Why Obama Didn't Take California
Or more of it, at least.
I heard many Los Angelenos who typically don't vote in the primaries say they were voting in this one -- to do as I did: to vote against Hillary.
I'm an independent (actually, a fiscal conservative, secular govermentist, libertarian/personal responsibilitarian), but after my deadline, I trotted my ass over to the polling place and got a ballot for an Independent voting as a Democrat. I don't particularly identify as a Democrat, but, first and foremost, I don't vote for people who believe Adam and Eve saddled up the dinosaurs, and who'd like to see bits from the Bible dropped into the Constitution.
The ballot was very confusing -- easy to miss the fact that you actually had to ink in two spots to vote for president: One to say you were voting for a presidential candidate from a particular party, and the second to actually vote for the candidate. If you missed filling the first bubble, your vote in the second bubble, for the candidate, didn't count,
Now, I'm wondering exactly how many of those not counted votes there were. The AP's Don Thompson wrote:
Concern over the county's so-called double-bubble ballot arose on Election Day, when the Courage Campaign, a Beverly Hills-based voting rights group, challenged the balloting process for independents.The group has been inundated with complaints from independent voters who said they were not told to fill in the second bubble and fear their votes might not be counted, chairman Rick Jacobs said.
"People took the trouble to vote and they deserve to have their votes counted," he said Thursday.
He has asked the Los Angeles County Registrars Office for a full review of the ballots where the presidential race was rejected because the extra bubble was not filled in. There are about 94,500 such ballots.
Any review would not change the outcome of the race - Clinton beat Obama by 396,168 votes statewide and 162,745 in Los Angeles County. But it could affect the allocation of delegates, which is done on a proportional basis by congressional district.
About 190,000 ballots were cast by decline-to-state voters in Los Angeles County. About half of those voters correctly filled in the extra bubble.
County elections officials will now sample 1 percent of the flawed ballots to see how many were supposed to be counted in the Democratic or American Independent presidential primaries.
If the number is significant, there may be a way to count some of those flawed ballots, said Eileen Shea, a spokeswoman for the county elections office.
"We take it very seriously," she said.
Yeah, right. Next time, take it seriously before hundreds of thousands of people vote.
This doesn't surprise me a bit Amy. I wasn't able to vote in the CA primary because someone had changed my voting information to "Inactive, No Party Preference". I threw a fit because I had never missed an election and always was republican affiliated. They let me fill out a provisional ballot but it won't count because they only way they will consider it is if it matches your previous voting record, but since they had me as "Inactive", I have no voting record. The next day, I was listening to John and Roger Hedgecock, a local talk radio show and found out that thousands of people just in San Diego were calling in complaining of the same thing, and evidently, it was a problem in other places in the state. The other two major problems I heard about was your ‘Double Bubble’ which was mainly in LA. But there was another one, In San Diego, if you asked for an absentee ballot for the primary, for the first time, you had to indicate which side you were voting for. Many many people did not know that. As a result, they got absentee ballots with only the propositions on them and no candidates! It had to be a contributing factor as to why the turnout was so much lower than expected because people who got shafted were not counted. There are two groups doing investigations now and they are having problems getting information that should be publicly available from the registrar of voters. Both of those groups have contacted me and interviewed me already. They were talking in the tens of thousands of people affected, maybe over six figures. Something went way wrong here and if you believe in Occam’s razor, it wasn’t all co-incidence.
Bikerken at February 11, 2008 12:37 AM
Just on the face of it Amy, in your whole life, have you ever had to fill in two bubbles to make one vote? I can see how this really confused a lot of people.
Bikerken at February 11, 2008 12:40 AM
So you thought Florida was an issue, huh? I bet the propositions look like they came out of the Klingon-English dictionary, too.
Let's hear more about this "inactive" thing. That's the best way I've heard of throwing a Presidential election. Who did it?
Radwaste at February 11, 2008 2:43 AM
But there was another one, In San Diego, if you asked for an absentee ballot for the primary, for the first time, you had to indicate which side you were voting for.
I typically vote by absentee ballot, and I wouldn't have known to do that. I only knew at the polling place because they told me I had to pick "Independent voting for Democrat."
And yes, let's hear more about this "inactive" thing.
And no, Bikerken, never had to do this. They told me at the polling place, I think, or I read it on the ballot. Can't remember which. A friend said she didn't fill it out, which means her vote didn't count. And she's no dummy, either.
Amy Alkon at February 11, 2008 5:42 AM
I'm not sure if this will help anyone here, but I believe the only party primaries that opened up their elections to independents and decline to state voters for the February 5th election were the Democratic Parties and the American Independent Parties (at least this was written on my voter information guide). It looks like the Republican Party did not offer that option for said election but will offer it for the June 3 election.
As to the statements made about the two bubbles, I wonder what sorts of problems will come up when (if) the country manages to implement a computerized voting system.
Angela at February 11, 2008 9:47 AM
I wonder which candidate had the most supporters who don't read the instructions?
I acknowledge the ballot being poorly designed, but admit it. You'd really like to know.
MarkD at February 11, 2008 10:00 AM
Wouldn't you think CNN would make this a hot story? Yet it's not there!
Radwaste at February 11, 2008 3:02 PM
Angela- I vote on one of those video game machines. I am aware of some of the concerns surrounding them but at the user interface level they are an improvement. On each screen you have 1 choice: yes no or hit the box next to a candidate's name (and these boxes aren't small, maybe 2x2). With a computer you would not have been able to continue to the vote against Hillary screen without first clicking on a party affilitation.
The most confusing part of the process is when you register at the polling location they hand you a pencil with an eraser on each end. The first time around I thought it was a clever joke, how am I supposed to mark a ballot with this?
I do think that some of my comfort with the computerized voting is because I am young. But really these things are easier to use than an ATM. I'm sure there are some older folks out there who are baffled by ATMs too. But how much of my sympathy do they deserve? And for how much longer?
smurfy at February 11, 2008 3:18 PM
I sent this blog item to Jill Stewart, the news editor at the LA Weekly, and she said one of their writers had the same experience and wrote a piece on it. I think this is it:
http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/bubblegate-ballot-votes-they-didnt-count-on/18300/
Amy Alkon at February 11, 2008 3:29 PM
Rad, when you are "Inactive" on the voter registry, it means that you haven't been voting although you are registered. The reason that is significant is that those voters who had to fill out a provisional ballot would have their votes counted if it were determined by their voting record that they were in fact, straight party voters. If someone had got into the database of voters and changed a bunch of party affiliations to "No Preference", it would mean those people could not vote in the primary. Those people who protest their status and say, like I did, "This is bullshit, I've been voting as a declared republican" can fill out a provisional ballot. If the state pulls up your voting record, and it indeed shows you have voted republican in the past, then they would allow your primary vote, but if your voting record shows inactive, it means your voting record is blank, so they will not count your ballot. In other words, you had to change both parts of my registration to deny me the vote, the party preference and the voting record, and that's what they did, with thousands of people.
Bikerken at February 11, 2008 4:53 PM
Smurfy, I actually like the computerized voting system and did not intend to make it seem like I thought it would be a bad idea. I think it would really help facilitate the voting process and make everything a lot easier.
That said, I do think there would be a lot of problems with people adjusting to using them. With all the problems people seem to have with the process now, it's a wonder anyone trusts the system.
Angela at February 13, 2008 11:33 AM
The current electronic voting machines have 2 problems.
1 They are insecure.
2 They don't provide any way of ensuring that the way you voted is how it recorded the vote.
This combination means that someone can tamper with the machine, change a bunch of votes, and no one can prove that it happened.
If the machine printed out a hardcopy of the vote and you dropped that into a voting box. The contents of that box could be checked if there was a request for a recount.
William at February 15, 2008 3:53 PM
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