Unfortunately, this goal is likely to be sabotaged by the President's new budget. It allocates a grand total of $65 million for election reform - that's scarcely over 10 percent of the $600 million that Congress authorized for fiscal year 2005. The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires states to revise many election procedures and encouraged them to modernize their voting systems. With $3.9 billion authorized to be spent in its first three years, HAVA created the promise that Election Day 2004 and beyond would provide a world-class process for the world's leading democracy. Congress even came through with the goods last year, providing $1.5 billion in FY 04 payments to the states

However, with just 9 months until the election, the president's fiscal year 2005 budget threatens to greatly diminish the promise of the legislation Due to the president's delays in making appointments, it took almost 15 months to even put in place a skeleton organization to run HAVA, called the Election Assistance Commission. Now, the President's budget adds to the misery by grossly underfunding the grants to states that are necessary to bring HAVA to reality.

What does this mean for the voters? Instead of being able to modernize their elections equipment and voter registration systems, provide voter education, and fund other election improvements, states will find themselves unable to implement their election reforms. This failure is likely to have two ill effects. First, it will result in more problems at the polls and delay the full reform of our election systems. Second, and more troubling, it will serve to undermine public confidence in the electoral process because promised fixes won't be implemented.

Since the Florida recount was decided in Bush's favor, perhaps his skimping on election reform funding is a contingency plan in case the vote this time is equally close.