49,500 Independent Votes Won't Count in CA Primary -confusing ballot design

[babylonsister]

Some independent votes won't count in L.A. County

An estimated 49,500 primary nonpartisan ballots are marked wrong, due to design and poll instruction problems.
By Richard C. Paddock, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 12, 2008

An estimated 49,500 votes were cast incorrectly in Los Angeles County by nonpartisan voters in the presidential primaries and cannot be counted because the voters' intentions are unclear, acting Registrar Dean Logan said Monday.

The mismarked ballots were the result of a confusing ballot design and poor education of poll workers and the public, Logan said. That left many decline-to-state voters unaware of the need to fill in a bubble indicating whether they were voting in the Democratic Party or American Independent Party primary.

The Republican Party did not allow nonpartisans to vote in its primary.

"Unfortunately we are not in a position to count those votes because of the limitations of the system and the ballot layout itself," Logan said.

"We want voters to know that we hear loud and clear that this ballot layout is confusing and we need to identify a less confusing method for crossover voting for future primaries."

more...

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-vote12feb12,0,6970893.story

[rinsd]

1. Christ you would have thought CA would learn after the Donna Frye fiasco.

[EFerrari]

2. Another election trainwreck.

Thanks for posting this, babylonsister.

[marlakay]

3. I have two kids who are independents

but not decline to state independents that were told they couldn't vote for Obama. I don't know about my step daughter but my daughter filled out the form to be decline to state for next time. It was very confusing and I have been on these blogs for 4 yrs and didn't know about it or would have told her.

[marlakay]

4. I have two kids who are independents

repeat sorry

[Barack_America]

5. What is unclear about a vote for either "Obama" or "Clinton"?

I don't get it. If they voted for a Democrat, they obviously intended to vote in the Democratic primary. And the same for Republicans and Independents.

Jesus, the guy even admits that POLL WORKERS were uninformed about the ballot design. How the hell can the voters be blamed for that?

I hope that independents in LA raise hell about this. It's absolutely ridiculous.

(but thanks for posting it!)

[marlakay]

6. I have two kids who are independents

sorry about the repeat my computer has gone bonkers!!

[AtomicKitten]

7. Whatever happened to the ballots campaign workers/Clinton supporters took home unsecured overnight?

[Barack_America]

10. That was in NM, but I haven't heard what happened to them....n/t

[AtomicKitten]

15. Oh, yeah, that's right. I haven't heard the disposition of that yet either.

[HeraldSquare212]

8. Primaries are so much better than caucuses, because everyone gets to vote.....or not. nt

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

9. How fucking hard is a checkbox next to a name?

[Barack_America]

12. It's not, as long as somebody has explained to you what that box is for...

...My guess is that a lot of people might've thought it was for declaring which party you're in. And considering these people are Independents and not Democrats, they didn't fill it in.

The fact that many poll workers apparently didn't understand the ballot themselves is just inexcusable.

[babylonsister]

19. That graphic cracks me up! nt

[napi21]

11. WHY would it matter what Party the voter was? It seems to me

that if you voted for a Dem candidate, you were voting in the Dem. primary, if you voted for a Pub, you were voting in the Pub primary, and I assume there were Ind. candidate(s) that would also indicate your primary choice. What am I missing???? I don't understand the need for the check box in the first place!

[Barack_America]

14. You're not missing anything.

It should've been as simple as that. Determination of whether an Independent can vote in either primary should happen at registration, before they're handed their ballot. There should be Democratic, Republican and Independent ballots. It's the only way to ensure that people won't vote in primaries they're not allowed to.

I don't see at all the point of this second primary designation step. Ludicrous.

[suston96]

13. That is bad news but maybe it will force attention on standardized federal elections and....

....a national elimination round (primary) and the like. Something has to be done.

[Barack_America]

16. Absolutely. Or at least a ban on changing ballots every election.

Pick a design, educate your poll workers and STICK WITH IT!

It shouldn't be this difficult.

[southern_dem]

17. In other words

"the machine won't count it, so we won't either".

[babylonsister]

18. .