VOTERS DESERVE FRAUD-FREE ELECTIONS

It's obvious that political candidates count every vote as important. A few
candidates -- or their supporters -- want power so badly they're breaking
the law to get people to mark ballots in their favor. It's time voters
start taking their own votes as seriously. And it's also time this country
gets serious about rooting out the fraud that plagues some elections, and
fixing for good the voting irregularities that keep cropping up in others.

In Oklahoma, state investigators are looking into whether absentee ballot
votes were exchanged for drugs in a sheriff's election in 2000; four people
in Haskell County were charged Monday with the alleged scheme. In South
Dakota, investigators have questions that may involve fraud in nearly 400
voter registrations in 10 counties. They include possible forged signatures
and irregularities with absentee ballots.

The nation watched in 2000 as the presidential election between George W.
Bush and Al Gore dragged on due to voting problems in Florida. Bush won in
recount after recount and, ultimately, in court. But there wouldn't have
been such an outcry if the election process, involving people and
technology, had gone more smoothly.

Voter fraud and irregularities undermine the credibility and faith that
people have in a democratic government and the free election process. In a
world with dictators like Saddam Hussein who demand 100 percent of the vote
and then brag about the dubious results, the United States has stood tall
for being able to change power peacefully, with a mark on a ballot.

Mistakes invariably are made in elections, even with honest people
operating under the best of intentions. But election officials in this
country, at every level, should try to ensure that every mark on any ballot
is done by a living person who took the time to exercise the right to vote.
Today's technology ought to make elections much easier and more
problem-free than they have been lately.

In Haskell County, the incumbent sheriff lost his election by less than 200
votes. If allegations are correct, it appears that some of his votes may
have come with an illegal price tag, even though the then-sheriff hasn't
been implicated in the alleged scheme that offered a hit of methamphetamine
for a vote.

If a vote is important enough for someone to recruit drug addicts for a
signature, it ought to be important enough for each one of us to go to the
polls and have our own say. Once there, the process ought to be as
mistake-free as possible.

Americans are told that every vote matters. Such a promise shouldn't be a
hollow one.