The Pew Charitable Trusts

Allegations that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) offered to sell President-elect Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat have fueled calls for state lawmakers to strip the governor of his appointment power and hold a special election instead. But the scandal in Illinois is far from the first time that the process of replacing a U.S. senator has generated political intrigue.

College students who registered to vote in the state where they attend school have faced sometimes daunting regulations that vary from state to state. And they may confront one more hurdle - showing acceptable identification at the polls.

In two weeks, the American voting system will be stressed as never before with record voter registration and expected large turnouts. But the greatest pressure will fall on 11 battleground states whose stars are aligned for an election debacle: tight races coupled with radical changes in their voting systems.

Sept. 3, 2008, 4:15 p.m. EDTMINNEAPOLIS - Which states will see problems at the polls in November? Some advocates expect voting glitches in a few key swing states where tight contests are expected between presidential candidates Barack Obama (D) and John McCain (R).  The battleground states of New Mexico, Colorado, Wisconsin, Ohio and south Florida all have a history of problems administering elections and are the states to watch in 2008, said Mike Slater, executive director of Project Vote, a Washington, D.C.,-based group that aims to get more low-income and minority Americans to vote. "All of this counts when the votes are very close," Slater said.  As Stateline.org reported in a story earlier this summer, this year's presidential primaries showed that the problems that made headlines in the past - with voter registration rolls, identification requirements and voting machines - have been upstaged by a new difficulty. The huge turnout during the primaries overwhelmed some states and counties. "I think Pennsylvania is the real sleeper," said Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, which advocates for voter-verified paper ballots for all U.S. elections. She said that while Florida last year added paper trails to electronic voting machines and Ohio is addressing security issues, only about a dozen counties in Pennsylvania have systems that allow votes to be verified. Slater and Smith made their comments during a Sept. 1 panel session here convened by electionline.org, a project of the Pew Center on the States that tracks election reform efforts. Both electionline.org and Stateline.org are funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts. - Pamela M. PrahComments

Aug. 28, 3:00 p.m. EDT DENVER - Republican presidential candidate John McCain's idea to renegotiate a Western water supply deal has stirred quite a bit of controversy here, but no one has quite described the issue as Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D).   "That's the dangest thing I've ever heard," Schweitzer said during a roundtable with reporters at the Democratic National Convention. "In the West, whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting and some son of a seahorse snapdragon downstream says they are going to steal your water, it's time to reach for your rifle."   McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, recently told The Pueblo Chieftain that the 1922 Colorado Water compact among seven Western states doesn't take into account increases in population and changing water needs and should be renegotiated."So when you got a guy from Arizona saying what we need to do is just move Colorado's water down, I don't think that's a formula for winning Colorado and Wyoming. I don't think it's going to make him any friends in Utah. I'm sure they're not going to like that message in Nevada or New Mexico," Schweitzer said.   "I'm going to bet you Barack Obama is not going to steal Colorado's water and send it downstream," he said.AFTER THE JUMP: Audio of Schweitzer from the roundtable   --Pamela M. Prah Comments