George,

Muriel Wiggins is right on the money. As the Walker Democratic Chair, I was standing by our table nearly every hour the polls were open. A number of would-be voters told me while passing the table that they had been sent home to get their drivers license or other form of identification. I told them to turn around, walk right back in, and ask for an affidavit of identity which under Virginia law is a perfectly acceptable substitute for an ID. Naturally, I don't know how many voters did not stop by the table to chat but instead went to the trouble to go home for their papers .... or, more ominiously, did not bother to come back at all.

After a few episodes of this sort, one of our workers, a former Assistant Attorney-General of Virginia, volunteered to go inside and explain the law and its alternatives to the poll workers. This gentleman is very knowledgeable and persuasive; however, the continuing steady stream of ID-challenged voters throughout the day seems to indicate that his efforts were only marginally successful. Thus, problems at the polls are hardly restricted to Florida.

At the same time, I hasten to add that I don't believe the refusal of the poll officials to offer affidavit of identity forms to ID-less voters was any sort of conspiracy or an attempt to keep voters of a certain persuasion from voting. I have worked the polls side by side with these poll officials for some years and am convinced of their good faith and desire to do the right thing. They are good people who work very hard at their task. The problem is that elections are so infrequent and the changes in the process so common that it simply is difficult to get it right in every respect. Imagine a baseball player who only managed to step up to the plate once a year or so. I don't think his batting average would sparkle either.

Since we're basically stuck with the present frequency of elections, I think that better and more intensive training of election workers is the only answer. Newer and nationally uniform voting machines would help a lot, too. But for the present Muriel Wiggins got it right. The election laws were imperfectly administered in Charlottesville's Walker Precinct as well as in points further south.

Dave Nelson (electronic mail, November 27, 2000).