"We are literally receiving additional reports every minute"

The U.S. Government Accountability Office plans to investigate complaints of several systemic problems with this month's elections, a group of Democratic lawmakers said Tuesday.

The investigation comes in response to two letters written by lawmakers to the GAO which address numerous media reports of irregularities in the 2004 vote and call for those to be reviewed.

The GAO said it will not investigate every charge listed by the Democrats, but will examine "the security and accuracy of voting technologies, distribution and allocation of voting machines and counting of provisional ballots."

As part of the inquiry, the group said it will provide copies of specific incident reports received in their offices regarding the election, including more than 57,000 complaints provided to the House Judiciary Committee.

Those reports include allegations of computer and voting machine problems that added votes to totals, as well as malfunctions that resulted in votes being thrown out.

"We are literally receiving additional reports every minute," said a November 5 letter from lawmakers to the GAO. "The essence of democracy is the confidence of the electorate in the accuracy of voting methods and the fairness of voting procedures.

"In 2000, that confidence suffered terribly, and we fear that such a blow to our democracy may have occurred in 2004."