Bush lukewarm on electoral reform

Mr Bush did not give full support to the proposals

US President George W Bush has given cautious support to a call for major electoral reform from a commission headed by two former US presidents.

Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford's report listed a number of proposals to prevent a fiasco like the one that saw Mr Bush declared the winner last December after an extended court battle over recounts.

Remember the chads? There was chaos in Florida last year

Mr Bush broadly endorsed some of their recommendations, but added that the US "is vast and diverse, and our elections should not be run out of Washington".

The commission called for more uniform voting procedures, for election day to become a national holiday and for the media to refrain from predicting results until most polling stations have closed.

But they have said the controversial system of punch card ballots should be retained.

Media restraint

The National Commission on Federal Election Reform urged Congress to offer up to $2bn over next three years in matching grants to states which want to upgrade their electoral systems.

But it said that states should be responsible for establishing their own voter registration systems.

Other proposals include:

• allowing voters whose names do not appear on electoral rolls to cast their ballot anyway, with its validity to be determined later
• ensuring disabled voters can cast their votes in secret
• increasing the number of officials staffing voting stations.

The commission called for news organisations to refrain from calling electoral results until the end of the voting day.

The commission wants to avoid a repeat of last year's confusion

If media organisations failed to comply with the recommendation, then Congress should consider legal measures, the commission said.

But it did not call for more central government involvement in the running of national elections.

And, despite the debacle in Florida, when thousands of partly punched voting cards had to be scrutinised to try to determine the winner, the commission said that alternative systems might be no better.

One alternative, the optical scan machine, is not favoured by the blind and disabled.