From the Times of London, via The Australian :

Mary Poppins and Dick Tracy are giving election officials sleepless nights as the US heads towards what is likely to be the most litigious presidential poll in history.

The pair are among a cast of fictional characters who have tried to register to vote next Tuesday, clearly as a prelude to attempted fraud.

But they are only the tip of an iceberg which at best threatens to delay the result beyond November 2, and at worst will cripple the credibility of the winner.

Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, said the result could be “an election that would make Florida in 2000 look like a picnic”.

Already more than 40 lawsuits have been filed in several swing states, including Florida, challenging the registration of new voters and the procedures for counting the ballot.

There are concerns about an urgent shortage of poll workers, and whether the volunteers, whose average age is 72, will be able to explain to voters how the new touch-screen ballot machines work.

The worries have sparked warnings that the first US presidential election of the 21st century, and by far the most expensive yet, is heading for disaster.

The tense wait has introduced a new phrase into the US political lexicon — the “margin of litigation” — which refers to the percentage of the vote that divides the two main candidates. The smaller the margin is, and the closer the vote in the decisive electoral college, the more likely it is that the initial result will be legally challenged.
[…]
The main problem is the new provisional ballots, introduced by the 2002 Help America Vote Act. They allow people to cast a ballot even if they find their name is not on the registration list when they turn up to vote on the day.

But those votes are not counted immediately. And the act gives no indication about how they should be verified and when they should be counted.

There is one outcome that might avoid a legal crisis, and presidential historian Robert Dallek, for one, is confident it will occur — he expects a clear result. “My sense is the election is not going to be as close as people think.”