"If you think of election problems as akin to forest fires, the woods are no drier than they were in 2000, but many more people have matches," says Doug Chapin, editor of the nonpartisan Electionline.org.

The real battle that could decide this election may be fought by the squadrons of lawyers both sides have hired to prepare Florida-style challenges to the results in any close state. Once again, America's sloppy, fraud-prone voting system could turn Election Day into an Election Month of court challenges.

Election lawsuits are already piling up. A new federal mandate requires that all voters be allowed to cast a provisional ballot if their names don't appear on registration lists. Liberal groups are suing to have such ballots counted even if they are cast in precincts where the voter doesn't live. If the number of provisional ballots exceeds the margin of victory in the Senate race, you can bet lawyers will argue that "every vote must count," regardless of eligibility. Candidates may have to hope their vote totals are beyond the "margin of litigation."

The issue of photo ID has become symbolic of the clash of values on election standards. Supporters say it is bizarre that most states don't require a photo ID to vote, at a time when one is needed to buy an airline ticket, rent a video or cash a check. A Rasmussen Research poll found 82% of Americans believed voters should show photo ID, including 70% of Obama voters. But liberal groups insist that even laws that allow voters to use a paycheck or utility bill as ID discriminate against minority voters and could lead to "profiling."

But when voters are disfranchised by the counting of improperly cast ballots or outright fraud, their civil rights are violated just as surely as if they were prevented from voting. The integrity of the ballot box is just as important to the credibility of elections as access to it.

Political bosses such as Richard Daley or George Wallace may have died, but they have successors. Party machines in Hawaii and south Texas intimidate critics and journalists as they harvest votes from illegal aliens and the dead. A left-wing "community organizing" group called ACORN has seen its employees frequently convicted of voter registration fraud. This year its employees are under active investigation in several states. Perhaps one reason for ACORN's go-for-broke behavior is that Barack Obama used to be a lawyer and top trainer for the group. In August, the Obama campaign was caught misidentifying an $800,000 payment it had made to an ACORN subsidiary for "election services."

Even after Florida 2000, the media tend to downplay or ignore stories of election incompetence, manipulation or theft. Allowing such abuses to vanish into an informational black hole in effect legitimizes them. Should "anything goes" continue to accepted as an election standard, voters may wake up to a crisis even bigger than the 2000 Florida folly. Perhaps then it will demand to know why more wasn't done to fix the system before it failed again. That's why officials need to enforce whatever safeguards we have this year - and then lobby hard for better voter education and protections against fraud in the future.