For those of us who are fiercely protective of Congress’ prerogatives--and the responses I’ve received to my column on the raid of Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-La.) office suggest we are in the minority--it is still hard to defend the current operators of the Congressional franchise.

Resident Scholar Norman J. Ornstein

This month, the Senate is embarrassing itself, and the rest of us, by dropping any real focus on the immediate issues facing the country at home and abroad to waste weeks of precious and limited floor time on the diversions (doomed diversions, at that) of banning same-sex marriage and flag burning. Can anyone say with a straight face that these issues are more urgent than energy, health care, the budget deficit, homeland security, pensions, hurricane preparedness, the war in Iraq or the balance between fighting terror and protecting civil liberties?

There is no flag burning or flag desecration crisis. Actually, there is no flag burning. As for the issue of marriage, it is being handled by the states--and if it turns out that states’ actions or those of judges move in a direction that defies popular opinion, there is ample time to focus on an enhanced federal role then.

Of course, the debate on these two constitutional amendments is a charade; nobody believes they will pass the Senate. But there’s a cost in precious time and the reinforcement of cynicism about the seriousness of Congress.

Even worse is the fact that the House leaders’ reaction to the Jefferson raid represents the only time they recently have shown an interest in Congressional integrity or responsibilities. Where is the oversight? We remain on course for the House to be in session for the fewest days in our lifetimes, and that means not just a shrunken amount of floor debate or action but also fewer committee meetings and dwindling attention to the myriad problems facing the country.

Here is one issue that is crying out for Congressional focus: election procedure and reform.

Congress responded to the election crisis in 2000, albeit belatedly, with the first major federal intervention in elections: the Help America Vote Act. It was a major accomplishment, but huge problems remain in the election system, and new ones have emerged in the aftermath of HAVA. And none of the people who wrote HAVA have shown the slightest interest in addressing them.

I don’t want to get into the underbrush here. Instead, let me focus on the biggest flashpoint: voting machines. Chances are, anybody reading this column also reads widely about politics and knows about the multiple problems and controversies here. States and localities have moved to fulfill HAVA’s mandate, using federal money, to update their voting machines and make sure there will be no more hanging chads or questions of election outcomes because of faulty, outdated or rigged machines, or monstrosities such as butterfly ballots.

But the process has backfired because of the unintended consequences of the (well-intentioned) move to expensive modern electronic machines, mostly of the touch-screen variety. These are known as direct-recording electronic systems.

As the DREs expanded in use, computer experts began to uncover security vulnerabilities. The more experts have focused on the machines, the more vulnerabilities they have found. The more they have pointed out the problems, the more the companies that make the machines have brushed aside complaints or stonewalled about the problems.

Then, with suspicions raised, another issue arose--the fact that most of the DRE systems purchased by election districts come without a paper trail, making recounts questionable and adding to the distrust many feel about the machines. Many jurisdictions are now moving to equip their DREs with paper trails, but doing so is very expensive, and HAVA has not provided additional money for it.

Many jurisdictions have decided to move in another direction: the less expensive optical-scan systems that use paper ballots, in which voters mark their choices by filling in ovals or other shapes, and then the ballots are read by optical scanners. Optical-scan machines have many advantages, but they also have problems--unintentional undervotes, voter error, questionable results (where the ovals are not completely filled in or are ambiguous), printing errors and limited access for handicapped voters.

There is no perfect answer here. There are real questions about how vulnerable the machines really are to tampering, and we cannot forget that disasters have occurred in the past with punch cards, lever machines and other older technology. The debate is vigorous and widespread among academic and election experts. But it is virtually nonexistent in Congress.

This is not a small problem. We survived a crisis of confidence in governance in 2000 with no disastrous effects. Despite the controversies, most Americans accepted the outcome of the election. But things have deteriorated seriously since then. We have deep political divisions in the country and a continuing prospect of very close elections at all levels. More and more Americans are deeply suspicious about the integrity of the system, and in this combustible environment, the last thing we need is an election in which a substantial proportion of Americans believe the outcome was rigged.

The problems, of course, go beyond the machines. But the machines are pivotal. There may be a solution out there: hybrid machines, in particular the AutoMARK system from Election Systems and Software. These machines have all the advantages of the DREs with the concrete, reassuring presence of an optical-scan paper ballot. Voters can check their ballots physically to make sure the ballot reflects their intentions. They are expensive (about $6,000 per machine), but not much more than the DREs with printer attachments.

Expense should not be the big factor here. We need to move with dispatch to ensure that any future close election is not marred by serious allegations of fraud or misconduct. We can afford the best machines; we cannot afford a systemic crisis. So here is a challenge to Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.) and Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), the respective chairmen of the relevant House and Senate committees: Hold some hearings, quickly, on these issues. Come to a consensus conclusion. Provide the money necessary to make the system work and train the people required to implement it. And do it now, before the inevitable disaster.

Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at AEI.