HELENA - Facing mounting pressure from the federal government, Secretary of State Brad Johnson ordered county election officials Tuesday to use a new method to verify Social Security numbers provided by a small percentage of voters to prevent fraud.

Johnson took the step after U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division twice since March 2006 threatened to take enforcement against the Montana secretary of state's office if Johnson didn't put a system in place to comply with the 2002 federal Help America Vote Act.

"If your state is not prepared to take this action promptly to comply with HAVA in a timely manner, we are prepared to take appropriate enforcement action," John Tanner, chief of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department, said in an April 23 letter to Johnson.

Johnson's office responded to only two of five U.S. Justice Department letters and apparently ignored the rest inquiring about implementation of HAVA. One of Johnson's office's two responses came Tuesday.

The U.S. Justice's Civil Rights Division has been writing Johnson since August 2005 concerning the state's compliance - or lack of compliance - with HAVA requirements.

Johnson sent out a directive to county clerk and recorders and election administrators outlining the new system.

"The integrity of our election process is the foundation of our democratic system," said Johnson, the state's chief election administrator. "We need to make sure safeguards are in place to prevent fraudulent voters from tainting an election."

HAVA requires that people registering to vote in a federal election show their state driver's licenses, state identification cards, their Social Security numbers or some other unique identifying number.

The vast majority of Montanan voters have presented their driver's licenses when registering to vote. These numbers are checked with the state Justice Department's Motor Vehicle Division to make sure the person is a valid voter.

Only about 5,000 of the 650,000 registered Montana voters, or less than 1 percent, instead have used the last four numbers of their Social Security number, said Johnson's spokesman, Bowen Greenwood.

Johnson told local election administrators that further steps are required on Social Security numbers. These last four digits of the Social Security numbers also must be verified to make sure the number represents a valid voter.

So the last four digits of the Social Security numbers will be checked by the state Motor Vehicle Division, just as driver's licenses are. The Motor Vehicle Division, in turn, sends them to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, which checks the numbers with the Social Security Administration.

"We all have to band together to make sure that we preserve the cleanest, fairest elections, and that we comply with federal law," Johnson said in a press release.

Johnson took the action in the face of threatened enforcement action by the U.S. Justice Department Civil Rights Division over several years.

The U.S. Justice Department sent letters to Johnson dated Aug. 25, 2005, Oct. 27, 2005, Jan. 19, 2006, March 31, 2006, and April 23, 2007, concerning how the state was complying - or not complying - with HAVA.

In the April 23 letter, Tanner, the U.S. Justice Department official, said it's been more than a year since HAVA's verification requirements took effect in Montana. The U.S. Justice Department has enforcement requirements for these requirements.

"Pursuant to that enforcement authority, we have previously advised Montana of HAVA's mandates in this regard and of our concern about the state's noncompliance with them," Tanner wrote.

Copies of correspondence provided by Greenwood show that Johnson's office answered only two Justice Department letters. One came from Elections Deputy Elaine Graveley on April 14, 2006, and the other Tuesday from Janice Doggett, the office's chief legal counsel and acting chief deputy secretary of state following a telephone call with a U.S. Justice Department official on Monday.

"It appears that we did not respond to their original letters," Greenwood said.

In addition, he said, officials in Johnson's office believed that Graveley's April 14, 2006, letter had resolved the issue, although that was not the case. Greenwood said they believed the situation had been resolved through a method of check box on the Montana Votes system to indicate whether the last four digits of a voter's Social Security had been verified.

However, that did not pass muster with the Justice Department.

In the April 23 letter to Johnson, Tanner said Graveley's letter of April 2006 did not indicate when such verification would begin. We have received nothing further from your office concerning Montana's compliance with HAVA's verification requirements and have reason to believe that Montana still has not implemented the verification process required by HAVA."

In her letter to the U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday, Doggett said Johnson had issued the directive to county election administrators and the office had entered into the necessary agreements for the last four digits of a registering voter's Social Security number to be verified.

"Montana has now put into place a procedure of all voter registration applicants that provide only the last four digits of their Social Security number," Doggett wrote.

She concluded, "We believe that Montana has now taken the necessary action to be in compliance with the voter verification requirements of HAVA," Doggett said.

In response to a question, Greenwood said the delayed response to Justice Department requests had nothing to do with the abrupt resignation of Johnson's former chief deputy, Mark Simonich, earlier this month.