have in this area, and might lead to confrontations among poll officials, local police, and federal agents. It also risks violating a federal statute that prohibits sending armed federal agents to the polls. 18 U.S.C. § 592. ii. Non-interference with the voting process. States use many types of documentation in conducting elections (such as registration cards, voter lists, poll books, and voting machines), and in tabulating and certifying the results (such as ballots, tally sheets, and absentee voting materials). Subpoenas for such documentation should be timed, and compliance procedures developed, so as not to deprive election officials of records they need to tabulate votes and certify election returns. iii. Need for probable cause before opening sealed ballots. Absentee ballots might come into the possession of federal officials while still sealed in the envelopes bearing the names of the voters who ostensibly marked them. Also, a few states provide for some types of paper ballots to be numbered in a way that corresponds with the order of signatures on a poll list. In either situation, marked ballots can be attributed to individual voters. This is particularly useful in cases involving suspected fraud in the marking or alteration of the ballot document itself. However, since voted ballots are documents in which individuals have an expectation of privacy, sealed ballots should not be opened without satisfying the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause standard. Accordingly, a search warrant should be obtained before taking investigative steps that would result in linking individual ballots to the voters who allegedly cast them. Alternatively, if the individuals whose names appear on the sealed ballot envelopes deny that they voted, these individuals may be asked if they are willing to open the ballot envelopes ostensibly “voted” by them. 97