The Neglected Threat

The importance of poll worker training in a period of electoral reform

Forget about negative campaign ads and voting machines that don't work. The single greatest threat to the 2006 election probably is human error on the part of the nation's more than 1.5 million poll workers, judging by recent history.

In 2000, poorly trained poll workers and bad management at polling sites accounted for the loss of at least a million votes, according to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. On Election Day 2004, more than 4,400 electronic ballots were lost in Carteret County, N.C., when poll workers failed to read a system warning indicating that a machine had reached capacity and …