More election irregularity news

By: Terry85
Published On: 3/6/2008 1:55:06 PM

Okay, this is really getting rather old! Primary after primary so far this election year we've seen one thing remain constant: Democrats coming out to vote in droves and localities subsequently running out of ballots. Specifically Democratic ballots. I for one am sick of it. You'd think after this was the dominating story in the first 20 damn states to hold an election this year that states following on later dates would see to it that enough ballots were on hand. It continues to happen, though. It happened in Virginia on February 12 (most notably in Chesterfield county), it happened in Texas and Ohio, and I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that Democratic voters (specifically some minorities) will continue to be disenfranchised throughout the primary season and in to the general election.
More than 20 speakers took turns beating up on Chesterfield County election officials for three hours today at a State Board of Elections meeting at the General Assembly Building.

Chesterfield's Electoral Board Members and its registrar declined an opportunity to speak at the start of the 10 a.m. meeting and listened until 1 p.m. as they were criticized for bungling the Feb. 12 primary election.

Some speakers, including two from the NAACP and two from the Democratic Party, said a shortage of Democratic ballots at nine polling places and long lines throughout the county led to disenfranchised voters, most of whom were minorities.

"I've looked at the precincts that have had problems in terms of long lines and running out of ballots -- they are disproportionately comprised of black voters. This is an embarrassment," said David S. Turetsky, a Washington attorney who served as an observer on primary day for the Democratic Party.

He accused Registrar Lawrence C. Haake III of ignoring problems.

"It was denial, it was arrogance and it was hubris," Turetsky said.

This is completely unacceptable. It's not as if Virginia was the first state to vote this primary season. It's not as if we didn't know that Democrats have been coming out in droves and it might be a good idea to keep some extra ballots on hand. Democrats and Republicans alike ought to be outraged that this sort of thing continues to happen in election after election and state after state.

Comments



Elections are Fundamental (Evan M - 3/7/2008 11:31:15 AM)
Virginia really needs to be ready to deal with huge turnouts. I wonder if the Governor and Assembly can put some mandates in place so that the places with highest turnout in the primaries get the most machines in the General?


Localities own the machines, not the state. (Randy Klear - 3/7/2008 1:04:20 PM)
And as far as I know, most of them make good faith efforts to project turnout and have machines (and ballots; mustn't forget that paper trail) allocated to match the voters. The turnout Obama has been generating, particularly in heavily African-American precincts, has been fooling people across the country. It's far out of line with historical patterns for Democratic primary turnout.

Turnout in November won't track the primary directly, anyway. Republicans and independents will turn out more according to their normal pattern. The primary turnout should be factored in, but shouldn't drive the process completely.

Keep in mind also that most electoral boards operate under pretty tight budgets. One can only hope the GA puts enough money in the budget bill to cover this November.

And I don't know this for sure, but since Virginia is a Voting Rights Act state, I suspect the federal DoJ may have guidelines on this that apply here.

None of this excuses Haake; from what I understand, he's pretty transparently Republican.