Tuesday marks the first time that Florida, along with many other states, will use a centralized voter database in a general election. Voter advocates said low turnout in earlier primary elections didn't provide a strong test of the new databases.

States are required to have a repository of statewide voters under the 2002 federal Help America Vote Act. In the past, these lists of eligible voters were compiled mostly by local governments. The new centralized databases are governed by rules created by state elections officials following HAVA guidelines.

Ben Wilcox, executive director of Common Cause Florida, a nonprofit advocacy group in Tallahassee, said officials in many states are anxious about how the relatively untested databases will function in a full-scale election.

'I think the cause for concern now is that it's new,' said Wilcox. 'The primary election back in September had a very low turnout. We were hoping for a higher one to put the database to a good test. Going into the general election, there is still concern that people may show up to vote and not find themselves on the rolls.'

Adding to the challenge in Florida is a strict policy requiring that new-voter information exactly match that person's information in other state databases, such as that used by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, said Dianne Wheatley-Giliotti, president of the Tallahassee-based League of Women Voters of Florida.