Get a grip on elections

What to do? To stop attacks on voting machines (and thus remove any taint from Republican victories), states need laws that ensure a clear chain of custody for all machines and ballots before an election, require thorough audits of the machines after an election and make all software open to public scrutiny. Some states, including California, have made progress in this area, but most have not.

To stop attacks on groups like ACORN (and thus remove any taint from the victories of Democrats), states must do a much better job of registering new voters. The best practice in this regard is election-day registration, which puts the business of voter registration back in the hands of election officials, where it belongs, in a setting that is the extreme of convenience for voters. Eight states allow voters to register at the polls. California and other states should adopt this reform.

Democracies can work only when the losers accept the result. In recent years, only the most extreme voices have truly doubted Bush's claim to the Oval Office, and we can only hope that if Obama wins, only the most extreme voices on the right will truly doubt his election.

But our democracy needs more than hope. Well-meaning reforms have caused much of this mudslinging, and only sober, bipartisan efforts to change those laws will relegate charges of election fraud to the back pages of the newspapers.