Virginia, for example, has set standards for reviewing punch card ballots that are not accepted by a counting machine because chads are dangling. South Dakota has enacted a law to implement a statewide voter database that will allow more efficient administration on Election Day. Researchers have reached conflicting conclusions on what technology is best. Examinations of ballots in Florida show that some people failed to register their choices, whether from ignorance or hostility to the candidates or the system. Elections officials are reluctant to formalize means to call voters' errors to their attention at the polling place, for fear of violating the privacy of the ballot.
Newspapers conducting recounts of the Florida vote seem to have only added to the confusion.
Moreover, ideas that once seemed panaceas Internet voting, scrapping the Electoral College, even uniform poll-closing hours nationwide have been discredited. And those with a stake in the process political parties and officials from federal, state and county governments are lapsing into predictable squabbles over advantage and turf. Personally, I don't think they get away with that. The lawsuits say no, it's the same type of machinery or access to low error rates. Setting national or state standards for ballots and recounts might have seemed a logical response to the mess in Florida.