LOS ANGELES — Counting down to an election day expected to draw a record-shattering turnout, voting-rights watchdogs are sounding the alarm that a repeat of the Florida fiasco of 2000 could occur in any of a dozen battleground states.
Lawsuits are already flying in many of these states.
Voting rights advocates in Colorado, to take just one example, told a federal judge Wednesday that the names of nearly 30,000 voters were recently purged from the state registry in violation of federal law and ought to be restored by election day. In a compromise, those voters will be allowed to cast provisional ballots.
Across the battleground states, where Democrats had a 2-1 advantage in new registrations, voting-rights groups contend the eleventh-hour verifications demanded by Republican officials are attempts to disenfranchise the new voters.
The flood of millions of first-time voters could lead to crowded and contentious polling places across the country, triggering last-minute identity checks that could deny ballots to those whose names or addresses don't match other government records.
"This one is the meltdown scenario," said Judith Browne-Dianis, co-director of the Ad vancement Project founded by civil rights lawyers to pursue racial justice.
Common Cause, the American Bar Assn., the League of Women Voters and a phalanx of other public interest groups are urging states to ensure that the polls are adequately staffed to handle an onslaught bolstered by millions of newly registered voters.
Voting advocates are worried about its effect in states like Virginia, which has one of the lowest ratios of voting machines to registered voters.
"Voters will simply walk away if the lines are too long," warned Susannah Goodman, who directs the election reform program at Common Cause, a campaign reform group based in Washington. "They don't want to, but they may have a job they have to get to, and they have to go."
Congress enacted the Help America Vote Act in 2002 in response to the Florida debacle two years earlier. The law provided $3 billion for new equipment and statewide registries, but the sheer volume of new voters has overwhelmed efforts to verify their eligibility.
Litigation brought in recent weeks in Ohio, Georgia, Florida and Colorado may serve to alert voters that they may be challenged. But in many states, the verification methods have created more obstacles than they have removed.
