By Christian Davenport and Anita Kumar
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, October 29, 2008; B01
One week before the Nov. 4 election, a courtroom showdown is looming in Virginia over whether the battleground state is prepared to handle what is expected to be a historic voter turnout.
Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) and his top elections officials yesterday launched an impassioned defense of the state's ability to handle the crowds, disputing claims in a lawsuit filed late Monday on behalf of the NAACP that the state has not allocated enough voting machines, poll workers and polling places, particularly in precincts with large minority populations.
Maryland and District officials are also expecting record turnout, which already has spawned long lines for in-person absentee voting, and say they are taking steps to ensure that Election Day goes as smoothly as possible. Still, they concede that long lines could delay results and cause some voters to give up before casting a ballot.
Never have so many people in the region registered to vote, and with the intense interest in the presidential election, officials expect turnout rates as high as 90 percent. Virginia has added 500,000 registered voters to its rolls since the 2004 presidential election and now has more than 5 million. Maryland's list has grown 10 percent, to almost 3.5 million, and the District has almost 427,000.
"The numbers are going to be staggering," said Guy Mickley, president of the Maryland Association of Elections Officials.
The lawsuit was filed in Richmond and Norfolk by the Advancement Project, a D.C.-based voter protection group, on the NAACP's behalf. Judith Browne-Dianis, the project's co-director, said a hearing could be held in U.S. District Court in Richmond as soon as tomorrow.
Among other things, the group has asked the state to move voting machines to precincts most likely to have long lines, keep polls open for two extra hours and use paper ballots in some cases. The group issued a report this month asserting that, in a large turnout, there simply would not be enough time for everyone to vote. That could force polls to stay open late into the night so that those who arrived by the 7 p.m. closing time could cast their ballots.
"That kind of surge in registration and turnout is just way too much for the system," Browne-Dianis said. "That kind of wait leads to lost votes. Not everyone is privileged to stand in line for long hours."
On his monthly call-in show on WTOP radio, Kaine said the state was "extremely well prepared" and that "if a court wants to take a look at what we're doing, we welcome them."
Virginia officials have added 4,600 voting machines since 2004, an increase of 77 percent. Elections officials also have embarked on a widespread effort to recruit 10,000 additional poll workers for Election Day, increasing the total to 30,000, Kaine said. The state has added more precincts.
"We have dramatically increased the resources that are available in each precinct to help voters vote," he said.
Not all voting rights advocates agree with the NAACP's lawsuit. "I'm not trying to defend the State Board of Elections, but you can't do this a week before the election and expect it to make things better," said Jeremy Epstein, co-founder of the Verifiable Voting Coalition of Virginia.
In Maryland, Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) sought to assure voters yesterday. "We are working hard to ensure that we're able to accommodate the crowds next Tuesday," he said in a statement.
The state will have spare voting machines loaded onto vans ready to be deployed to the busiest districts. Some jurisdictions will use high school students as greeters to keep lines moving.
Voters can help by becoming familiar with the ballot beforehand and casting their votes during off-peak hours, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., officials said. Those who qualify have been urged to vote absentee. And many have. People have been streaming into polling places, creating long lines that officials said were a glimpse of what's to come Tuesday.
"We've never seen crowds like this for in-person absentee voting," said Gary Scott, Fairfax County's deputy registrar. The silver lining, he said, is that "every person who votes absentee is one less person on Election Day."
Elections offices in the District also have been swamped. The District expects to have 2,500 poll workers, up from about 1,500 in 2000, according to Dan Murphy, spokesman for the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics. The District will have about 20 "area representatives" driving across the city with extra ballots and emergency supplies.
About 1,000 voters a day were showing up to cast absentee ballots in Arlington County, said Linda Lindberg, the general registrar. The county has surpassed the 12,000 absentee ballots cast in 2004, she said, and the number continues to climb.
Epstein said jurisdictions such as Fairfax, Arlington and Loudoun counties should be well positioned to handle the Election Day crush because they use paper ballots as well as electronic voting machines if there are long waits.
The worst problems, he said, could occur in Prince William County, which only uses electronic voting machines and has one machine for every 600 registered voters. There are about 218,000 registered voters in the county. Three spare machines are available in case of breakdowns.
"There's a potential disaster there," he said.
Betty Weimer, the county's general registrar, rejects that dire prediction, saying three spares should suffice because "typically, we do not have any problems with our voting equipment."
She added that the county was well ahead of the state mandate of one machine for every 750 voters. Plus, voters have only three choices to make on the ballot in Prince William: the presidential race and two congressional races. There are no time-consuming ballot questions.
"It should move very quickly," she said. "I think we'll be fine."
Voter turnout in Maryland could be stimulated by a referendum on slot machine gambling, which has galvanized voters on both sides. Maryland residents will also consider a ballot question on early voting, and some localities have additional questions that might require extra time to read and digest. In Prince George's County, for example, there are seven additional questions asking voters to approve bonds for projects including libraries, county buildings and public safety facilities.
Poll workers will distribute "specimen ballots" to voters "so that while they're waiting they can become familiar with the questions," said Daneen Banks, deputy administrator of the Prince George's Board of Elections.
The county has added 400 voting machines since the 2004 presidential election, for a total of 2,700. Maryland law requires one machine for every 200 voters, which is starkly different from the 1-to-750 ratio required in Virginia. But because Virginia holds elections more frequently, officials said, the ballots are usually shorter and require less time to cast.
An investigation into how the 2006 general election was handled in Prince George's found that two-thirds of the county's precincts did not have enough voting machines. A polling place at the University of Maryland, where some voters waited for hours, was supposed to have 12 machines but received four.
The county has a new elections administrator, Alisha L. Alexander, who has vowed that such a gaffe would not be repeated. Still, given the lengthy ballot, "we expect that lines can be as long as maybe an hour and a half," Banks said.
But long lines aren't necessarily a bad thing, said Montgomery County elections spokeswoman Marjorie Roher.
"That means there's a lot of interest in the election, and that's a good thing," she said.
Advice from the Prince William registrar: Wear comfortable shoes, be patient and pretend you're "waiting in line for the new Wii" video game system.
Staff writers Tim Craig, Kristen Mack and Lisa Rein contributed to this report; staff writer Anita Kumar reported from Richmond.
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