. Despite court cases in a handful of states over their methods, he said, "their behavior has not changed. They continue to submit thousands of fraudulent registration cards."

Recently, an ACORN employee submitted the names of the Dallas Cowboys lineup as voters who registered in Nevada. "We are trying to raise this as an issue to make sure that state elections officials are paying as close attention to these registration cards as possible," Diaz said.

The Democratic National Committee, along with Barack Obama's campaign, has been most concerned with getting their newly registered voters to the polls while avoiding what they characterize as Republican attempts to kick legitimate voters off the rolls of the eligible.

"I have to hand it to the Obama campaign about how they've approached this campaign. They really have learned from the last presidential election," said Jenny Backus, a Democratic consultant working with the DNC on potential legal troubles that will arise. "They haven't separated voter protection. They've included it from the beginning" in registration efforts.

Democrats, said Backus, are running a "preventative education strategy" in which the party makes voters aware of their rights at the polls. "We've tried to alleviate as much as possible the problems voters will face when they get to the polls," she said. "We've been trying to have an ongoing dialogue with elections officials so they're not surprised with what's going on."

Come Election Day, though, even the most prepared administrators could be stunned by the turnout, and caught flat-footed by unanticipated problems. In that case, lawyers by the thousands will descend upon trouble spots. Goldman said the 866OurVote coalition plans to put 10,000 lawyers, law students and volunteers on the ground in 45 states.

Diaz and Backus wouldn't be specific about the number of lawyers the parties have on call, but neither backed away from a pledge to be ready. "We will be ready and have our options available on Election Day," Diaz said.

"There will be millions of volunteers out on Election Day making sure people can get to the polls and cast their votes," said Backus, who said her party would be ready with an "effective but ferocious legal strategy."

With a massive turnout forecast and both parties prepared to send lawyers to all corners of the country, Election Day trouble should be minimized. But eight years after the nation was introduced to hanging chads, elections keep going awry in states from Florida to Washington. With both sides hoping for the best but preparing for the worst, "a lot of people are going to be holding their breath," Goldman said.