Wave of voters, and vote watchers, building
By Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY    28 October 2004
Pushed by heavy registration of new voters in the presidential battleground states, more than 143 million Americans will be on the voting rolls by Election Day, a new report says.
 
The figure is 10 million more than were registered to vote in the last presidential election and could signal the highest voter participation in more than three decades, says the report by the non-partisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate.

That could put additional strains on the voting process, already burdened with new rules and machines, lawsuits over registrations and voting procedures, and charges of voter intimidation and fraud.

On Thursday, the Justice Department said it will send 1,090 observers and monitors to 25 states where there is a history of civil rights violations in elections. That's more than three times the number used in 2000. Many will be assigned to Florida and other closely contested states.

"I think this election shows so far that we've got issues and problems," says Edward Foley, an Ohio State University law professor. He says Congress may have to revisit the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which was designed to fix problems encountered in 2000. "We've had an unprecedented amount of pre-election litigation and may have post-election litigation."

The two major parties are deploying thousands of lawyers to the most closely contested states. Interest groups representing minorities and others are dispatching tens of thousands of observers to monitor and, in some cases, challenge polling-place conduct.

The chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission, an agency created by the 2002 law, says the proliferation of poll watchers is itself a matter of worry. "We're concerned that one of the unintended consequences can be a kind of intimidation just by sheer numbers," DeForest Soaries says. "Exit pollsters, monitors, partisans, the media — my God, it can be intimidating just having to wade through a sea of people to cast your ballot." In some states, election officials were scrambling to write rules governing monitors' behavior.

Controversy flared in Madison, Wis., on Thursday. Republicans sought to block the city clerk from staying open late to allow voters to cast absentee ballots after a late-afternoon appearance by Democratic candidate John Kerry and rock star Bruce Springsteen. At the Kerry campaign's request, the office was left open until 8 p.m., instead of closing at 4:30 as usual. State GOP Chairman Richard Graber said the decision smacked of politics, but State Elections Board chief Kevin Kennedy said it was legal.

In other developments:

• In Florida, Broward County officials sent out a second batch of absentee ballots after people who had requested them said the first ones appeared to have been lost in the mail.

• A court battle continued in Ohio over whether Republicans should be allowed to challenge the registrations of thousands of new voters. A federal judge had halted the challenges, but the state GOP appealed that ruling on Thursday.

• Bracing for a flood of voters on Tuesday, some clerks in the battleground state of New Hampshire asked for extra ballots and said they would photocopy extras if needed.

• In Colorado, Secretary of State Donetta Davidson hired a legal team to defend her against any lawsuits filed over election issues.