Ballot battle
From Brian Todd
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The presidential election is still a few days out, and already we're seeing dozens of legal battles and other disputes over election ballot minutiae.
There are problems abound in several states.
In Florida, absentee ballots not getting to some voters, or not coming back in time. There are also concerns over electronic voting machines, which do not generate the paper records that would need to be checked in a post-election recount. These problems are again cropping up in the state's most populous counties.
"You know, the curse of the Bambino was erased last night. I think we've got the curse of Broward [County]. And hopefully we'll get over it," says elections lawyer David Cardwell.
But Florida is not alone this time.
Another example of this confusion are the ballot battles in the Buckeye State.
"In Ohio, the ground rules are set," says Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.
Blackwell just won a legal fight over so-called provisional ballots. These are ballots that enable people to vote -- even if a bureaucratic mistake has prevented their name from showing up on a registry.
The secretary of state wanted these ballots to be cast and counted only in a given voter's home precinct. Democrats felt that hurt low-income and younger voters who they say tend to move more often.
The Democratic position -- that voters with provisional ballots should be able to vote, and have their ballots counted anywhere in the their home county -- was rejected by a federal appeals court.
"The objective there is to make it as easy to vote for all legally registered voters but to also protect against widespread voter fraud," says Blackwell.
After the fiasco in 2000, Congress tried to help by passing the Help America Vote Act.
That law mandated provisional ballots and called for upgrades such as electronic voting. But many people close to the process say the law has created more problems than it solved.
The U.S. Justice Department is jumping in to try to head off some of those problems. Justice Department officials will unveil a plan Friday to send nearly 1,100 people to serve as election monitors in potential trouble spots all over the country.
