Fourth in a series on election problems in battleground states.

In the campaign to raise awareness of the perils of computerized voting, activists often talk about how Las Vegas slot machines have far superior security measures than so-called DRE (direct recording electronic) voting machines. Nevadans apparently found this argument persuasive because that state will be the first in the nation to use computerized voting machines with a printer attached to provide voters with verifiable paper trail.

The nation will be watching how this new technology fares under the strain of a predicted surge of voters. At the same time, some other, more troubling activities have been going on in Nevada with respect to voter registration that make it another battleground state to worry about come Tuesday.

Possible Criminal Activity?

In Nevada, downright illegality has been alleged. According to press reports, a private voter registration company, funded by the Republican National Committee, doing registration targeted at Republicans actually had its employees rip up and throw in the trash forms filled out by Democrats. As a result, thousands of voters who think they are registered will show up at the polling sites on Election Day to find out they are not.

Two former workers of the company "say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats." A local television station obtained a pile of shredded registration forms all signed by Democrats and found that they had not been filed with the county as required by law.

The allegations are linked to a Phoenix political consulting firm called Sproul & Associates run by Nathan Sproul, former head of the Arizona Republican Party. Sproul & Associates has received nearly $500,000 from the Republican National Committee this election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The Democratic Party filed a lawsuit in Nevada seeking to force the board of elections to reopen voter registration, that is extend the deadline, so that people who had their applications destroyed can now register. A state judge refused that request, saying to do otherwise would be inviting "additional fraud and manipulation."

The case is still being investigated, but since it came to light there have been allegations in Nevada and several other states that people working for Sproul were specifically instructed to register only Republicans.

Registration Challenges

In another troubling episode, the former executive director of the state Republican Party attempted to disqualify 17,000 Democrats from the voter registration rolls. He claimed the registrants no longer lived at their listed addresses, although even that were true, these individuals would still be able to vote.

Elections officials denied his challenge to these registrants, but Democrats charged it was another ugly instance of voter intimidation tactics. As has been noted, challenges to registrations are a phenomenon now taking place in other states. And Nevada, like other battleground states, can expect battalions of lawyers and monitors to be ready at the polls to do more of the same.

Machines

In the 2000 election, much of Nevada used the much maligned punch card ballot machines. In 2003, the state decided to buy computerized voting machines equipped with the capacity to provide each voter with the opportunity to view (but not take) a paper print-out of his or her voting selections. This way voters can verify that their votes were recorded accurately by the computer.

The secretary of state decided to spend $9.3 million to make sure that the whole state has this type of voting technology by 2006. Much of the state will be using the new machines this year.

Nevada has been widely praised for taking this step, and the primary was seen as a big success. At the same time, the machines were not glitch-free: some elections officials argue they are prone to paper jams, and the machines are more expensive than computerized systems without the paper trail feature. Election administrators across the country will be watching to see if the machines stand up as well in their first trial with the bigger turnout and a much longer ballot in November.

Nevada should be lauded for spending the extra money and being bold in it choice of voting machines. But given the human element involved in this election, the state needs to take equally bold measures to protect voting rights that may be infringed in more mundane but nefarious ways. Because with the level of scrutiny in this election, what goes on in Vegas won't stay in Vegas.

Tova Andrea Wang is a program officer and Democracy Fellow at The Century Foundation. She is most recently the author of an issue brief entitled Playing Games with Democracy, on how the Help America Vote Act is being used to disenfranchise voters.