Published on behalf of the nonpartisan Election Protection coalition, the website collects and analyzes voter calls to the 866-OUR-VOTE hotline, gathering important data about voters' questions, registration and identification problems, difficulties with voting machines, and polling place accessibility issues.

In addition to raw incident data, OurVoteLive.org also features incident maps, nationwide trend information and an active election issues blog that will highlight important election incidents as they develop. As part of our defense of digital rights, EFF is committed to protecting the electoral process and producing tools that help educate and inform the public.

Transparency, disciplined review and diligent enforcement are the three key prongs needed to develop faith in the purity of the election process. Kudos to EFF and the Election Protection coalition for working to stop such dishonest, disenfranchising practices as...

Ridiculous lines to vote.

Suppose in your neighborhood there are 600 registered voters per machine, while across town there are only 120 per machine. (That's a 5 to 1 disparity, which is what exists in some places in Virginia today.) On Election Day, your line wraps around the block and looks to be a four-hour wait, while in other areas lines are nonexistent.

This ought to be a crime. It amounts to a "time-tax" on your right to vote, and some of your neighbors will undoubtedly give up and go home.

Purging voter rolls.

Voting rights advocates in Colorado, to take just one example, told a federal judge Wednesday that the names of nearly 30,000 voters were recently purged from the state registry in violation of federal law and ought to be restored by election day. In a compromise, those voters will be allowed to cast provisional ballots.

Lack of trust in voting machines.

Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week. This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for 'Barack Obama' kept flipping to 'John McCain.'

A variety of other attempts to disenfranchise voters and swing elections.

A separate report by Common Cause found voter suppression tactics in 10 key states, the most frequent being aggressive use of "voter match" requirements that put thousands of voters at risk if, for example, a middle initial on a voter registration form doesn't exactly match the name on a driver's license. Republicans in Ohio demanded a list of 200,000 voters' names with such minor mismatches so that they could be challenged at the polls. Fortunately the US Supreme Court ruled that the Ohio secretary of state did not have to supply the names, and the US Justice Department has declined to wade into the controversy, despite a personal request for a review from President Bush.