Common Cause is set to release a report next week on election preparedness in 10 swing states: Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The in-depth study looked at voter registration, voter identification, caging and challenges, deceptive practices, provisional ballots, voting machine allocation, poll worker recruitment and training, voter education and student voting rights.

The study found that "significant problems in the basic functions of the American election administration system persist, and in a few cases have worsened over the last few years."

Specifically, Florida, Georgia and Virginia have "the most problematic voting administration on a variety of criteria." Wisconsin gets the most positive review overall. Ohio, which had problems in 2004*, is much improved. New Mexico and Pennsylvania get "mixed reviews for still having shortcomings such as no deceptive practices law, but good poll worker training standards." Colorado, Michigan and Missouri fall somewhere in the middle.

The report will be available Monday at Common Cause.

*Ed. note: Ohio has a new Secretary of State since 2004. Democrat Jennifer Brunner was elected in 2006 and has enacted a number of reforms, including a lawsuit against Diebold alleging the state was sold faulty touch-screen voting machines. The Secretary of State in 2004, Ken Blackwell, was a Bush campaign co-chair and is currently Vice Chairman of the Republican National Committee's Platform Committee. He hand-picked the Diebold voting systems shortly after Ohio-based Diebold's CEO told Republicans the company was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes" to Bush.