by William E. Gibson

Ever since the tumultuous 2000 presidential election, Democrats in Florida and elsewhere have clamored for election reforms that create a way to verify ballots in case they need to be recounted.

The cause suffered a setback this week when Democratic leaders yanked a paper-trail bill from the U.S. House agenda, apparently because they could not round up enough votes to pass it. Maybe next week, they said.

The bill would require each polling place to register votes on paper to verify balloting. Governor Charlie Crist already has signed a similar law in Florida, but he and other state leaders hope Congress will create the same requirement on the national level because the bill would provide federal money to help pay for it.

Election reform is always popular right after a disputed election, but enthusiasm wanes between elections. The winners, who got elected through the current system, are not as quick to change it. And their attention quickly turns to other pressing matters, such as war and bloated budgets.

While sponsors gathered support for their bill, state and local elections officials from around the country voiced their strong opposition. Horrified by the potential costs and bother of creating a new system in every polling place even with federal help, the elections officials warned they could not meet the bill’s requirements any time soon.

As a result, a bill that attracted widespread support is fading. Sponsors, however, remain determined to keep trying, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made the bill one of her priorities.

Concerns about the current system were renewed after the 2004 elections, when Democratic candidate Christine Jennings was declared the loser by a margin of just 369 votes in a hot congressional race to replace Katherine Harris in the Sarasota area. It would not be an election without a dispute in Florida.

More than 18,000 ballots did not register a vote for either Jennings or her Republican opponent, Vern Buchanan. The unusually large number of partially blank ballots were cast in the city of Sarasota, the Democratic stronghold of that district.

The results revived Democratic suspicions from the 2000 presidential election, in which George W. Bush won Florida’s crucial electoral votes by an official count of 537 votes.

In both cases, elections officials found they could not verify voter intent on many ballots. The results remain a mystery, at least in the eyes of Democrats.

While Crist, a Republican, gained popularity in Florida by embracing what amounted to a Democratic cause, Republicans in Congress are not so quick to accept a paper-trail requirement. Opposition from elections officials provides a good excuse to oppose the bill.

But don’t expect this issue to disappear. The bill ain’t dead yet. And even if Congress does not act this session, the next disputed election will revive it once again.