Will millions of votes be lost again?

• Position: Your Life

Four relatively simple and inexpensive steps can be taken to ensure that voting procedures in this November's presidential election are as accurate and reliable as possible, say experts in voting technology from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. "Between 4-6,000,000 voters were disenfranchised in the 2000 election" maintains Mike Alvarez, professor of political science at Caltech. "Although some progress has been made these past four years, we are still concerned that millions of votes could be lost in November--particularly if the popular vote is close."

The recommendations are included in a report prepared by the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project for the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), an independent bipartisan agency that serves as a national clearinghouse for information on the administration of Federal elections. The report includes several steps that the group believes are necessary for avoiding lost votes.

Recommendations include:

* Collect the information that would be needed to audit the 2004 election. This is essential. Currently, 11 states do not report total ballots cast, making it nearly impossible to track the performance of equipment and election procedures in these states. EAC should require a report of total ballots and votes cast for each Federal office from each election jurisdiction. These reports also should include the number of registered voters and absentee ballots cast. The secretaries of state...