And then there is the specter of hanging chads if the race in Ohio is close enough to trigger a recount. Sixty-eight counties in Ohio (out of 88) will vote using punch card ballots. (In fact, it was little noted at the time, but Cleveland also had its very own butterfly ballot in 2000, and it was as poorly designed as Theresa LePore's in Palm Beach County, Fla.). Again using the 2000 election as a guidepost, Robbins says punch card ballots have nearly a 4 percent error rate. With some 300,000 voters in Cleveland, that's nearly 8,000 lost votes, factoring in the turnout rate. He is critical of Blackwell for doing very little to educate voters about how to use punch card machines, and points to Los Angeles as having undertaken a model educational campaign that greatly reduced the error rate.

"In 2002, the Federal Election Commission said that these error rates were unacceptable," says Robbins. Blackwell "knew the majority of counties would be using punch cards, and he'd done nothing to improve that situation until a week ago. What they're doing now is good, but it's very late in the day and he had to be badgered into it."

Blackwell has defended himself and his office by saying that these criticisms did not surface until recently. But Robbins says the voter coalition he's been working with sent letters to Blackwell on July 29 and again on Sept. 2, pointing out the problems and making suggestions.

Finally, of course, there is the specter of voter intimidation, something that -- until Florida 2000 -- some people didn't believe ever happened in the United States, even though it occurred not only during the civil rights movement but has been going on covertly since Reconstruction after the Civil War.

"As someone who's worked in Democratic politics in Ohio, I've seen these tactics done for years," says Mike Casey, who runs Tigercomm, a media consulting firm in Cleveland, and is working with a newly established group called Citizens Against Un-American Voter Intimidation. "Every election cycle, you hear after the fact about the white sheriffs who sat there for five hour with guns holstered who are there to intimidate. They're there to shave 1 percent off. With all this voter registration activity going on, some people don't want those people to vote."

But the Ohio Democratic Party, which has been keeping the heat on Blackwell, doesn't think voter intimidation is going to be much of a problem this year. "There have been claims of that in Cincinnati and other places," says Dan Trevas, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. "But this is going to be such a heavily attended and watched election, the ability to intimidate voters is going to be very difficult, especially in places that really matter, like large cities."

Given a recent alarming report by the NAACP and People for the American Way, the Ohio Democratic Party's cavalier attitude may be misplaced. Citing intimidation tactics outlined in the report, such as sending security teams to minority polling places, wrongly demanding I.D.'s and taking photos of voters, the New York Times concluded, "The suppression of minority votes is alive and well in 2004, driven by the sharp partisan divide across the nation. Because many minority groups vote heavily Democratic, some Republicans view keeping them from registering and voting as a tactic for victory -- one that has a long history in American politics."

"Basic democratic rights are being tampered with by political thugs," says Casey. "Think about that. It's the most un-American thing you can possibly do, besides spy for al-Qaida. So we're trying to pay heightened, advanced attention to things that rarely surface until Election Day. It's after everything is decided [that] some evidence comes to light, and there's some reporting by an exhausted press corps, but it's already over. If you don't call attention to it beforehand, to hold people accountable, then this activity pays."

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