state + local

exacerbated by one-quarter of those voting registering to do so at the polls,

It will be interesting to see how many of those same day registrants will return the post cards and how many of them will never be heard from again.

PERHAPS things would speed up a bit if those that showed up would identify themselves.

arspartz: "It will be interesting to see how many of those same day registrants will return the post cards and how many of them will never be heard from again." Everyone who registers (in advance or at the polls) will receive a postcard. If you receive the postcard, it means you're registered to vote... you DON'T return it. Postcards are only returned if the voter does not live at the address.

dflleft: Same day registrants are required to identify themselves!!

It looks like the election officials have an opportunity, not a problem. Let's go to online voting! The entire infrastructure is currently in place. Either the voter owns their own voting machine, a computer, IPod, or cell phone or the voter can go to the local library, school, or work place to vote. Heck, you could vote at Starbucks or Caribou, just don’t vote while driving. We need to set up online registration to go along with the online voting. We could also allow a 30 day window to vote, and results will be instantaneous. It would eliminate absentee ballots, overseas ballots, and the worry about lost or late military votes since you could vote from anywhere in the world, even the battlefield. It would be easy for college students, those in nursing homes, and even the homeless to vote. Online registration and voting would allow the computer to check citizenship, felon status, driver's licenses, current address, etc. to alleviate the fears of the Republicans. Once the system goes national, it would prevent duplicate voting, once you voted you're done and locked out. Somebody will object because they believe the system won't be secure. However, there are so many transactions we do by computer today expecting that the transaction is secure such as banking, stock purchases, etc. that voting wouldn't be much different. You also have to remember that Mitten's son has purchased the company that makes the voting machines used today and I would be more afraid of hanky-panky with my vote if the Republicans provided the voting machines than I would be with online voting.

Combining voter ID with automatic registration when ID is issued would eliminate the problems identified in this article.

Early voting is for slothful and ignorant communities. This is perhaps the most imporant civil act many peole will undertake. If you can't manage to make it the day you are required to, either vote absentee, or re-evaluate your life. I don't have any simpathy and tolerance for those who say, "we need early voting". You need nothing more than a little training in planning, prioritizing, or getting up off the couch to vote absentee.

Voter ID would have solved nothing and in fact would have made this a lot worse. I think some of the changes work, but I think they are doing a disservice by not focusing on the size, number of polls, and staffing at them. More polling locations with plenty of on the ball staff would help a great deal. One of the biggest delays we see every year where I vote are caused directly by the very slow staff themselves. You watch this well ahead of the line in front of you--and you experience it yourself. You mention your name and they take a long time to look it up. You spell it for them and they still search under the wrong letter. I know some who claim this is due to the average age of election folks being many decades past retirement age--while looking younger may help, I dispute that. Find some competent election staff who can function with reasonable speed and things would move along MUCH faster.

Eleanore - So you are in favor of making people spend a couple hours in line to vote? A significant number of people only are able to vote during "rush hours" of before or after work... because they work. There are also those with physical disabilities that can't physically stand in the long lines. The early voting would allow them to vote when there isn't a line. Or is this just you desire to discourage voters so turnouts won't be so high. You are right on one point, it is an important civil act. It is one so important that it needs to be made easy and quick to perform, not difficult and time consuming.

Without voter I.d. how on earth do they know how many times someone has voted? Honest folks cannot imagine this being an issue, but it is. How many times could Tim Anderson vote in MN.? Our right to vote is too important to be left to chance.