Reply #9: Election officials fear confusion ahead

[flashl]

With millions of new voters heading to the polls this November and many states introducing new voting technologies, U.S. election officials and voting monitors say they fear the combination is likely to create long lines, stressed-out poll workers and late tallies on Election Day.

At least 11 states will use new voting equipment as the nation shifts from touch-screen machines to the paper ballots of optical scanners, which will be used by more than 55 percent of voters. About half of all voters will use machines unlike the ones they used in the last presidential election, experts say, and more than half of the states will use new statewide databases to verify voter registration.

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Some areas, including Baltimore, ran out of paper ballots in 2006 or in primaries this year and plan to order many more this autumn. Ohio plans to add paper backups in case its electronic machines break down again, as they did in 2004, creating long lines. New Jersey, New York and California, among other states, face shortages of poll workers or the money to pay for them.

And voting rights advocates are working with officials in Florida, Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania to try to prevent the kind of ballot-design problems that added to the loss of about 12,000 votes in the presidential primary this year in Los Angeles County and about 18,000 votes in a 2006 congressional contest in Sarasota County, Florida.

As state and local election officials scramble to get enough ballots, workers and equipment to handle the predicted high turnout, many are trying to ease the strain of Election Day by encouraging voters to cast their ballots early.

IHT