Floridohiofornia

First came the 2000 Florida elections that showed our Democracy to be a total sham. Thousands of voters illegally purged from voter rolls, ballots tossed because of tiny, hanging pieces of paper and ballots that confused voters. Then came Ohio in 2004, with voter intimidation, few polling stations and voting machines in black communities and a sham recount that led to the conviction of elections workers. Now, my state, California, has stepped forward as an example of how to destroy a Democracy.

Yesterday, I went to the polls armed, after studying the propositions for an hour and making my decisions. Mrs. FearTheReaper had advised me the wait was long and the workers were morons, so I was prepared for the worst. But, there was no line when I arrived, mostly because the polling place had changed. Then I remembered it had changed in November and I went to the new polling location. As I walked in, I looked at the arrows and balloons and red, white and blue signs informing me I was at a polling location, which was what I was hoping for. Only, it was not my polling location. My location was now further from my house, naturally.

So, I hoofed it a couple more blocks up the street and finally arrived at my polling location, which now crammed three precincts into one small place. Inside were two massive lines and a table with no line. Luckily, the people from my neighborhood don’t care about voting. I believed at the time I was registered as an Independent, but have since learned I am considered a DTS, Decline to State. The young woman behind the desk asked me if I would like to vote Independent or Democratic today. I responded, “Democratic.”

She then handed me a ballot, which had large, red lettering on top that read. “Democratic Party Ticket.” Then a mentally handicapped gentleman asked me my name and had me sign the register. I then stepped into the nearest booth and attempted to vote. But when I slid the ballot in the instruction book, I noticed a group of horrible names, like Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Mitt Romney. I then noticed a sign on the booth, about as high as my balls, which said, “REP.” Ha. I was in a Republican booth. What the fuck? I’m not The Cooler King. I’m a reasonable human being. That is just the height the sign should be, so no one will see it. Three other people made the same mistake while I was there.

So, I went into the “DEM” booth, placed my Democratic ballot into the book and went to work. First up, it said, “Democratic Party,” then directly below was a giant PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Below were the Democratic candidates. I selected Barack Obama and went on to the rest of the ballot.

When I was done, I went up to another mentally handicapped man and gave him the ballot. He put it in the scanner as I watched the screen. The scanner said my ballot was accepted and off I went. Sound good?

It wasn’t. My vote for Obama did not count. Turns out, that to vote on my Democratic Ballot, I actually had to fill in a bubble that confirmed that I wanted to vote on the ballot I had just asked for. You know, just in case I didn’t know what I was doing. Turns out there was also another party listed up top, above “Democratic Party,” the “American Independent Party.” And that party's name was conveniently in smaller, thinner font, so Democratic Party would look like a title. Oh, and it turns out when the girl at the desk asked me if I wanted to vote Independent of Democratic, she was actually referring to the American Independent Party. I actually thought she meant Independent, because, I’m a fucking Independent. No, wait, I’m not. I’m a Decline to State. But the Decline to State booth was actually labeled “Independent.” Sound pretty clear?

When I turned my ballot over to the mentally handicapped guy and he put it through the scanner, it should have read “Error.” But it didn’t. It just didn’t register my vote for president. Just dropped it. As if it didn’t happen. Because after asking for a Democratic ballot and getting one that said, “Democratic Ticket” in bright, red letters, I should have still filled in a bubble to make it a Democratic Ticket, because voting should be filled with redundancy.

This man summed it up nicely on an LA Times message board.

So, despite the fact that I told the pollster that I wanted to vote Democratic, the fact that I was given a Democratic ballot, was shown to a Democratic voting booth, and voted for a Democratic candidate, my vote will not be counted because I did not notice that at the top of the Presidential page I had to AGAIN check that I wanted to vote Democratic.

Did I fuck up? Yep. Should I have been put into a position to fuck up? Fuck no. Perhaps I didn’t do it because it made no sense why it would be necessary, on a Democratic ballot, to note that I’m voting Democratic. I have since talked to several other friends, all college educated, smart people, who made the same mistake. All voted for Obama. And this is where it gets sticky. Independent voters lean heavily toward Obama, so this problem greatly affected his vote count. People have been complaining since late Tuesday to the Secretary of State, the District Attorney, the City Council and any other elected official who will listen. There are 776,000 DTS voters in LA County. Do the math.

LA County is the largest county in the nation. It's larger than nearly two-thirds of the states in the country. There are more than enough votes in this county alone to flip any particular state election.



Sadly, this wasn’t the only problem in California. There were many others. And all just happened to favor Hillary.

Across the state, many voters were dropped off voter rolls. MANY. For no apparent reason. It happened to SG members.

Had to hit up three fucking precincts, as I wasn't on any of the damn ballots despite living at my current location for a couple years.

The exact same thing happened to me this morning, even though I've lived at the same address for 6 years and voted several times here. I finally had to fill out one of those pink provisional ballots. I'm totally afraid my vote won't count.

Those are very common stories on message boards, on blogs, and in conversations all over California today. This vote was a class A clusterfuck.

I wasn't even at the roster at my polling place; despite having registered to vote three months ago. Had to cast a provisional ballot, which I fully expect will not be counted. Ditto with my three roommates. We all wanted Obama.

I live in LA and am a registered Democrat but at my polling place they had me listed as a Non-Partisan and would only give me that ballot, not the democratic one. So now I don't know if my vote will count.

The story was reported in newspapers.

Will Hammond, 35, who lives in the Mission District, said that he went to three polling places and took more than an hour to cast his vote because poll workers at two precincts could not find any record of him.

And caught on film.



One problem directly relates to the other. Here is a voter describing the nightmare scenario she experienced.

Mistake #1) Even though I had changed my party affiliation to Democrat well before the January 22nd deadline my precinct had me on the roster as a "Decline-To-State" voter.

Mistake #2) When I asked for a Democratic Ballot I was given a Non-Partisan Ballot.

Mistake #3) NO ONE MENTIONED MARKING THE DEMOCRATIC BUBBLE.

Mistake #4) I was instructed to vote in the "Independent Party Booth" as opposed to the "Democratic Booth".

Mistake #5) When I went back to complain I was told by a poll worker that "it was only one vote".

Knock ‘em off the voter registration, and then drop their votes off the ballot. Now you know how Hillary Clinton kicked the shit out of Barack Obama here in California. But is that all? Fuck no, it’s not!

In many precincts across the state, polling stations ran out of ballots. In America. During an election. In the year 2008.

Twenty percent of California voters are registered as DTS. That is a lot of people and because this was the first important election we have had in 20 years, we came out to vote and to vote in the Democratic election. Apparently the people running our election were caught off guard. By people voting.

Fourteen precincts in Alameda County ran out of ballots and were kept open as late as 10 p.m. Tuesday night as a result of "unprecedented turnout beyond our wildest dreams," said Guy Ashley, a spokesman for the Alameda County registrar of voters.

In Santa Clara County, voter turnout was brisk Tuesday at the Sunnyvale Elks Lodge, where poll workers by 6 p.m. had run out of ballots in Spanish and English for the Democratic primary, as well as provisional ballots.

Oops. Your bad. No big deal, we’re just picking a president to run our country. Certainly no time to plan for the BEST CASE SCENARIO. Good time to skim and save a few bucks. Definitely don’t want to make sure that everyone registered might actually get the chance to vote.

Some poll workers made quick judgments.

By 7 p.m., Santa Clara County poll workers began using "sample ballots" taken from the primary election pamphlet to provide to the droves of Democratic voters. As a last resort, Regalado pointed to the Sunnyvale polling station's one electronic touch-screen voting machine.

"Once we're done with all the paper, we're using the machine - the one thing they didn't want us to do," he said.

Yeah, you know why they don’t want you to? Because the electronic voting machines were decertified by the Secretary of State. On and on, across the state, voters ran into the same problems.

In Yolo County, a Woodland polling place ran out of ballots, and West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon said two polling places in his city ran short as well, sending residents from one place to another in an attempt to cast their vote.

Julie Foster, 33, said she arrived at Woodland Community College at 6:30 p.m. She said poll workers erroneously told her she could not use a sample ballot to cast her vote.

"I probably saw 10 people leave the voting place without voting," she said.

In Contra Costa County, at least 20 precincts ran out of Democratic ballots, said Clerk-Recorder Steve Weir.

On and on.

In Santa Clara County, the trend resulted in a mad rush to photocopy and distribute about 6,000 ballots, while in Alameda County some polls stayed open two hours late.

Some precincts in Santa Clara County used their Chinese- or Tagalog-language ballots - which were printed in part in English - before resorting to the photocopied versions. Some poll workers encouraged voters to use the one touch-screen machine that was allowed in each precinct.

And to put a cherry on top of the royal fuck up, many DTS voters were simply denied Democratic ballots by poll workers.

Some poll workers declined to give Democratic Party ballots to independent voters, believing it was against party rules.

Stephens said she later called county elections officials and complained.

“She told me, 'We've had so many complaints about that today,' ” said Stephens, a human resources manager.

Maybe you guys should have actually told the fucking rules to the poll workers ahead of time. Just a tip.

Thankfully, our media is all over the story.

Few election glitches, except for independents

Right. Or the LA Times could have written the story this way:

Few election glitches, except for 20% of voters.

Or this way:

Few election glitches, except with 776,000 LA voters

The media is ignoring a massive story. It is only being reported in local newspapers and on local stations, as if it is a local story.

Voters in San Diego County also complained about being registered in the wrong party, missing absentee ballots for a group of voters in Tierrasanta, a shortage of Democratic ballots at college campuses, and a lack of privacy. Some poll workers were seen opening ballots and looking at the selections before placing them in secure ballot boxes.

If anyone says Hillary Clinton won California, there is only appropriate response: “We’ll never know.” Why do I say we’ll never know? Because the LA County Acting Registrar of Voters is a wonderful gentleman named Dean Logan.

Those of you living in Washington state will know Dean Logan from the 2004 governor election fiasco between Republican Gov. Elect Dino Rossi and Democrat Christine Gregoire. Logan did a fine job.

The Democratic Party sued Logan and the election division shortly after the election for refusing to release a list of names of people whose ballots were disqualified. The party won that suit and was able to find more votes for Gregoire.

Logan also was named in the Democrats' suit to the state Supreme Court, dismissed this week, where the party alleged he and other auditors chose "expediency over accuracy and equality" in counting votes in the governor's race.

He ran a well-oiled machine in Washington.

Yesterday, the county canvassing board voted to allow signature verification on 573 ballots that officials said had been improperly rejected. The problem was discovered Sunday, when King County Council Chairman Larry Phillips saw his name on the list of disqualified ballots.

On the heels of that embarrassment, county election workers Tuesday found 22 ballots left sitting in counting machines.

And there was no reason to not give Logan the LA job.

Logan does not have a college degree, has only had two summer programs worth of training to be a registrar of voters and before coming to LA County had only 3 years of experience as a registrar / county clerk. He does not appear to be qualified for the job of Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder.

The man knows what he is doing.

In the 2004 primary and presidential elections Logan used uncertified software to count absentee ballots and stopped the use of proper and long used record-keeping practices for the absentee ballots and envelopes, thus, the officials did not count all the ballots and did not reconcile the total ballots received with the ones counted and rejected.

Logan is honest.

Bev Harris questioned Logan on TV about the 3 hours of deleted audit log of the main tabulator from election night in 2004. He denied that the data was deleted but claimed that no activity occurred during that time. Harris responded that she had 5 update-reports from about every half hour, signed by him in ink, during the time when the audit log had no data and he said there was no activity.

On TV Logan claimed that no modems were connected to tabulator on election night, yet Bev Harris saw 24 hookups to a location where modem data was received. Harris also showed the trouble and transmission reports from poll workers who had trouble sending their data via modem.

He is trustworthy.

Logan fired Nicole Way, the long time absentee ballot supervisor for repeatedly telling him that the numbers coming from the new counting software were not right. He forced her to sign the reports about the absentee ballots against her will and then used her as a scapegoat for the problems of the handling of these ballots discovered in two reviews. She won a mediation hearing and was reinstated.

And dude clearly knows how to run an office.

In two separate reviews of the 2004 election and Logan’s performance as Registrar, employees described the department existing a constant state of crisis, that Logan had poor managerial skills, that morale was low because he hired inappropriate and unqualified staff.

Welcome to California, formerly Ohio, formerly Florida. Don’t let anyone tell you Clinton won California.

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