EXCERPT

Florida's problems in the November election show that America has wandered far from the basic Democratic principal of "one person, one vote," former President Jimmy Carter said Monday.

Things are so bad, Carter said, that the United States would not even qualify to have independent monitors from the Carter Center oversee its federal elections.

Carter, who has helped monitor balloting in more than 30 other countries, is helping to oversee a new, nonpartisan national commission whose members are seeking ways to improve the accuracy and fairness of federal elections.

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