Everybody agrees that we need to reform our election process in the US. From hanging chads to the Electoral College, from dirty tricks to Diebold voting machines, from focusing on the horserace instead of the issues, to negative campaigning--the whole pile is full of problems. Where to begin?

We need go no further than Florida 2000. Al Gore won the popular vote. This has been verified by three independent newspaper investigations after the fact. On election night, however, a FOX News reporter connected to the Bush campaign jumped in early to "call the election" for Bush and upset the trends the other stations were tracking. The Florida secretary of state, another Bush campaigner, was quick to approve it. Lawyers were called, hanging chads were investigated, and finally a narrowly divided Supreme Court (activist judges, no doubt!) decided the election.

In Washington state in 2004 the election for governor was so close it was recounted three times. The media fell all over itself trying to call, predict, and even force a conclusion. Christine Gregoire, however, had learned the lessons of Gore in Florida. She stuck to her guns and demanded a third recount until all the votes were found and verified, and she eventually won by less than 150 votes. That governor's race offers a clue to one set of reforms that could make a big difference in the American election process. Even though the people of Washington state did not know who their new governor was going to be for two whole months, the traffic lights kept changing, firefighters still put out fires, the state patrol still handed out speeding tickets, and the state government continued to function no better or worse than it usually does. Large and small businesses ramped up for the holidays and people went right on shopping. The point is not that we did not need a governor, but that it is much more important to get the election right than to get it fast.

Speed is one of the drivers behind what's wrong with US elections. News organizations can't wait to project a winner 15 minutes after the polls close with only 0.0005 percent of the votes counted. The news media have deliberately turned the serious business of elections into a reality game show or sports contest. They try to generate excitement, and therefore ratings, by playing up how much money each candidate has raised instead of where it came from. They try to dig up, or blow up out of proportion, personal scandals which are much sexier than digging through health care proposals or economic plans.  The media have a vital role to play in our election process, but they have gotten way off track and have hijacked the process with them.

Which leads to the first set of reforms needed by our election process--reforming the media:

* No announcements of victory by the media until every vote is counted and the county clerk (for county and city elections) or the secretary of state (for statewide elections) certifies the final official election results. The media are unelected loose cannons who claim the right to say any old thing and suffer no consequences. Voting is serious business and its results should be carefully tabulated by responsible officials who get canned if they make a mistake (like the King County elections chief after the 2004 debacle).

* No more exit polling. Exit polls are very inaccurate samples and, besides, voters have a right to privacy. We do not allow campaigning within a certain distance of a polling place and we should not allow reporters to harass voters as they leave the polling place. There are plenty of professionals in the private and public sectors, including media, who will pour over election statistics for months after the dust has settled. Glib conclusions by reporters in a rush to put something on the air are inherently worthless.

These two reforms would be welcomed by a public sick of hearing pundits and commentators instead of the candidates themselves. But the media are not the only problem with our elections. Serious incidents of outright voter fraud and vote suppression were revealed in the 2000 and 2004 elections:

Registration:

* Students at Hamilton College in New York were told they could not vote because they were not "permanent residents" even though they registered in New York.

* Students at The College of William & Mary in Virginia were required to fill out a two page questionnaire on their finances before they could vote.

* Florida purged thousands of voters from the registration rolls in 2000 claiming they were felons. Even after Florida lost a court challenge to this practice, they tried it again in 2004.

* Republican party operatives in several states, including Washington state, trumped up frivolous challenges to voter registrations to remove legitimate voters from the rolls.

* Some registrations in Ohio were rejected for being on paper of the "wrong weight"!

* In Nevada and Oregon, a company hired by the Republican National Committee allegedly turned in only the Republican registrations and shredded the Democratic ones.

* A nonprofit called ACORN turned in false registration forms and held back valid ones.

* Absentee ballots in several cases were mailed out late or never arrived, disenfranchising voters who could not vote in person.

Vote Suppression:

* In Ohio, phony official-looking letters informed many likely Democratic voters that they should vote on Wednesday because of expected massive voter turnout on election day. Other voters were told to report to the wrong polling place.

* In both Florida and Ohio, the polls in poorer sections of several cities were understaffed, underequipped, and voters had to be turned away even after waiting for hours in line.

* John Pappageorge, a white Republican legislator from Michigan, publicly called for his party to suppress the vote in largely black Detroit or "the GOP will have a tough time in the election."

Vote Tampering:

* Electronic voting machines have produced erroneous results, in some cases including votes not counted or actually switching votes.

* Many electronic voting machines do not produce a paper trail which leads to discrepancies between exit polling and reported results.

* The majority of voting machines are manufactured by companies tied to the Republican party.

* The US Commission on Civil Rights found that in 2000, 54 percent of Florida ballots discarded as "spoiled" were cast by African Americans who are only 11 percent of Florida voters. This is racial profiling by the election commissions to disenfranchise black voters.

* Misleading butterfly ballots in Florida confused elderly voters into voting against their wishes.

Of the two bedrocks of a democratic society--voting and trial by jury--it would be difficult to choose which is more fundamental. Jury tampering is treated as a serious felony in all 50 states. Vote tampering should be treated at least as seriously as jury tampering, yet vote tampering is treated almost as a "boys will be boys" prank, and almost grudgingly envied by other political groups that did not think of it first. Vote tampering and vote suppression should be vigorously prosecuted as dangerous felonies and dirty tricks pranksters should serve serious jail time. Other reforms are needed as well:

* Paper trail. There is nothing wrong with voting machines per se. They increase throughput and reduce manual labor. However, they have been proven to be no more accurate than hand counting, they are not transparent, and some have been deliberately corrupted to falsify results. A paper trail with a copy for the voter would go some way toward correcting machine errors and deliberate machine manipulation.

* Voter registration. Every citizen over 18 should be registered to vote automatically.  Registration should not depend on arcane lists or obnoxious procedures belonging to political parties or government clerks. Instead, registration should belong to each voter as his or her rightful possession.

* Absentee ballots. Mail-in or absentee ballots are fine if the people handling them get them to the voters on time and count them when they are returned. Mailing absentee ballots should require no postage because voting is a fundamental right of all citizens.

* Election Day Holiday. Election Day should be a holiday so voters have all day to vote.  Besides, such an important exercise deserves a holiday even if people mail in their ballots. Certainly the establishment of the democratic right to vote is much more important than Columbus bringing smallpox to Native Americans!

Another important reform in our election process should be the elimination of the Electoral College. This institution was established because of a deep distrust of "the mob" as some of the elites who signed the Constitution considered the lowly rabble that made up the American people. Perhaps they can be excused for their feelings--Democracy was a new concept in 1787. The French Revolution two years later demonstrated what an angry mob could do. The United States had a few insurrections of its own in the early years, such as the Whiskey Rebellion and Shay's Rebellion. But those days are past.  Today the allocation of electors by state is an anachronism at best. It warps the election process into "big states" and "small states" when everybody should count equal. It gives all the electoral votes to one candidate even if the other candidate won 49.99 percent of the popular vote. In the twenty-first century we have the technology, a robust body of law, and a historical tradition that supports confidence in the popular vote. The Electoral College is no longer needed.

These reforms will go some way toward improving our elections process. They are only nuts and bolts reforms in the machinery of elections. There is still the issue of the influence of money, but that is a huge topic for another time. This year we have witnessed a tremendous surge in voter turnout. Enthusiasm is high. We see many new voters, many young voters, and many women and minority voters eager to have their voices heard and their votes counted. Citizens want to take their government back. We have the opportunity to reform the way we do elections. To borrow from Obama's words:  "Yes we can." --Janice Van Cleve, Area Coordinator for 22 precincts of the 43rd District on Seattle's Capitol Hill.