We believe we can now pull this issue up out of the weeds a bit, after more than 24 hours of trying to make sense of what the Los Angeles County Registrar’s office has been describing to the media as “real clear.”
What’s clear is that the only thing that’s clear is the fact that the county’s new acting Registrar of Voters, Dean Logan, has seriously blown his first outing since coming South from his disastrous 2004 Washington state gubernatorial election debacle.
Unless swift action is taken by Logan and CA Sec. of State Debra Bowen, it’s likely that hundreds of thousands of voters may have been disenfranchised in last Tuesday’s Democratic Primary Election…
As we reported in some detail Tuesday, there was, and still is, massive confusion about how Independent (also called Non-Partisan, also called Decline-to-State or DTS) voters were to cast their ballots to ensure they were counted in the LA County election.
In this, the country’s largest county, which is larger than two-thirds of the nation’s states, there are more than 700,000 such voters. After speaking to poll workers and voters, and combing media reports, there may be just about as many “real clear” explanations for how those DTS voters were supposed to have a) asked for, and then perhaps have received, the correct ballots to vote in the Dem Primary and then b) filled in special bubbles at the top of the ballots, which supposedly instruct the optical-scan machines to read the ballots as Dem primary votes, on the premise that the machines will end up counting the votes accurately.
If independent, non-partisan, DTS voters were lucky enough to not be auto-registered with the “American Independent” party instead; and if they knew to ask to vote in the open Democratic Primary; and if the poll workers knew to give them non-partisan ballots anyway; and if they were properly instructed to vote on that ballot in one of the booths marked as “DEM,” with the Dem candidate InkaVote machine template booklet in it; and if they were told by the pollworker to be sure to fill in the bubble above the Presidential candidates’ names to specify that this ballot should be counted in the Democratic Primary; and if they remembered to do it; and if their ballots were accurately counted by the optical-scan tabulators, then chances are good they may have successfully voted in the election.
If, on the other hand, as we’re hearing from many voters and pollworkers, those voters were incorrectly handed Democratic ballots, as opposed to non-partisan ones, then it sounds like they will also stand a good chance of having their vote, counted (accurately, or otherwise) in the Dem Primary.
That’s a lot of “ifs,” of course, and the latter scenario relies on pollworkers getting the proscribed process wrong, in order for the vote to have a chance of being counted right.
And when the county Registrar’s director of media operations, Paul Drugan, suddenly sounds like Don Rumsfeld, when quoted in the LA Daily News saying “Are some voters confused? Yes, they are. Is it widespread or systemic? I don’t think that it is,” we can only marvel at the disaster that very-recently-resigned, former Registrar and Diebold cover girl Conny “Cut and Run” McCormack left behind for Los Angeles to dig out of.
“Real Clear Instructions”
“It would almost be counterintuitive for someone to miss,” acting Registrar Logan told AP with, presumably, a straight face the day before the primary. “We have put this information in voter education materials, and we’ve provided real clear instructions.”
Really? Not according to the voters and poll workers and Election Integrity experts The BRAD BLOG has spoken to over the last day. We’ve yet to speak to anybody in the Registrar’s office, because they’ve yet to return our phone calls.
The confusion surrounding what could well be regarded as “California’s Butterfly Ballot”, if any of the vested Democratic candidates have the common sense to mount a legal challenge to this mess, is incredible.
An email to The BRAD BLOG from a woman who served as an LA County Precinct Captain underscores the massive confusion:
The bad news: This Precinct Captain seems to have gotten the procedure wrong.
The good news: The non-partisan voters to whom she gave Democratic ballots, instead of the non-partisan ballots they should have been given, will likely have their votes counted in the Democratic Primary. Which is more than can be said about those who non-partisan voters who received the “correct” ballot.
The precinct captain had one part right, concerning instructing voters to fill in “the number 6 bubble”; but she, her co-workers and those who took the instructions from her precinct coordinator gave voters the “wrong” ballots, according to the prescribed procedures. And yet, those ballots likely were counted, unlike many of those who were given the “correct” non-partisan ballots but didn’t know to fill in “the number 6 bubble.”
On the Democratic ballot, there was no need to fill in that bubble. Even though it appeared in the following “real clear instructions” found in the “Official Democratic Sample Ballot and Voter Instructions” booklet mailed to voters who were registered as Democrats in LA County:
“Real clear” enough for ya? And remember, voters registered as Democrats didn’t even need to fill in the bubble at all, but were given the above instructions in the mail nonetheless.
Our friend Mimi Kennedy, an Election Integrity advocate and chair of the national Progressive Democrats of America, also served as a Poll Inspector, in charge of one precinct in LA County on Tuesday.
She was so concerned about getting all of the procedures correct that she went to a precinct captain training session not once, but twice, just to make sure she got all of the complicated procedures correct. She also reviewed the instructional DVD given to pollworkers by the County, as well as the three thick pollworker procedures manuals.
She failed to get the non-partisan ballot procedure “right” anyway.
On Election Day, she went by the book, taking guidance from the Poll Coordinator, Registrar Hotline, and the manuals in an attempt to preserve the legitimacy of every vote. She tried to find out about the importance of marking or not marking the bubble, after she’d heard that Logan had been on the radio saying failure to mark it could ruin the ballot. None of the experienced pollworkers she worked with knew the answer either.
The day after the election, she reviewed the instructional DVD, looking for crucial instructions she thought she might have missed. One segment showed a Roster Clerk discussing the Non-Partisan procedures Kennedy had followed correctly. The Roster Clerk is seen on the video, turning to a back page in the Roster, which Kennedy had only been told to use for signing in registered voters, not for troubleshooting.
At the bottom of the page in fine print (which she read while freeze-framing the DVD) she saw the only reference in any of the materials she was given, regarding the selection of party designation by a non-partisan voter.
The fine print on the freeze-framed DVD said:
“There was no reference to the urgency of that ballot mark,” Kennedy told The BRAD BLOG. “Clarity is crucial on Election Day. In that brief moment at the polls, a voter is making a difference between life and death for some, war and peace for us all. This kind of obfuscation is unconscionable.”
Though Kennedy gave out the correct, non-partisan ballot to DTS voters who requested to vote in the Democratic primary, she says nothing in her classes or training manuals directed her to instruct voters to fill in “the number 6 bubble.”
If they did not, and the comments given to the media by acting Registrar Logan are to be believed, then those voters will not have had their votes counted in the Democratic Primary.
Local Election Integrity advocate Judy Alter, the director of Protect California Ballots, told us a similar story. “In the training I got” as a Poll Monitor, she wrote, “the trainer said the [Non-Partisan] ballot was for the voters who only wanted to vote on the initiatives and for no presidential candidate.”
She, like the first Precinct Captain mentioned above, was under the impression that DTS voters who wanted to vote in the Democratic Primary were to be given a Democratic ballot.
She, too, was wrong.
“The Dimensions of This”
“If you think about the dimensions of this,” the founder of California’s Courage Campaign, Rick Jacobs, told the Daily News, “three-quarters of a million people in Los Angeles County alone are Decline-to-State voters. I think this could be the difference between one candidate and another getting delegates and potentially getting the nomination.”
Even if a hand count examination of all ballots is done, it may be well impossible to sort out the mess no matter what, since some of the op-scan bubbles on the non-partisan ballots are used for different purposes, depending on whether the voter filled in the “Democratic” bubble, the “American Independent” bubble (that party also had an open primary in which DTS voters could vote if they wished), or none of the above.
“Bubble 11 is for Hilary Clinton…Bubble 13 is for Barack Obama. If someone is voting American Independent, bubble 9 is for one of their candidates, but it’s also for John Edwards,” if the voter was attempting to vote in the Democratic Primary, Jacobs said. “So it’s a true mess. And regrettably, people are going to be disenfranchised.”
He said his organization would “take any legal action necessary,” to deal with the situation.
As we reported on Tuesday, LA City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo may be interested in helping. At least he’s making noises to that end. He issued a statement yesterday, “calling upon Secretary of State Debra Bowen and L.A. County Registrar Dean Logan to review the county’s unique and potentially confusing ballot design.”
“It would be unfortunate if non-partisan voters, confused by the county’s unique ‘double bubble’ ballot design, did not have their vote counted,” he said, urging Bowen and Logan “to do everything within their power to ensure that every vote is counted, and to carefully weigh voter intent against this confusing Los Angeles County ballot design.”
“Los Angeles’ non-partisan voters must not be disenfranchised because of a confusing ballot design,” he added.
Nonetheless, for many, it’s likely too late.
“No Evidence of a Problem”
Although Logan’s failure to note the obvious problems with the county’s “Double Bubble” issue is obvious, it was his controversial predecessor, Conny McCormack, who originally implemented the ridiculous scheme.
Last summer, after computer scientists and security experts commissioned to test the state’s voting systems found myriad security problems, McCormack complained loudly about new systems and security mitigation requirements put in place by SoS Bowen. She charged that there was not enough time to implement the changes just six months before the Primary without putting votes and voters at risk. McCormack then resigned at the end of December, just one month before the Primary.
She now serves as a paid election industry consultant for two different organizations and lives in the town of Whittier with her husband, and in denial. She is also still complaining about Bowen’s new requirements, despite the fact that world-class testers found they were able to penetrate both the physical and software security measures to take control of every system tested, without the use of source code, within minutes.
Despite that, last weekend McCormack, in a Whittier Daily News feature article, said, “there’s no evidence of a problem,” with the state’s voting systems.
Given the problems and poll worker confusion which have emerged from the procedures she put in place before cutting and running from Los Angeles County, it’s ironic that McCormack is now working for the Pew Charitable Trusts as a consultant and adviser “on a project on online training for poll workers,” according to the paper.
By way of still further troubling irony, they report “she also is a consultant for the International Foundation of Electoral Systems, for which she will assist Puerto Rico with its voter registration system.”
If you close your eyes and wish hard enough, like McCormack, and the bulk of the mainstream corporate media who have failed to cover all of these issues for so many years, you too will be able to see “no evidence of a problem.”
ADDENDUM/UPDATE…
After shamefully downplaying the problems affecting thousands of voters yesterday by reporting “Few election glitches, except for independents,” the LA Times is now following up with new information on the debacle from acting Registrar Dean Logan:
Logan said he also will try to determine whether the uncounted ballots would make a difference in the way delegates are apportioned between the Democratic presidential candidates and, if so, will seek legal approval to count as many as possible.
…
“We are going to go back and look at those ballots and make a determination of how many made a presidential selection without marking a bubble,” Logan said. “If we can clearly identify the voters’ intent, we will seek legal authority to count those votes.”
…
Logan said election workers had identified about 189,000 votes cast by nonpartisans in Los Angeles County. About half of those people marked a bubble indicating they were voting in a party primary, which leaves more than 94,000 ballots in doubt. That number is expected to rise as the count continues, Logan said.
…
The presidential ballot for independents who voted in the Democratic primary was the same as the ballot for those who voted in the American Independent primary.
In the American Independent contest, there were three candidates running, while the Democratic Party had eight. The bubbles for the first three candidates in each party were in the same position on the ballot, making it impossible to tell after the fact if a voter was voting Democratic or American Independent — unless that person also filled in the bubble indicating party preference.
This is as bad as them talking about letting Michigan and Florida delegates count when Obama wasn’t on the ballot in Mich. and didn’t even campaign in Fla. with name recognition going to Clinton because the state is jammed with ex New Yorkers ? SHEESH
There are plenty of sources of confusion, including the terminology used in California elections.
The LA county pollworker Brad quotes says, “…we all thought that a voter registered as non-partisan who requested to vote as a Democrat was to be given a Democratic ballot and sent to the Democratic booth.”
But in California, no one is registered as “non-partisan.” Voter registration cards, which are the same throughout California, give you the option check a box next to the party you want to register with, or you can check a box next to the phrase, “Decline to State an affiliation with a political party.” As Brad states, what is called “Independent” or “Non-partisan” in other states is called “Decline to State” in California. The Secretary of State and news accounts say California does not use the term “independent” because of possible confusion with the American Independent Party, and the term “non-partisan” in California elections specifically refers to offices in which candidates are not allowed to state their political party, as in the case of certain elected judgeships. This is confirmed on Debra Bowen’s website (http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections...ns_decline.htm ) where, addressing Decline to State voters, it says “You may request, from your county elections official or at your polling place, the ballot of a political party if authorized by the party’s rules and duly noticed by the Secretary of State. If you do not request such a ballot, you will be given a nonpartisan ballot, containing only the names of all candidates for nonpartisan offices and measures to be voted upon at the primary election.”
Read that again, “you will be given a nonpartisan ballot, containing only the names of all candidates for NONPARTISAN OFFICES and MEASURES…” not the ballot of the democratic or republican party.
If the picture you show labeled “Tale of Two Ballots” is correct, I do not know why the ballot reads “Non Partisan Official Ballot.” More confusion.
All I have to say, is I hope both candidates want all the votes counted. If votes are cast but not counted it’s a travesty. Count ALL VOTES. If for some reason Obama cuts 4% of her lead and she loses 10 delegates there should be no complaining, and vice versa.
Wasn’t it Einstein who said “Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler”?
Sounds like this was a violation of that principle which led to confusion.
If bigwigs choose at the convention, all this bullshit is a waste of money anyway.
Raise your purple finger … invade other countries and bring them this wonder … those who are left after the killing fields that is …
I am growing sick of all this organized crime running our government.
At least most counties in California have learned about the electronic ballot issues and reverted to paper. Now if they can make the next step, open hand counting instead of those tamper prone electronic counting machines. Your freedoms have been stolen by organized crime.
Brad, You know how you blew the whistle on the Drudge Report disinformation when he ran the headline, “The board of elections failed to deliver voting equipment to polling places ALL OVER LOS ANGELES…” on 2/5/08? One of the first indicators of a problem with the story was the fact that in California counties do not have a “board of elections” they each have a Registrar of Voters or a county clerk who is responsible for running elections (The title in LA county is Registrar, County Clerk/Recorder). There is no “Board of Elections” anywhere in California.
So, looking at today’s quote from the pollworker above, “…we all thought that a voter registered as non-partisan who requested to vote as a Democrat was to be given a Democratic ballot and sent to the Democratic booth,” I am not aware of any California county that has polling places with “Democratic Booths” and/or “Republican Booths.” They just have booths. Can someone verify that in Los Angeles county, or any other California county, polling places have “Democratic booths.” ? Thanks.
OT “Choose who you would like to be the next President of the United States”
aljazeera poll
Look at Obama’s!
“Please note the results of this online poll are not scientific” 🙂
Maybe that disclaimer should mandatory on machines and scanners in the US.
Confabulator #6 said:
True enough. But that was the least of Drudge’s sins, since he’s writing for a national audience and “Board of Elections” is close enough for him…and that particular audience (that particularly audience being the entire Rightwing and the entire MSM, of course)
They do. I’m in LA County, and can attest to it. At least for the primary, where there are different ballot templates for the InkaVote device.
Of course, they are not “booths”, but rather partitions up on stands/legs, where you can mark your ballot in relative privacy.
At my polling place, there were some 9 booths or so. Appx. 3 each marked with handmade signs that read “DEM” or “REP” or “Non-Partisan” (as I recall…I can probably check the video if you really need me to.)
Thanks, Brad,
No need for further confirmation on “Dem” and “Rep” booths. A friend in LA confirms your observation. Thanks.
BTW, many republicans throughout the state are miffed when they found they could not vote for a republican because they were, correctly or incorrectly, registered as Decline to State. They have been yelling at registrars who quietly inform them of the Republican Party rules.
Confabulator #2, you wrote: “But in California, no one is registered as “non-partisan.”
They may not register as non-partisan, but in our county, we had ballots labelled “Non-Partisan” for these voters. Hence, I posit that the terms “Decine to State,” “Non-Partisan,” and “independent” are interchangeable, with “independent” not to be confused with American Independent Party.
You may already know this, but in case you don’t, in my CA county, voters registered as non-partisan were given the ballot they requested, be it Democratic, American Independent, or Non-Partisan. For this reason, there was none of the confusion such as that which we are dealing with in LA County.
Brad #8, right there is an unbelievably stupid logistical mess, having separate booths for Democrats, Republicans, and Non-Partisans. Later when this is all cleared up, I would be interested to learn how they did this. Were the programs they were operating on different? If all machines were hooked up to the same computer, then why differentiate one booth from another for party purposes?
So in LA County, is it true that whatever electronic voting machine you had to use was determined by your party affiliation? If yes, what is the purpose of that? That is just one more way to mess up. It serves no reasonable purpose I can think of.
Linda,#9 and #10
I have a high regard for your comments and questions. You actually work at the polls, you see that registrars have limited resources to train and equip thousands of essentially “volunteer” pollworkers and temporary election-day help to carry out the election. And you know that after months of planning and preparing for contingencies, the effort has only one chance to get it right on election day. You may also see, I am sure, that most the folks involved want to run a good, fair, accountable election and that very few, if any, seem willing to risk a felony conviction by committing election fraud in order to attempt to elect their favored candidates. You ask intelligent questions and respond in a civil, respectful way. I admire that. So, let me ask you this, in a “Devil’s Advocate” sort of way.
Given that the equipment and software used to count Sonoma County’s optical scan ballots, the Mark A Vote system, have never been federally certified nor has the equipment and software ever been examined in Debra Bowen’s “Top-to-Bottom Review” of election systems and, thus, she is unable to state that Mark A Vote is free of the flaws she found in each of the other systems she examined, are you willing to accept Sonoma County’s final vote count? If “yes,” why? If “no,” why not? (Please understand, I am not trying to play “got ya!” I am truly interested in your answer.)
…come on now, where is the government troll when you need him? Shouldn’t DE be here somewhere or the two brothers in crime? I kinda miss your bullshit, and there was an article today all about you.
Excuse me? Logan will make some kind of political judgment as to whether HE thinks it will affect “delegates” and THAT will control if votes get counted according to the voters’ intent, or not?? He is obligated to uphold the California Constitution, and that very significant document clearly states:
CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION ARTICLE 2 VOTING, INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM, AND RECALL SEC. 2.5. A voter who casts a vote in an election in accordance with the laws of this State shall have that vote counted.
Logan is clearly unqualified to be involved in elections because a public servant that acts unconstitutionally is clearly unqualified and unfit. There is no law requiring a double bubble but, in any event, the gross incompetence and mismanagement in ballot design with or without the forewarnings he had is additional and ample grounds for immediate dismissal — at a minimum.
There’s quite a blog here on the LA election problems:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladai...l-and-trouble/
McCormack thinks Logan is just swell:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/l...2_logan13.html
Must have been this review that cinched the job in LA for him:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.co...ctions29m.html
Logan added to woes of election staff, panel says
By Keith Ervin
Seattle Times staff reporter
“King County’s election office is in worse shape than it was before County Executive Ron Sims hired Dean Logan two years ago to reform the problem-plagued operation, a key member of Sims’ election-review panel said yesterday.”
Really, no one in LA did any due diligence on this guy? If I can Google this stuff, anyone can. That last article on the review is the clincher. No way was he qualified based on past performance and certainly not up the ladder.
Thanks Paul, for finding the law about counting ballots. That arrogance rankles me as much as not bothering to count ballots left out of the original count “unless they will make a difference.”
EVERY ballot must be counted and WHO decides what “making a difference means?”
Linda #11 asked:
The “booths” have no “machines” or computers at all. Rather, that have a booklet template into which your blank, paper ballot is slipped into. You then fill in the bubble in the template book which shows you who you are (supposedly) voting for. It’s like the old punchcard ballots, but with a marker pen, instead of a punch stylus.
The card is then taken out of the booklet, and dropped into electronic ballot checker (ES&S’ InkaVote Plus) which is supposed to warn of overvotes but NOT count the vote. Though it turns out the thankfully-former Registrar Conny McCormack, who dreamt up th ecurrent nightmare, actually had those machines tabulating and used the numbers for her instant snap-tallies at the end of the night without telling anyone.
So the different booths, “DEM”, “REP”, etc. each had the different ballot in it it’s paper InkaVote booklet template. Make sense? Hoping so. Wish it was easier to explain (and to vote!)
Badger #15 –
Not sure if Logan was hired by the Board of Supes, or if Conny McCormack herself was the one who brought him on. But apparently, in the election business, past poor performance is no strike against you.
Just ask Cuyahoga County, OH’s former disaster of an Election Director who now works for San Diego County.
These people either don’t give a damn who they hire for these jobs, or they do, and they choose these folks on purpose.
Take your pick.
The current excuse, as stated by Logan, is that the extra bubble is there so that votes will not be counted for decline-to-staters in party central committee races. Except there were no party central committee races on the ballot, for any committee. Thus, there would have been no problem to just hand the voter a Democrat or American Independent ballot, and would have been a lot easier to boot. The statistics of crossover voters can be calculated from the signatures in the voting book, as they are only relevant once the final canvass is completed.
Good god. You mean to tell us the republicans were right in 2000 after all ? The democrats can’t even color the right bubble ? Hello chad. Maybe next time we should have our candidates just draw straws or spin the bottle or as Bill said roll the dice. I have been a lifelong democrat but now I am beginning to think we are the party of dumbasses. Signs of the time I suppose.
And a great from drake question on the Facebook thread (no Facebook account required to view): is there an email we can send to our local media to encourage them to cover this story?
I’ve been really disappointed by how little coverage this has gotten … but maybe we can change that!
jon
he-he #19 the oldest bullshit in the book
“I am a lifelong Democrat” my ass.
You see this Big Dan ?
Wow, this mess would seem to have had a simple solution. Instead they decided to try to outdo the butterfly ballot princess Theresa LePore.
How about just asking the voter which primary they wanted to vote in, then giving them a clearly marked REPUBLICAN, DEMOCRATIC, or INDEPENDENT marked ballot. They could then add a bubble for the voter to identify their party or dts affiliation for statistical purposes. Problem solved, right? Instead we get a ball of confusion designed by persons I wouldn’t trust to walk my dog.
Remember this:
BTW:
I’m not a lifelong Democrat but it’s pretty clear that ballot turned a lot of elderly Republican voters into “dumbasses” too. Not to mention the dumbasses who actually intended to vote for Bush and had their votes counted.
Keep digging my friend. We have another few months to make things even worse.
Confabulator #12,
Re: “Given that the equipment and software used to count Sonoma County’s optical scan ballots, the Mark A Vote system, have never been federally certified nor has the equipment and software ever been examined in Debra Bowen’s “Top-to-Bottom Review” of election systems and, thus, she is unable to state that Mark A Vote is free of the flaws she found in each of the other systems she examined, are you willing to accept Sonoma County’s final vote count? If “yes,” why? If “no,” why not? (Please understand, I am not trying to play “got ya!” I am truly interested in your answer.)”
I am not willing to simply accept that Sonoma County’s final vote count is accurate, because of the Mark A Vote situation here. And I thank you for your clear and thorough explanation to me earlier of this situation. God knows we would never know this from reading our local newspapers.
This is what I have done so far:
(1) I sent letters to the editor about this to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Petaluma Argus Courier. None of them chose to print my letter. I get a lot of letters printed, so I understand how this works. They print letters that they feel their readers will be interested in. You have to just keep sending them letters, and not give up, because they pay attention to who’s reading their paper and what these readers are interested in.
(2) I contacted the director of an organization called Mainstreet Moms that works on election issues. They are who contacted me in the first place during the summer of 2006 and asked me to become involved in my local elections process. At that time, they had a chat situation in which they connected members in the same voting areas who were interested in this issue. I am now actively looking for other voters/citizens in my voting area, through this organization, to form a committee that will approach our local ROV to learn more about how our votes are registered and counted. It would not be effective for me to do this as a maverick. I know this from past experience. A committee is the way to go. I have not yet heard back from Mainstreet Moms’ director, but it has only been a day.
I fully intend to address the problem with the not-yet-certified counting process here. Thank-you again.
One thing we have going for us here in my county is that there are no indications that our ROV is politically motivated to kowtow to the electronic voting machine cartel or to one particular political party, like what is happening in LA and elsewhere. However, we should NEVER base EI on our lack of bad feelings about our ROV. Furthermore, during my most recent training, a different official conducted the training, with the original ROV sitting on the sidelines, which indicates we may be getting a new ROV. My sense of this new one is not as confidence-building as my sense of the old one.
Of course, I am completely making all of this up. I don’t really know. This is only my sense.
Calwatch #18, what you wrote makes complete sense. Please consider becoming involved in your local elections process. We need citizens who can actually think and problem-solve to become involved. Not only are a lot of elections officials apparently unable to think, they actually CREATE problems when they attempt to do so.
I am not being sarcastic here. I am being honest.
Lonestar #19, I realize you are just trying to be funny, and I do appreciate your humor. However, not knowing who you are or what your background is, I have to say that you seem a little out of touch with the general over all population. Scapegoating the voters for a stupidly designed and executed ballot makes no sense. Many, many people who are intelligent in many other ways, may lack the ability to fill out a form like the one presented to them on election day by LA County. Filling out forms is something that those of us who grew up doing so take for granted, but you have to understand that it requires a developed skill set that some may not have, and this does not mean that those who do not are dumbasses. You may also have this skill set at one point in your life, and then lose it due to various reasons such as the normal aging process.
I did some of my growing up in the Deep South. The tone of your post reminds me of how the whites in the Jim Crow South viewed their black citizens prior to and during the Civil Rights era.
As a fellow human being who recognizes you to be an intelligent individual, I strongly urge you to not provide any momentum to that way of thinking.
There is no reason whatsoever for a complicated balloting process. The goal of our ROVs should ALWAYS be to keep it as simple, as clear, and as thorough as possible. Let’s work on accomplishing this, rather than ridiculing those voters who have difficulty navigating an unnecessarily complicated ballot. Even an extra bubble to fill in, if not essential to the process, may throw a voter off his/her feet. All voters should have to do when they come into the polls is to vote. Everything else that involves their checking in and verification and making sure they are given the appropriate ballot should be up to the poll workers.
Jim H #22, that is exactly how my county did it. Hence, we did not experience any of the problems LA is going through today. Please get involved locally. Your elections system needs you!
#22 JimH, “1,631 people punched Bush and Buchanan, whose hole was below his on the ballot.” I have so many lines for that sentence that I won’t even touch it. 😀
Don’t you think that “they” are trying to make paper ballots look bad just like “they” did in 2000. Remember this,
Dan Rather interviews Sequoia whistleblowers. That way “they” can say, SEE DRE’s are much better…blah blah blah.
Well, the InkaVote has got to go sometime.
Want to bet that McCormack and Logan will argue for DRE’s? After all, it’s the fault of that darn paper, as inanimate as it is.
(Assume McCormack will be hired back as a consultant)
Goal: DRE’s (Or Online)
Method: Create fiasco after fiasco in the paper voting system. It has nothing to do with the paper, of course, but the MSM will dutifully print that it is.
Look who apparently sponsored the task force McCormack and Logan participated in, as mentioned by McCormack in one of my posts above:
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=...ient=firefox-a
Election’s old “friend”, the Election Center
Logan has also been through the Election Center’s training course, that CERA designation after his name:
http://www.electioncenter.org/pep.html
How about election officials with a degree in accounting, first? Maybe a minor in business administration although I have never thought government can be successfully run like a business per se- it’s just not the same animal.
So, with all of this alleged training, wouldn’t you think a prime requirement would be to make ballot design simple, not only for citizens of all kinds but also for the systems that must allegedly count them?
Badger # 29
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is conducting a nationwide search to fill the position of Registrar/Clerk/Recorder for the county. Before she retired, McCormack hired Dean Logan as her #2 person. Logan is now the temporary acting Registrar. He wants to be appointed to the full time position. He is a candidate under consideration. McCormack wants him to win that position. But he already has one strike against him because he does not have a college degree and this double bubble fiasco virtually guarantees he will not get the position. The Board of Supes hates negative publicity. The Board is predominately democrats and this episode negatively affected democrats. There is no way, just no way, Logan (or McCormack) would intentionally “create fiasco after fiasco in the paper voting system,” because Logan wants the job and McCormack wanted him to get it. But, because of this, his chance is gone.
BTW, ain’t no CA county going “Online” or spending the money on new DRE’s. It’s gonna be opscan for the forseeable future. Paper.
Linda #26
Thank you for your thoughtful response to my question. May I suggest these steps:
First, talk to your Registrar. Because you can clearly convey to her that you understand this is not her doing, she is likely to not feel threatened and will give you an honest answer and assessment. Talk to Debra Bowen. She may have some really good reasons. Finally, if those responses do not satisfy you, next step is to talk to your state assemblyperson and state senator, followed by congressional representatives.
You are absolutely right when you told Lonestar that the voting process must be made as simple as possible. When you are dealing with all voters you are dealing with the whole range of human capacity and behavior. It’s not just Democrats. There’s a bunch of angry, frustrated Republicans who forgot that several elections ago they registered as “Decline to State” and, thus, were unable to vote for a republican in this primary election, because of republican party rules. Not because of Registrar incompetence or their own stupidity. The voters just forgot that years ago they changed their registration.
In my precinct in Illinois, we had 16 paper ballots to distribute to voters…And guess what? 0 problems.
Infact each and every one of the 730 ballots cast, required a signature and a written declaration of party selection.
Illinois has a Consolidated Closed Primary, but any voter can request any party’s ballot at the time the ballot is distributed. Infact we had to ask every voter which party ballot they wanted – 730 times – my voice is still abit rough.
Of the few voters who were a bit confused about the process of stating a party, a quick 15 second explaination sufficed.
Amazing….utterly amazing.
Folks, this is an organized plan to disenfranchise voters. The level of incompetance shown, is not by chance, but by plan.
MrBill123 do you think that method would scale well? It certainly sounds more accurate than all the other crap going on right now.
I’ve lived in LA for almost 15 years and have been registered as an independent since I got here. I’ve never had this kind of thing happen to me before, but luckily, I’m crazy for documenting everything, so I actually shot footage of myself voting and managed to capture the exact moment I blew past the double bubble, leaving it un-inked. Check it out here.
ThePete #36, watched your video. I have to say, when you see what the ballot actually looked like, and how the instructions told you “not to vote,” it’s plain that the whole voting situation in LA County was very confusing, very messy.
You commented that provisional ballots are not counted unless there’s a recount. Not true. They are counted just as regular or mail-in ballots are counted, except that they have to be cross-checked to make sure the voter didn’t vote fraudulently, such as in double-voted.
Another reported problem in LA County is many people who had re-registered in the Republican Party in order to vote in their primary, were still listed on the precinct voter rolls with their previous party.
They had to file provisional ballots in order to vote for their candidate of choice which likely, will never be counted.
Steve
Thanks for clearing my confusion up, Linda. You hear so much from so many different sources these days it’s incredibly hard to know who is telling the truth, who is accurate and whether or not what they’re saying even applies to you.
You’re right when you say it’s very confusing and very messy. I’d go further and say it’s intentionally so.
confabulator,
Oh, I know that California is supposed to go to all paper but with McCormack and her ilk fighting it, I bet one of their “solutions” to the bubble mess (That she helped create) are DRE’s. That they use this mess to keep pushing for paperless voting.
You would think if McCormack wanted Logan to get the job, she would have not helped create the “bubble” mess.
I hope she has no influence with the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors after this.
Any election integrity people out there with the credentials for this job? Most of them would be more versed in law, procedure, and hardware now than any Election Center trained candidate.
Prior election experience might be useful but I think ability to organize, think ahead, and hire the right people is more important.
Badger #39
I absolutely agree with you: Election Integrity folks should apply for the position of Registrar/Recorder for Los Angeles County. Folks have strong credentials and strong opinions on how things should work. They should put it all to good use and run elections for the largest elections jurisdiction in the US. 4 million registered voters, around 5,000 polling places. It’s gonna pay somewhere around $175,000 to $200,000. Get the job, get to work, and show ’em what you can do.
So do any of you Californian’s know if they have gotten through all the cross checking on the provisonal ballots, figured out the intent of all the voters and summed up the delegates for a final count?
Jean #41
California law requires the counties to complete their final “Official Canvass” and issue a Statement of Vote within 28 days following the election, which looks to be March 4.
The final statement of vote results are, by law, presumed to be correct. If someone challenges the election results in court, the burden is on the challenger to provide evidence strong enough to convince a court to overturn the election results.
So, while anyone is free to say to the Registrar, “prove that your vote count is correct,” the court will say to a challenger, “provide convincing evidence that the vote count is not correct.” While one may not like it, that’s the rule of law in California.
Confabulator #42’s comment underscores that citizens/voters really need to become involved in the process, and then approach their ROVs as allies in an effort to provide productive input re making the process better. This is in contrast to approaching their ROVs as accusers.
You don’t have to have a lot of “extra” time in order to become involved. To be a poll worker in my county, all you have to do is attend one 3 to 4 hour training, which can be on a Saturday or not (the ROV is very accommodating), and work election day all day long. That is one day out of your regular life.
I would NOT characterize the work as “fun.” It is SATISFYING, which, in our culture, is vastly underrated. Work that is SATISFYING provides us with a sense of accomplishment, of participation, and of meaning. It makes us a part of a larger picture. Please become involved in your local process.
Not everyone who does this is “elderly,” or retired, with nothing else to do. And in defense of the “elderly,” my 4-member team has two women who are at least in their 70s and possibly in their 80s. They are BOTH very sharp, very clear about procedures, and very quick to get the job done, even after the polls close and we’ve been working since 6 a.m. Our society is so mistaken about our expectations for our so-called senior citizens.
Lecture over. You may all go home now.
From all that I’ve read about electronic voting machines, and now that I know even Ink-a-Vote or Mark-a-Vote tabulations can be hacked, I am convinced that we need to go totally simple and straightforward.
1) Vote in Private, Count in Public. This means citizen observers representing all major parties should be involved in all counting, and press and media representatives should be watching for any monkey business.
2) No machines, only Hand Counted Paper Ballots.
If machines are involved in any way, there must still be paper ballots, and those ballots must take priority over machine counts. There must be stringent requirements for spot audits of machine counts (count by hand to make sure machine counts are correct) in statistically sufficient numbers to make sure that any abnormalities are caught. If you read what some statisticians estimate, this means more than one percent audits, it means at least five percent, and randomly done. There must also be exit polls in statistically significant numbers to make sure any abnomalities are caught. Then, if hand audits do not match machine counts, or exit polls do not reflect machine counts, there must be more hand-count audits, and if necessary, paper ballots will allow for a complete hand count. That’s how we did it in the old days, and it works. It will irritate the TV news producers that they can’t call the election the same night votes are cast, because it may take a day or two to finish counting. They’ll just have to get over it.