Election Officials Brace for Trouble

The November elections could turn into a huge mess with a surge of new voters and the first implementation of a 2002 law requiring statewide databases of the voter rolls, reports The Washington Post.

A recent Government Accountability Office report found that the Election Assistance Commission has not notified election officials across the country about problems with electronic voting machines. And a study by Common Cause and the Century Foundation found that voting problems in 10 key states have not totally been fixed since the last election, reports Cleveland Leader.

The states are Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

In 2006, for instance, 20,000 Colorado voters left polling places without voting because machines crashed and there were long lines. In Ohio in 2004, the wait to vote was hours. There have been improvements in these states, but the results are mixed, Common Cause reports.

With widespread problems, touchscreen voting machines are falling out of favor, and just over half of voters will use paper ballots that will be read by optical scanners, according to the Post.

After California's voting machine rhubarb, San Francisco is still waiting on word whether its updated touch-screen machines can be used in the election, reports KTVU.com.