Lawsuit activists make an early start

MIAMI - Political parties and civil rights activists have brought an array of lawsuits on voting issues before today's election.

Some issues could become the focus of post-election legal battles.

PROVISIONAL BALLOTS

Under a 2002 federal law designed to make voting easier, if voters arrive at the polls and find their names are not on the voter rolls, they can still vote using a provisional ballot that would be counted once the voter has been verified as eligible.

States have interpreted the law differently, and the process of verifying eligibility could cause post-vote disputes.

Lawsuits have been filed against rules in states, including Florida, requiring people to cast provisional votes only in their designated polling places. The Florida Supreme Court ruled in favour of the state this month, saying such votes may be accepted only in the right place.

A US appeals court also ruled that provisional ballots should not be accepted outside voters' designated voting places in Ohio and Michigan.

VOTING SYSTEMS, COUNTING

A shift this year toward computer touchscreen voting machines, which will be used by nearly a third of voters, led to several suits over the lack of a paper trail to verify votes in recounts.

Only Nevada provides printouts of such votes.

In Florida, punch card voting machines have been abandoned.

Fifteen of the state's 67 counties, covering about half the state's voters, will use touchscreens, and the rest will use optical scanners.

A US federal judge ruled last week on a case calling for the state to provide a paper copy of ballots, saying state rules for manual recounts with the touchscreen machines were adequate.

But in a case still pending, the Florida Democratic Party asked the state's Supreme Court to invalidate the rules on how to do such recounts.

VOTER REGISTRATION

Both parties have made drives to recruit millions of new voters, bringing lawsuits arguing that states have thrown out registration applications on technicalities.

In Florida, a US federal judge dismissed a suit brought by unions and activists on behalf of citizens whose registrations were not accepted.

In some cases, applicants had not ticked a box marked "US citizen" but had signed a declaration of citizenship on the same form.

- REUTERS