Shattered by Florida's "chadgate" experience in the 2000 presidential election, voter confidence nationwide plummeted and pundits declared America's democracy "at a crossroads."

Five years later, roughly half the states are not in compliance with the federal law that was designed to restore faith in voting. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) has provided states with $3.1 billion in funding to replace punch-card ballots with modern electronic machines and ensure that blind and disabled voters can independently cast secret ballots using the new technology, among other mandates. HAVA's deadline passed Jan. 1.

Along with the push to test and install these machines are questions about their security, reliability, and accuracy. To address this, about 25 states including Ohio and California are requiring paper verification (so-called VVPAT for "voter verified paper trail") of results. It is a process adding time, money and, in California, widespread confusion and anxiety as 58 county registrars race to get their machines ready for the state's June primary election.

It will be California's first election that must meet HAVA mandates, replacing punch cards and providing user-friendly machines for blind and disabled voters. But testing and purchase of the machines is being delayed because of additional state requirements for printed records of each vote. As a result, many voting officials are concerned about federal lawsuits as well as disgruntled, disabled voters.

"We are in limbo, we are in uncertainty, and we are getting more frustrated by the day," says Kristin Heffron, chief deputy registrar recorder/county clerk for Los Angeles county. "We have a federal deadline that just passed, a state deadline that is coming, and we are scratching our heads over what to buy while the state tries to certify machines that meet their standards."

California secretary of State officials say they are still determining which of about seven different brands of voting machines - including touch-screen and optical scan devices - will be certified.

In turn, they are waiting for federal officials to finish their own certification of approved machines and also examining how to add paper printouts to the state's existing voting machines to meet the state's deadline this summer.

Pressured by voters, politicians, vendors, and voting officials, federal agents say they are putting the machines through rigorous tests of software and hardware.

In the 2004 presidential election, widespread voter anger flared after the votes were counted in Ohio, as new doubts surfaced about how to conduct a recount on electronic voting machines that had no way of verifying votes.

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