Short answers to long lines: lawmakers are working now to improve voters' experiences at the polls.

• Author: Underhill, Wendy
• Position: ELECTIONS

During his November acceptance speech, President Obama thanked everyone who voted, particularly those who voted for the very first time or waited in line for a very long time.

"By the way," he added, "we have to fix that."

All of a sudden the country was a-twitter with what "fix that" might mean. Never mind that long lines were a local phenomenon, affecting just a handful of jurisdictions in a few states, and that overall, November's voting went fairly smoothly.

Still, policymakers are reacting. Shortly after the election, Democrats introduced election reform bills in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate. Both would give the federal government a larger role in establishing election procedures a job that the U.S. Constitution expressly assigns to state legislatures (see Article 1, Section 4).

Those bills are unlikely to gain traction. The real "deciders" of election laws--state legislators--often see the year after a presidential election as exactly the right time to make adjustments. Some may see reducing waiting times for voters as a worthy goal in 2013, along with ensuring that elections run smoothly from start to finish, from registering to vote-counting.

So what might help? Money. It can't buy you love, but it can buy shorter voting lines. State law can require more polling places and voting equipment. Yet, in most states, local jurisdictions pay for elections, and they already are squeezing their nickels. The cost of new equipment $3,000 to $6,000 per machine is a big expense in small towns.

Adding poll workers can also speed things along. Even though these quasi-volunteers are paid something like minimum wage, the price of poll workers overall is the second-highest expense for most jurisdictions. Since money continues to be tight at both the state and local levels, legislators are looking for ideas that don't necessarily fit the "more money = shorter lines" equation. Election experts suggest that...