Nearly eight years ago, the country had an election meltdown, ending with misguided Supreme Court intervention in a presidential election. There's been some progress in fixing the "system", but Election Day still is a time for election officials to pray that there won't be a close election exposing the fatal flaws in their state's system.

One reason we still cannot trust our voting system is the resistance to change by many state and local officials. For instance, their opposition recently helped derail an effort in Congress to fix the voting machine problem. There are heroes, of course, among them these Profiles in Courage (see 2008 awards). But, as the NY Times pointed out today, but not enough of them. The Times editorial notes some federal reform leglislation that is languishing in Congress:

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Yesterday, in the late afternoon sun on the east front of the Capitol, senators and representatives from both parties got together in a rare show of bipartisan support.  Their goal: to ensure the expiring parts of the Voting Rights Act stay on the books for another 25 years.

All the signs of broad support were there. There were the leaders of both houses -- Sens. Harry Reid, D-NV and Bill Frist, R-TN, along with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-IL, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-CA.  

There were the chairmen and ranking members of the House Judiciary Committee (Reps. James Sensenbrenner, R-WI, and John Conyers, D-MI) and the Senate Judiciary Committee (Sens. Arlen Specter, R-PA, and Patrick Leahy, D-VT).  

And the bill they had come to praise, HR 9, had the low number congressional leaders assign to priority bills they hope wind up in the photo op that a Rose Garden signing ceremony provides.