After 2000 Florida fiasco, global experts find U.S. elections wanting.

Byline: Teri Sforza

MIAMI _ The very regal Dr. Brigalia Bam has carried a picture from the most magnificent day of her life halfway around the world.

It shows a surging, undulating, twisting line of people so huge that its serpentine folds can't be fully captured; bodies seem to spill off all four sides of the frame.

That was April 1994. A resurrection, some called it. When black South Africans, like herself, were allowed to vote for the very first time. No one cared about the lines; they waited patiently, joyously, breaking into song and dance, reveling in a fevered euphoria.

``The first time for 40 million people. Can you imagine?" she said with quiet passion. ``It was really a celebration. A liberation. An affirmation of our dignity, of change, of the end of repression. It was the greatest experience of my life."

Bam, now the highly respected chairwoman of South Africa's Independent Electoral Commission, quickly tucked the photo into her bag and scurried into a meeting with Broward County's elections supervisor.

Bam's expertise in helping to orchestrate free and fair elections is being brought to bear on a most unlikely target: the United States of America.