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Election reform became popular in the United States as a result of the 2000 Presidential Election, which involved considerable debate over the correct result of a presidential vote in Florida. It has also been provoked on numerous occasions by the American electorate system for choosing a president, which can allow a candidate who received less votes overall to win.
Election reform often involves a push towards electronic voting, supposing that computers can solve the problems of inaccurate counts and improperly cast ballots.
The problems with paper ballots are often cited by proponents of election reform. They can include errors in punching the ballots (for instance, the famous chads in the 2000 Presidential Election. Other possible errors are poor ballot design, such as the infamous butterfly ballot, and errors in vote counting machines.
Problems with voting are not limited to human error, but include how the voting system is constructed and methods of intimidation and district alignment called gerrymandering that discourage certain groups from voting and encourage others. Many Southern states at one time included fees, tests, or police at voting booths to discourage blacks from voting; these have been abolished.
Related to unfair voting is unfair funding and campaigning, which is not only an issue among dominant political parties but also is a source of much of the resistance against the formation of new parties.