"Elections: Perspectives on Activities and Challenges Across the Nation" is an October 2001 report of the U.S. General Accounting Office. The report describes the operations associated with each stage of the U.S. presidential election process and includes information about voter registration, absentee and early voting, election day administration, vote counts, certification, and recounts. The U.S. General Accounting Office presents a downloadable version of the report online in PDF format.

Fed. law requires polling places to be accessible to all eligible voters for fed. elections, incl. voters with disabilities. However, during the 2000 fed. election, only 16% of polling places had no potential impediments to access for people with disabilities. To address these issues, Congress enacted the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), which required each polling place to have an accessible voting system. This report examined: (1) the proportion of polling places during the 2008 federal election with features that might facilitate or impede access for voters with disabilities compared to findings from 2000; (2) actions states are taking to facilitate voting access; and (3) steps the Dept. of Justice has taken to enforce HAVA voting access provisions.