ELECTION IRREGULARITIES: Louisiana Democrats Disenfranchised When Party Registration Switched

The presidential campaign of Barack Obama has issued a statement regarding reports of voter-registration irregularities in Louisiana that allegedly led to the denial of the vote to hundreds of people. The Obama campaign website published the following:

The Obama campaign submitted an urgent request for assistance to the Secretary of State’s Division of Elections today, after receiving widespread reports from Democrats across Louisiana who reported that they were not allowed to vote because their party affiliation had been switched. Hundreds of Louisiana democrats went to the polls to vote in today’s presidential primary and found that they were now on registration lists as Independent or Unaffiliated voters.

The outcome of the voting in Louisiana appears to be a win for the Illinois senator, but his campaign has been vehement in pushing for greater access to the polls for would-be voters, and took issue with the manner in which voters' party registration was allegedly switched without their knowledge.

The investigative blogsite, Bradblog, has published this summary of a wave of irregularities in the primaries held in recent days:

Georgia: Widespread bottlenecks for voters as problems occur with Diebold's new e-pollbook system and the state's new Photo ID restrictions. Voters waited in line for up to two hours in some places.

New Mexico: 17,000 (11%) forced to vote on provisional ballots in Democratic Caucus as previously registered Democrats find they are no longer on voter rolls recently privatized by voting machine company ES&S.

Arizona: We've begun receiving reports from voters and local officials of polling places where some 40% of voters were forced to vote on provisionals, after state registration system outsourced to ES&S. [UPDATE: One such report is now published here, from a poll worker who reports that of 1291 ballots cast at her polling place, 540 --- some 41% --- were forced to vote provisionally.]

California: Various reports of voters registered for one party to find they were switched to another, or not registered at all. Confusion about how to handle non-partisan voters in Los Angeles County leads to nearly 100,000 votes which may not be counted properly.

Problems with electronic voter-registration records, with the management of these systems by private contractors, and especially where non-verifiable touchscreen machines have been used —leaving no physical record of voter intent, only a potentially (and in many cases to date proven to be) flawed electronic "tally"— are occurring in a disturbingly high number of places, and irregularities are already threatening to undermine the overall integrity of the 2008 election process across the United States.

• Brad Friedman: "Obama Camp Sends 'Urgent Request for Assistance' to Louisiana SoS as Voters Find Party Registration Switched"
• VotersUnite.org: "A non-partisan national grassroots resource for fair and accurate elections"
• Freedom's Phoenix: "To Arizona Voters & Ron Paul supporters... a story from inside the Election Process by Jeneen Zucker"

ELECTION IRREGULARITIES: Washington GOP Primary Called with 242 Vote Margin at Just 87% of Count

The presidential campaign of Mike Huckabee is "exploring all available legal options regarding the dubious final results for the state of Washington State Republican precinct caucuses". The state's Republican party halted the count at 87% of votes counted, a margin of just 242 votes separating John McCain from Mike Huckabee, and a reported 12,000 votes tallied to that point. Ron Paul was just 427 points behind Huckabee, in third place, when the counting was stopped.

The state Republican party then issued a press release around 2:30 am declaring John McCain the winner of the primary, despite not completing the vote count. At least 1,500 votes were expected uncounted when the state was called for McCain by the party, raising serious issues about the caucus organizers' adherence to the "intent of the voter" principle. The Huckabee statement goes on to declare that "more than one in eight Evergreen State Republicans have been disenfranchised by the actions of their own party."

• Brad Friedman: "Huckabee 'Not Ready to Concede', 'Looking at Some Legal Options' in 'Dubious' Washington State GOP Caucus"
• Huckabee Campaign: "Mike Huckabee's Presidential Campaign Issues Statement On Dubious Washington State GOP Caucuses"

SUPER TUESDAY PRIMARIES: New Mexico Faces Questions of Process Integrity in Democratic Caucus

Reports from New Mexico are demonstrating a range of problems that faced voters during the Super Tuesday "nationwide primary" Democratic party caucuses there. The New Mexico caucus system is run by the party itself, and involves actual paper ballots, cast by each individual voting. But the list of voters eligible to participate is not maintained by the party itself or by the state, but instead by ES&S, an electronic voting-machine manufacturer.

Whether due to this layered management of the voter registration rolls or not, on the day of the caucus, some 17,000 New Mexicans were required to cast provisional ballots because despite being properly registered, their names did not appear on caucus attendee lists, and their official ballots were not provided.

In an astonishing parallel to this voter access glitch, it has been reported that at least three ballot boxes, full of uncounted ballots, were taken home and kept overnight by a county chairwoman for the Democratic party. The margin separating Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the voting, as this news emerged, was just 217 votes out of 136,000 cast (a difference of just 0.16%). The ballot boxes, which may now be tainted and will likely have to undergo an investigative audit before being counted and added to the totals, could easily contain the votes needed to change the outcome of such a close contest.

While problems with touchscreen voting caused New Mexico to cast aside that option, and to opt for paper instead, it has been reported that a number of precincts saw no paper ballots available and/or a shortage of provisional ballots. Governor Bill Richardson, a would-be presidential candidate in this year's race, has said he is "deeply disturbed by the reports that problems and delays at polling locations may have kept people from voting".

• Brad Friedman: "Party Official Kept Uncounted Ballox Boxes at Home Overnight as 200 Vote Margin Currently Seen in New Mexico's Democratic Caucus"

SUPER TUESDAY PRIMARIES: Balloting Irregularities Reported in Los Angeles County, New Jersey & Georgia

As the most widespread presidential primary vote in US history took place yesterday, across the continent and beyond (American Samoa also voted), there were glitches, confusion and unjustifiable waits in states across the country. Three examples stand out: touchscreen machines failing in New Jersey, a suspiciously confusing ballot in Los Angeles, and multiple irregularities in Georgia, where long waits, questionable ID laws and more failing Diebold machines made voting a serious challenge by any rational standards.

In the case of Georgia, the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) —who won the state convincingly— has requested an investigation into irregularities that may have prevented some from casting votes, including the up to 90-minute waits reported and isolated cases of voters then being directed to alternate polling locations and an alleged campaign of phone calls to elderly voters telling them they could vote by phone (a lie, apparently designed to prevent their voting).

In New Jersey, Governor Jon Corzine was forced to stand idle while his touchscreen voting machine did the same. Two touchscreen machines at the "Hoboken Fire Department Engine Company No. 2 on Washington Street would not work for about 45 minutes as the polls opened", according to a report by Brad Friedman, sourcing the Associated Press. Gov. Corzine was forced to wait at least 45 minutes while the problem was repaired. The votes were non-verifiable electronic votes, and FOX News reported that there were no provisional ballots made available at the polling place.

New Jersey is home to Rep. Rush Holt, a Democrat, who is the leading proponent in Congress for voter-verified paper trails for all touchscreen machines. He has two bills currently pending debate, which would mandate a nationwide voter-verified paper trail standard. Some complain that more appropriate legislation would be to ban all touchscreen machines outright, due to their numerous vulnerabilities to computer error, human error and tampering.

In Los Angeles, perhaps the most serious irregularities occured. On a registration form that precedes the ballot itself, and that requires voters to select their party affiliation or non-partisan affiliation, selecting "Independent" had the effect of registering the voter, likely inadvertently, as a member of the "American Independent" party, making them ineligible to vote in the Democratic primary.

Independent or unaffiliated voters eligible to vote were required to select either "Decline to State" —which grammatically does not mean there is no party affiliation—, or otherwise "DTS" or "Non-partisan", all of which appear unrelated to the interest of an independent voter interested in choosing a Democratic candidate of preference.

Any independent voter who selected Independent (capital "I") and not DTS or the related option, will have no vote counted in the California primary. The Los Angeles city attorney Rocky Delgadillo has requested an inquiry into the problem, which could disenfranchise literally hundreds of thousands of Californians. The specific problem is exacerbated by the fact that there is no logical reason for voters to select the bubble, since they have requested the Democratic ballot and are either officially registered or not with any given party.

Delgadillo issued a statement saying "I urge the Secretary of State and County Registrar 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."

As many as 776,000 voters with no party affiliation were expected to go to the polls in Los Angeles County, a number in itself far higher than most states' overall primary electorate. The mass confusion could certainly cause a huge drop in the number of ballots counted, according to Los Angeles County election rules.



[ You can find more on voter-verified paper trails and the all-votes-count standard at VerifiedVoting.org, which also hosts a map showing which states still use unverifiable paperless touchscreens, and which states require paper trails, manual recounts, and what level of the legislative process pending legislation may be at, at present. ]

• Brad Friedman: "More Details on the 'Double Bubble Trouble' in Los Angeles County"
• Why Tuesday.org: "Double Bubble Trouble (the LA County Ballot Confusion)"
• HuffingtonPost: "California's Butterfly Ballot"
• Ascribe: "Super Tuesday. And Wednesday, and Thursday" [by Tova Andrea Wang, Democracy Fellow at the Century Foundation]
• LA Times: "Glitches are the early front-runner in California"
• Brad Friedman: "Problems (and Confusion) at L.A. County Polls Today"
• SF Chronicle: "Calif. election officials expecting extended vote count"
• SF Chronicle: "Long lines of voters - may be record turnout"
• John Gideon (BB): "NJ Governor Delayed Casting Vote as Voting Machines Inoperable in Hoboken"
• Emily Levy (BB): "Voters Face Long Lines in Georgia as Voter ID Laws and Diebold's Crashing E-Pollbook System Slow Process"