Sacramento Bee blasts the "Double Bubble Trouble" and Dean Logan
| By Lucas O'Connor, Courage Campaign - Feb 8, 2008 8:20:56 AM PT |
| Also listed in: Courage Campaign Staff |
The Sacramento Bee's editorial board weighed in today on the Double Bubble trouble in Los Angeles County. The editorial blasts Dean Logan and laments that with an election that is inspiring so much excitement among voters, California might ultimately squander that increased participation. It also reminds readers of the relative scale of this disenfranchisement:
The response thatwe have received at the Courage Campaign has been tremendous. Voters from throughout Los Angeles have shared their Super Tuesday experiences with us, and many more have already signed our petition insisting on a full count of all votes cast in the primary. This stretches beyond any particular candidate or ultimately any particular party. It's fundamentally about whether elections will be fair and votes will be counted.
Sign the petition today and if you feel you may have been caught up by a double bubble ballot on Tuesday, tell us what you experienced at the polls.
The scale of disenfranchisement is huge - 94,500 of 189,000 decline-to-state votes. That's half of the nonpartisan ballots. By comparison, in the infamous Florida "butterfly ballot" debacle in the 2000 presidential election, 19,120 Palm Beach County ballots went uncounted because of the bad ballot design.
Worse, acting Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters Dean Logan told county supervisors that the county had used the same "double bubble" design in 2004 and 2006. In those elections, only 40 percent of the county's decline-to-state voters' ballots were counted. It is outrageous that the county knew of this massive disenfranchisement and did not make changes. This calls for an investigation.
The response thatwe have received at the Courage Campaign has been tremendous. Voters from throughout Los Angeles have shared their Super Tuesday experiences with us, and many more have already signed our petition insisting on a full count of all votes cast in the primary. This stretches beyond any particular candidate or ultimately any particular party. It's fundamentally about whether elections will be fair and votes will be counted.
Sign the petition today and if you feel you may have been caught up by a double bubble ballot on Tuesday, tell us what you experienced at the polls.
Comments are closed for this post.
As the Sacramento Bee notes, the 'double bubble' was present on the ballot in 2004 and 2006 (it was also there in 2002). That is, it was introduced during the time that Connie McCormack was County Registrar, not during Dean Logan's brief tenure.
Even if Loagn had been, or is, inclined to make the necessary changes, trying to do so between December 11th and February 5th would have been a fool's errand.
Let's judge Logan on what he does now, not on the problems he inherited.
Which is more important, the primary for non-democrats, or the general election?
I'll give you a hint, its the later.
"It is not enough to write so that you are undestood; you must write so that you can not be mis-understood"
Figuring out why the error occurred was important to me. I was a poll worker. So, here's
why I think why we screwed up....
Election Guide & Checklist booklet used on the voting day, and give to every trained pollster in class and listed as reference with the supplies and samples.
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> Page 20 ;" If NP "Ask do you wish AI/DEM, etc
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"DEMONSTRATE INKAVOTE RECORDER USING DEMONSTRATOR */EMERGENCY/* */BALLOT/*,THEN ISSUE */CORRECT PARTY BALLOT/*, DIRECT VOTER TO BOOTH.
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> PAGE 22 Ask all NP ........if they wish to vote....AI or Dem .cross out the NP in the party column and enter voters party choice.
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The "*correct party ballot*" was the problem as it was "*correct*"according to interpreting and assumption of the reader.
> The second major problem is that each document may have been written by different groups with no Program Manager of Quality Assurance
Manger to verify that the documents communicated from the same document, page or instructions.
I have also been told that the document in the Calif. Voter Regristration office was different from the on we used.
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> Maureen R. Blatt
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