ALBANY – Following the lead of another top New York Democrat, Senator Clinton yesterday asked supporters to join her in an effort to adopt nationwide voting reforms before the 2006 elections.

The plea from Mrs. Clinton came in an e-mail message to Democratic Party members two days after New York’s attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, urged lawmakers in Albany to revamp the state’s voting system. And it came on the same day that an independent statewide poll said New Yorkers have warmed to the former first lady since her election to national office four years ago.

Mrs. Clinton said in her message that she plans to introduce voting reform legislation in the Senate next week. She asked subscribers to a Democratic Party e-mail list to sign up in support of uniform voting standards and increased access to voting machines, particularly in predominantly minority neighborhoods. Mrs. Clinton sponsored similar legislation last year, but the bill did not advance to committee.

Mrs. Clinton was one of a handful of senators who attempted last month to block the Electoral College from officially certifying the 2004 presidential election results. Mrs. Clinton had called into question the integrity of the voting results in some precincts and supported a move to discard Ohio’s electoral votes from the final tally.

A number of other Democrats in the Senate, including Senator Kerry of Massachusetts, are backing Mrs. Clinton’s reform legislation. Mrs. Clinton’s bill will compete with two other reform bills already introduced by other senators. Senator Ensign, a Republican of Nevada, Senator Dodd, a Democrat of Connecticut, and Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat of Michigan, have also introduced voting reform bills. It was not immediately clear how Mrs. Clinton’s election legislation would differ from the other pending bills. A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton did not return a call late last night from The New York Sun.

Mrs. Clinton is widely thought to be considering a run for president in 2008, but hasn’t publicly stated her plans. Mr. Spitzer, a favorite to win the Democratic nomination for governor next year, told reporters in Albany on Monday that voting reform is an issue both Democrats and Republicans should embrace.

But Mrs. Clinton, in her message, framed the issue as a Democratic cause, telling supporters that nationwide election reform is being held up by Republicans.

“The Republicans who control Congress don’t want to address this issue,” she said. “So we’ve got to build grassroots momentum to make sure they don’t have any choice but to act.”

The Quinnipiac University poll said New Yorkers now give Mrs. Clinton strong points for honesty and trustworthiness, and solid support for another term in statewide office. It showed that Mrs. Clinton would trounce Governor Pataki, 61% to 30%, in a theoretical test run of her re-election bid next year.

Another New York poll released this week, conducted by the Siena College Research Institute, reported similar findings.

The poll of 1,218 registered voters found that Mrs. Clinton would defeat Mayor Giuliani by 50% to 40% in a theoretical Senate race. Mr. Giuliani was an early favorite to beat the then-first lady in the 2000 Senate race before withdrawing after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Mrs. Clinton went on to beat a Long Island Republican member of the House, Rick Lazio, 56% to 40%. Like Mr. Pataki, Mr. Giuliani has not expressed interest in running for the Senate next year.

New Yorkers appear evenly split on whether Mrs. Clinton should run for president in 2008. In the poll, 46% said she should run for the White House, while 48% said she should not. Democrats in the poll supported a White House bid by 67% to 27%. Mr. Pataki and Mr. Giuliani have also been mentioned as potential candidates for the 2008 presidential race.

So far, Mr. Pataki has not expressed interest in the Senate race and has not said whether he intends to seek a fourth term as governor next year. Early polls indicate that Mr. Pataki would lose a race for governor against Mr. Spitzer by a solid margin.

The Quinnipiac poll, which has a sampling error of plus or minus 2.8%, was conducted in the days following a speech in which Mrs. Clinton called for the two sides in the national debate on abortion to seek “common ground,” by encouraging adoption, for example. Many interpreted the remarks as a sign that Mrs. Clinton, a longtime advocate of women’s access to abortion, is looking to moderate her position on the issue in preparation for a presidential run in 2008.

More than 80% of those polled said they had heard “little or nothing” about Mrs. Clinton’s comments on abortion.

Mrs. Clinton’s approval rating is at a four-year high, according to the Quinnipiac poll, with 65% of respondents saying they approve of her work over the past four years and 64% saying she is honest and trustworthy. Even 38% of Republicans polled said they believe Mrs. Clinton to be trustworthy. Nearly two-thirds of participants said Mrs. Clinton has strong leadership qualities.

On the issue of abortion, only 11% said it should not be permitted at all.