Deb Markowitz isn't just Vermont secretary of state. She's also president of the National Assocation of Secretaries of State. As such, she's testifying today before the U.S. Election Assistance Commisison in Washington, D.C., on how the 2006 election went.

"Predictions of Election Day chaos were overblown," she's expected to tell the commissioners.

There were predictions of problems because states were trying out new voting equipment and procedures mandated under a 2002 federal law. Markowitz will tell the federal oversight panel that the midterm elections "went well overall."

She will report that there were a few problems:

• votes were lost in some districts
• some new electronic voting equipment malfunctioned
• no every statewide voter database worked as expected
• some voting equipment vendors failed to provide the assistance they promised

Markowitz must count her blessings as she reports some of these problems, coming from a state that has no voting machines and still relies on paper ballots.

-- Nancy Remsen