Experts Offer States Plan for Improving State Election Procedures; Report of The Century Foundation's Working Group on State Implementation of Election Reform is Released at Annual Meeting of State Secretaries.

(From AScribe)

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- In response to the voting problems that remained apparent in the 2004 presidential election - and with the deadline fast approaching for states to comply with more federal mandates - a nonpartisan group of prominent election law scholars and voting reform experts has produced a groundbreaking set of policy recommendations to help state legislators and election officials improve their voting procedures in time for the 2006 and 2008 federal elections.

"Balancing Access and Integrity: The Report of The Century Foundation Working Group on State Implementation of Election Reform" was released today at the annual meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State. Tova Andrea Wang, executive director of the working group, presented details of the report to attendees, many of whom oversee the election process in their states.

The members of the working group are: Tova Andrea Wang, senior program officer and democracy fellow, The Century Foundation (executive director); Norm Ornstein, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute; Daniel Tokaji, assistant professor, Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University; Guy-Uriel E. Charles, associate professor of law, University of Minnesota Law School; Edward B. Foley, professor of law, Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University; Samuel Issacharoff, professor, New York University School of Law; Martha Kropf, assistant professor of political science, University of Missouri, Kansas City; and Roy Schotland, professor of law, Georgetown University Law Center.

"This group of some of the most esteemed elections scholars in the country has come up with innovative ways for states to make the voting system fair and accurate, and one the American people can have confidence in," said Tova Wang. "Given the sometimes unclear or contentious legal mandates the federal government has established to date, we provide a plan for how states can implement the laws in ways that expand access to the polls and ensure voting integrity."

The 2004 election was the first big test of the Help America Vote Act of …