In Florida, during the 2000 presidential elections one word that the citizens heard over and over for 2 weeks straight every news channel was "chads". The word "Chads" refers the little piece of paper that pops out of the when the voter casts their vote. The problems surrounding the "chads" are that sometimes they do not fully pop out and are left dangling on the ballot resulting in that persons vote not getting cast. The reason we have this problem is because of the voting machines that we use. The pull lev

In order for states to receive this money there are certain guidelines they must follow and federal requirements that they must meet. The states must meet federal voting system standards and they have until January 1, 2004m to do this. By meeting these standards they must allow voters to change or correct their ballots, notify the voter if their ballot has selected more than one candidate for one office, provide access to people with disabilities, provide a way to use alternate language and they must define what counts as a vote. The state must also meet provisional voting requirements and they have until January 1, 2004 to meet these as well. The state must implement a system where the voter can find out if their vote was or was not counted, this system must be able to be accessed by all and it must be free of charge (i.e. a toll free number). The state is also going to be required to have a single, computerized, statewide voter registration list. This list must assign each voter with a number and it is to be the only system use to keep track of registered voters. The state has until January 1, 2004 to complete this and if need be they may receive a waiver until January 1, 2006. Each state is required t enforce some form of anti-fraud and voter I.D. process by January 1, 2004. Every person registering to vote will be required to show a drivers license of provide the last four digits of their social security number. The state officials will be required to match the information with both the motor vehicle database and the one held by the social security databases. States will also be required to set up nondiscriminatory complaint procedures and the Attorney General is authorized to bring civil suit against any state that fails to meet these standards (Hovis 2002).

Many people are very much in favor of this bill and several others think that it does not go far enough; I think that it is definitely a step in the right direction. Although down the road we will more than likely run into a few bumps that we will have to correct I believe that this bill is getting us off on the right foot. A couple of things that are not included in the bill that I believe should be are the training of all poll workers and a universal, nation wide voters ballot. I think that things would run more smoothly if the people that were working at the polls were trained to look for mistakes being made by either the machines or the voters and then those mistakes could be dealt with then. I do not think that this job requires intensive training but maybe just a quick seminar over the equipment, the ballots and how to assist the voters would prove to be very helpful. I also do not see the need for all the different types of voting ballots. It seems to me that it would make more sense to have one simple, self explanatory voting ballot. Not only would things be that much simpler for the voter but one would think that this would also be much more cost efficient.

There have been several bills presented to help with these problems but not one that really solves them all. On March 19, 2001 Sen. Christopher J. Dodd presented S.565 to the senate, this bill would establish a Commission on Voting Rights and Procedures th

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2162
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)