A wave of fear that citizens' votes will not count in the next presidential election is spreading slowly yet steadily throughout America and threatens to undermine critical decisions that need to be made to insure the integrity of our nation's voting process.

The good news is that the federal government is preparing to release $2.3 billion dollars to states to assist them in their continued efforts to improve the voting process in federal elections. The bad news is that many states are afraid to spend the money because of problems that are now associated with new electronic voting devices.

Prior to the 2000 presidential election, most Americans applied little thought to the actual mechanics of the voting process. The term "hanging chad" had little meaning to most Americans. But the events that occurred in Florida during the 2000 presidential election created a new awareness and a national consensus that a flawed process could produce flawed results. And Congress acted by passing the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002, which President Bush promptly signed into law. The first objective of HAVA was to assist the states by funding the replacement of outdated voting equipment - punch card and lever machines. Since no state wanted to be "the next Florida," the voting equipment of choice quickly became the electronic voting machine. The computers were called in to rescue America's voting.

Of course many Americans had already been using some form of electronic voting machine. In fact, in 2000, over 12 percent of the country (almost 20 million voters) used electronic machines, while some 29 percent (46 million voters) used optical scan machines, which are another form of electronic voting. So the computer was not new to the voting booth.

What was new was that the federal government was preparing - for the first time in our nation's history - to get involved in voting as a national enterprise. The rights of citizens to vote had been protected by Constitutional amendments and passage of federal laws like the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And yet, the federal government had never before created a mechanism to define and support the administration of federal elections with both specific requirements, as well as significant federal funding. Clearly, the passage of HAVA - with strong bipartisan support in Congress - signaled that a national consensus had been achieved: none of us wanted "another Florida."

Importantly, no one involved in creating this new legislation believed that voting machines alone represented the solution. Accordingly, among other things, HAVA mandates provisional ballots at every polling place to insure that no voter is turned away; that signs be displayed at every polling place informing people of their voting rights; and that a complaint procedure be established in every state that allows citizens to have redress if they believe their voting rights have been denied. All of these mandates must be in place for the upcoming November election.

But that still leaves us with the issue of the machines. Many thoughtful people have decided that electronic voting machines - now used in 29 percent of the voting jurisdictions in the country - are neither secure nor reliable, and can only be made so with the use of a "voter verified paper ballot." Still others believe that the safeguards used in every election by experienced election administrators provides ample and adequate security with regard to every type of voting system, including electronic voting machines.

Enter the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. The EAC, comprised of four Senate-confirmed presidential appointees, was created with the passage of HAVA. Along with providing much-needed guidance and resources to states on the administration of federal elections, the EAC is also charged with updating federal standards related to the certification of voting equipment.

Due to the universally shared desire by all Americans to bring the highest level of integrity and fairness to the voting process, the EAC is conducting public hearings to explore the strengths and weaknesses of the voting systems that will be used this November. Information gathered by the EAC at these public hearings will provide a basis for updating the voting system standards, and for issuing guidance and "best practices" information to all states. The first such public hearing is taking place today and its focus is electronic voting. The EAC will ask tough questions of vendors, election administrators and researchers about the security and reliability of electronic voting.

Ultimately, all four EAC commissioners - two Republicans and two Democrats - are strongly committed to taking whatever actions are deemed appropriate to insure that our next federal election will have the integrity that Americans expect and the fairness that democracy demands.

[DeForest B. Soaries, Jr., a Republican, is the chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission; Gracia Hillman, a Democrat, is the vice-chair.]