Voting Rights Machinery Doubted
GAO Says Justice Is Unprepared for a Flood of Complaints
By Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 15, 2004; Page A07

The Justice Department is ill prepared to handle a large influx of complaints about voting rights violations in the Nov. 2 presidential election, according to a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office.

Campaign experts predict that the department's voting rights section will be flooded with calls and complaints about poll access and other irregularities in the face of a close race between President Bush and Democrat John F. Kerry and uncertainty over the effects of changes in election law and procedures. Some fear a repeat of the 2000 deadlock over the presidential election results in Florida.

The Justice Department "lacks a clear plan" to reliably document and track allegations in a manner that could allow monitors to swiftly pick up patterns of abuse and take corrective steps, according to the GAO, Congress's nonpartisan investigative arm.