The day following Election 2004, retiring NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw indicated the need for strong national standards in how we count the votes. In an unusually serious interview with David Letterman, Brokaw said point blank, "We've gotta fix the election system in this country."

The 2004 elections underscore the urgent demand to modernize our elections and bring them in line with international norms. Without such modernization, we will remain vulnerable to electoral breakdowns.

Consider these six reforms for improving our elections:

1) Non-partisan election officials. It hardly matters whether the method of voting is with pen and paper or computerized equipment if election administrators are not trustworthy. The secretaries of state overseeing elections in three battleground states -- Ohio, Missouri, and Michigan -- were co-chairs of their state's George Bush reelection campaigns. The Missouri Secretary of State oversaw elections for his own race for governor, and New Mexico's Secretary of State was a highly partisan Democrat. Administrators instead should be nonpartisan civil servants with demonstrated proficiency in running elections and commitment to making the process transparent and secure.

2) National elections commission. The U.S. leaves election administration to officials in more than 3000 counties and 9,000 townships scattered across the nation with too few national standards or uniformity. This is a recipe for inconsistency and unfairness. Most democracies instead use national elections commissions to establish minimum standards. The Election Assistance Commission established by the Help America Vote Act should be strengthened and should partner with state and local election officials to ensure pre-election and post-election accountability.

3) Universal voter registration. We lack a system of universal voter registration in which citizens who turn 18 years of age automatically are registered to vote by election authorities. This practice is used by most established democracies, giving them voter rolls far more complete and clean than ours -- in fact, a higher percentage of Iraqi adults already are registered to vote than American adults. Universal voter registration in the U.S. is now easier as result of the Help America Vote Act, which mandated that all states must establish statewide voter databases by 2006. It would add 50 million eligible voters to the rolls and end duplicate registrations.

4) "Public interest" voting equipment. Current voting equipment is suspect, undermining confidence in our elections. Proprietary software and hardware are created by shadowy companies with partisan ties who sell equipment by courting local administrators who often possess limited knowledge of voting technology. The government should oversee the development of publicly-owned, open-source software and hardware, contracting with the sharpest minds in the private sector to ensure all public interest needs are met. That equipment should be made available throughout the nation to ensure that every county -- and every voter -- can use the best equipment. Other national governments have developed their own voting equipment with very positive results.

5) Holiday/weekend elections. We vote on a busy workday instead of a national holiday or weekend (like most other nations do), creating a barrier for 9 to 5 workers and also leading to a shortage of poll workers and polling places. Puerto Rico makes Election Day a holiday and typically has the highest voter turnout in the United States.

6) Commissions to evaluate structural reform like redistricting and the Electoral College: Redistricting and winner-take-all elections are shutting out competition in most legislative races. Nationally, the Electoral College method used for president causes campaigns to completely ignore most states, and invites partisan shenanigans in administration by allowing a shift of a handful of votes in one or two states to decide the presidency. Congress and states should establish commissions to make recommendations such as direct election of the president by majority vote.

We can't win all these reforms at once, but we can make advances if we keep our eyes on the prize and pursue opportunities that emerge. Whether you're a Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian or independent, you can be part of one big party: the "Better Democracy" party.

--Steven Hill is Irvine Senior Fellow for the New America Foundation and author of "Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All Politics" (www.FixingElections.com). Rob Richie is executive director of FairVote-The Center for Voting and Democracy (www.fairvote.org). For more info, write to FairVote, 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610, Takoma Park, MD 20912.