EXCERPT

California's March primary election was "one of the worst-run in Los Angeles County history," says Conny McCormack. She should know. As the county's registrar-recorder, Ms. McCormack runs elections there.

But she is hardly alone on Election Day, and therein lies one of the biggest problems plaguing America's most basic exercise of democracy: A chronic, and worsening, shortage of the more than 1.2 million poll workers needed at precincts nationwide to help guide voters through elections.