And it does look like it is going to be a close election — at least in the Electoral College, that odd way we chose more than 200 years ago for deciding the presidency. With Florida decided by less than 600 votes (of those that were counted) in 2000, it would have been reassuring to know advances were made. But they weren’t.

According to the Associated Press, money shortages and delays have stymied the goals of the Help America Vote Act that Congress passed in 2002. The act was never fully funded, the new federal agency it created was appointed nine months late, and most states asked for two-year waivers of key requirements, pushing off the creation of voter-registration databases and the replacement of punch card and lever machines to 2006.

We’ve always been the ones to send election monitors to fledgling nations as they struggled to make sure all the people were able to vote and the right arithmetic was used to count ballots. Now, we are the one that needs watching.

Who would have thought that we might need Jimmy Carter to make sure there’s no cheating on our turf?

An international team of electoral experts recently spent two weeks in the United States "investigating controversies that appear to be undermining public faith’’ in our political process. Sponsored by Fair Election, a project of Global Exchange, the delegation split into groups and visited five of those so-called "battleground’’ states.

The report from that investigation is not yet complete.

In addition, the non-partisan groups Common Cause and Votewatch are organizing thousands of volunteers to monitor polls on Election Day and provide data that will help decide whether all the votes are counted as cast.

Such oversight may be necessary because 75 percent of voters will be using the same machines as they did in 2000. Nearly 30 percent will vote on the punch card and lever machines, which now are considered unreliable.

Monitoring the vote on Election Day sounds like a gargantuan task, until you realize there are only a few states they need to worry about. The election is considered over in all but a handful of too-close-to-call states whose electoral votes are still up for grabs.

Try explaining to little Johnnie why the presidential candidates are not campaigning in New York state. Since children are taught that every vote counts, they can’t understand why Bush and Kerry wouldn’t be visiting each and every state to try to get every vote they can.

Go ahead and tell him that New York and most other northeastern states are already in Kerry’s column because everybody knows he’s going to win the popular vote. It’s the same for Bush in the southern states. In our system, it’s winner-takes-all for the electoral votes.

We learned that lesson the hard way four years ago when Gore outpolled Bush by half a million votes, only to lose by a few electoral votes because of the Florida scandal. But it is hard to believe that the election this year also could be that close. Actually, how could it be close, really, if all the votes were counted?

I don’t know. I can’t understand how someone could vote for Bush. Like I said after the last election, I don’t have much confidence in voters; after all, they elected both Nixon and Reagan twice. And with Bush, the bar for the presidency was lowered yet again.

I am in shock at the prospects indicated by polls that show so many undecided voters in the "battleground’’ states. How could one be undecided?

The choice should, as Nixon used to say, be perfectly clear, if people would ask themselves: What good has the president done for the citizens of the United States during the last four years?

Nothing.

Americans are dying in an immoral war. We’re not safer. Higher prices have eaten up the tax cut. Health-care costs have soared. More people lack health insurance. Fewer people have jobs. The environment is more threatened.

Now we just have to make sure your vote gets counted — especially if you live in one of those up-for-grabs states.

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Cary Brunswick is managing editor for The Daily Star and can be reached at cary@the dailystar.com or at 432-1000, ext. 217.