Columbia Journalism Review: ELECTION 2004: A ROUSING RALLY FOR REFORM

On January 18, The New York rimes trumpeted the start of this crucial election year with a mighty editorial. Carried under the banner Making Votes Count, the editorial set the course for an old-fashioned newspaper crusade aimed at nothing less than the protection of American democracy against election fraud. In the weeks and months that followed, the crusade joined battle some twenty-two times (as of this August writing), each new engagement yielding revelatory detail on the series' abiding theme: the urgent need for reform that was made so manifest during the trauma of 2000. Intense, unrelenting, but always under the page's characteristic control, Making Votes Count defined and explored the major areas of concern: the absence of voting-machine standards, the ease of mishandling eligible-voter lists, and most worrisome of all, the lack of a paper trail.

Events of the primary season sharpened the series' sword. In Florida, confusion over voter identification ended with many, for the most part members of minority groups, disenfranchised yet again. In California, furor erupted over the malfunction of thousands of voting machines - and over charges of misconduct by their manufacturer, Diebold, whose C.E.O. had famously pledged his commitment to helping reelect Bush. Diebold's conflict of interest, of course, was hardly news to the Times·. Making Votes Count had targeted it in its opening salvo. The series has also trained its sights on other conflicts of interest that have since emerged in the news, showing little sympathy, for example, for the opposition of such groups as the National Federation of the Blind, whose arguments against a paper trail were not only easily rebutted, but also made suspect by the group's acceptance of a million dollars from the maker of the paperless machines.

But the series has not only drawn on what's been reported in the news. In june it decamped to Las Vegas and returned with a fresh supply of ammunition: a gambling-machine system that is a model of accuracy, reliability, and fairness. "A vote for president," the editorial declared, "should be at least as secure as a 25-cent bet in Las Vegas."

With November fast approaching and too many public officials dragging their feet, the Times editorialists, recognizing the limits of reality, began marshaling their forces toward the possible. It's not too late, the series argued indefatigably in july, mapping out the practical strategies that might yet insure the honest election that an American future demands. Even a cynical citizen must at least be heartened by the conviction that the Times will fight on until the last vote is counted - and, should history prove it necessary, well beyond. - Gloria Cooper