While it remains my dream that problems with voter registration, pollworker training, and statewide voter databases be eliminated in every state, I must admit that I’d most prefer that they first be dealt with in swing states. I know, I know swing states get all the attention. The red state voter in Kansas and the blue state voter in California are no less important than the swing state voter in Ohio. And electoral reform should be done for its own sake, not just when it’s convenient for our candidate, right? Right.

Yet, the worst outcome of a troubled electoral process would be if the will of the people was subverted and the aforementioned problems thwarted voter intent. Which is why we ought to pay special attention to problems in the states where the vote will be close.

Which is why I was happy to hear Tova Wang from Common Cause on NPR’s Fresh Air last week. Common Cause recently released a report that examined election preparedness in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The survey looks at the state of pollworker training and recruitment, voter registration, statewide databases, voter identification, challenge laws, deceptive practices, provisional ballots, allocation of voting machines, and student voting rights in each of these states.

Not surprisingly, no state gets a perfect score, but two results stand out. Ohio has made improvements in a number of areas (machine allocation, pollworker training standards, voter education, automatic updating of voter registration information, and voter challenges), thanks to the Secretary of State Jennifer Bruner.

Florida, unfortunately, remains highly troubled, particularly in the area of the statewide voter database:

Uniquely, Florida will continue to require that prospective voters prove eligibility by providing the exact information that appears on existing state databases. This policy often results in rejections of valid registered voters if the voter provides a variant of his or her name instead of a full name, a clerical error is made on the election administration side, or a voter makes another minor mistake- Common Cause.

Every state needs to clean up its act, but since there are many states that remain in the swing column year after year, these are the ones that merit special attention and public pressure in the coming years. And let’s hope that Common Cause’s next report shows swing states as a model of electoral reform for the rest of us.

takepart with Common Cause