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UPDATE: California Disgrace

By Carmen D. on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008, 11:41 am Comments

The outrage sparked by LA’s “independent” voter fiasco is spreading and that’s good. A number of regional and national news outlets are covering the mess. I’ve been dealing with my frustration and anger by making phone calls and sending emails to a group that is poised to get involved. Here are the people I’ve reached out to/spoken to so far:

Courage Campaign – 310.860.1307 If you are interested in participating in or supporting a legal action to make sure every vote is counted, please email Rick Jacobs directly at rjacobs@couragecampaign.org. I called and emailed and am raring to go.

California Voter Foundation - 916-441-2494 I spoke to a very helpful gentleman named Will. He took my name and contact information and assured me that the Foundation is carefully watching how the situation evolves and would contact me and others when/if the time comes for them to get involved in another way.

City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo’s Office - After making a big show of how interested he was in the situation, his staffer brusquely told me that this is a county matter and gave me an incorrect number for the County Clerk’s office.

City Clerk’s Office - A very helpful gentleman gave me the numbers to the County Clerk’s office. He said he too had witnessed a number of people being turned away, asked for ID or given the wrong ballots. He recounted that a number of those people were visibly angry and upset. He thanked me for coming forward and offering to get involved and bringing the problem to the light so that it wouldn”t happen in the future. That made me smile. He told me to expect to be on hold for a long time, because the County Clerk’s office was being innundated with complaints.

County Clerk’s Office:- Precint Officers and Polls: 562-466-1373
-Traning and Election Info.:562 -466 – 1310
-General: 1- 800-481-8683 or 562-466-1323

The hold was only 5 minutes and as I lodged my complaint and offered my information to the operator, she told me that “everything was being gone over right now.” She would not take my info. at this point, but she was surprisingly pleasant given the tirades she must have been listening to all morning.

So that’s where we are at the moment. I could not sleep last night thinking about how small I felt in the face of such massive, structural incompetence. But I will not let this issue rest until there is a conclusion of some sort. Hang on, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

And a major special thank you to Jack Turner and Nezua. I reached out to them last night with my story and they reached back!!!

  • jon
    (cross-posted on All About Race, Courage Campaign, Liminal States and elsewhere)

    Scott Herhold's Election snafu was obvious and avoidable in the San Jose Mercury News discusses some of the problems in Santa Clara County: poll workers had to photocopy 5,700 copies of the ballots, some of them at Kinko's!

    One reason why:

    There are 170,452 "decline-to-state" voters in [Santa Clara] county, 24 percent of the electorate. Under party rules, those voters are allowed to vote in the Democratic primary but not the Republican contest.

    Before the election, the registrar sent out notices to the 82,000 "decline-to-state" mail-in voters, asking whether they wanted a Democratic ballot. About 21,000, roughly a quarter, eventually said yes.


    They used this 25% rate to predict how many ballots they needed, as well as predicting that only 25% of the votes would be in-person. In practice, demand was much higher than expected on election day -- 45% of people voted in person. And many of the DTS voters wanted a Democratic ballot. So many sites ran out of Democratic ballots and had to photocopy them (some even at Kinkos!).

    A likely conclusion from this is that most of the mail-in voters also wanted to vote for a presidential candidate, and even after they got notices, a bunch of people didn't realize they needed to reply to do this. Depending on what pecentage wanted to vote, that could easily mean another 20,000 or more voters disenfranchised.

    And in any case: Kudos to Santa Clara county for following up with mail-in voters on the confusing ballots (as they're also doing in Pierce County, Washington). Shouldn't in-person voters get the same treatment?

    And shouldn't people who live in LA County get the same chance to vote as people in Silicon Valley?

    jon
  • RC, I hear you. But I will look to organizing around November after the convention. (I will not vote for Clinton under any circumstances.) And I have not read the articles about Obama lacking the momentum to win. Shoot me an email with some links if you would. Thanks.
  • RC
    Well, keep on keepin' on Carmen. And what about the press reports that claim that Obama hasn't the momentum to win? That sounds rather BS to me. Any commentary about that?
    One hopes that the effect of those reports will be the same as Bill's rants and the unexpected consequence will be heavier Obama voter turnout.
    I am very sure {and Obama'a organization is certainly sure} that the next President is the person who gets out the vote. It's that simple and that close.
    So also spend some time on organizing the vote for November and don't get too bogged down in the present system of incompetence in LA.
    Figure out now how to drag as many Obama voters as possible to the polls in November. It is a simple equation.
  • you keep at it! bring those producer skills to bear!!! i'm very happy that you are who you are. perhaps you were meant to be put in this position, because you dont sit down easily, whereas many would give up sooner, i bet. so you are acting for many, and with many others, too, so you dont have to feel alone. and i know i'm proud that you're on the job. i'll be watching.
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