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Widespread election problems more than malfunctioning computers

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[Updated]

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the nation’s largest nonpartisan voter protection coalition, received far more complaints of problems at the polls than they received in 2010. For the first time, calls came in from every state.

Mid-Tuesday morning in Seattle, I noticed that the NY Secretary of State website was unresponsive after I was unable to access it all when trying to determine polling locations:

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Little did I know that there would be reports of problems across the country before the day ended.

Alabama:

“Four days before the election, Alabama officials ruled that public housing ID could not be used as voter identification (MediaMatters).”

California:

Contra Costa County experienced perhaps the rudest awakening Tuesday morning when its elections Web site went down because of server problems with a Florida vendor (ContraCostaTimes).

Connecticut:

A judge has extended polling by two hours due to computer problems in Hartford. “Some city residents were turned away and not allowed to cast their votes … Others gave up waiting and left for work.” What? No provisional ballot process?

Colorado:

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s office acknowledged problems with the computer system used to verify voter eligibility. At least some counties allowed voters to use provisional ballots.

Georgia:

The Georgia Secretary of State website that provides poll location information was broken, according to CNN. Hundreds of voters complained about being unable to find poll location or registration status. “Waits of up to an hour were not uncommon (“>AJC).”
 
In earlier news:

Roughly 40,000 voter registrations were missing from the public database in Georgia, most of which were collected by the Georgia chapter of the NAACP and the New Georgia Project… As of Monday, they had not reappeared.

Illinois:

Many election judges – partisan officials who oversee voting in Illinois – received misleading automated calls in the days leading up to the election, leaving polling stations without a judge. The city of Chicago had to call in 250 standby judges. “[S]ome judges quit after receiving the misinformation (CBS).”

[A] judge extended voting hours until 10 p.m. EST in Lake County after the state Attorney General Lisa Madigan alleged that County Clerk Willard Helander was “illegally interpreting the requirements of the Illinois Election Code” by not allowing residents to both register and vote on Election Day (Bloomberg).

Maine:

“A surprise early snowstorm in Maine left tens of thousands without power and a handful of towns scrambling to move polling places at the last minute” (Time).

Missouri:

National Bar Association President Pamela Meanes told ThinkProgress that voters were being asked for photo ID in Ferguson. Missouri does not require a photo ID to vote.

New Mexico:

In Sandoval County, New Mexico (north of Albuquerque and east of Santa Fe), voters were unable to vote when they showed up at the polls — a problem identified in October but not fixed — and poll workers could not print provisional ballots. A judge found that the vendor, Automated Election Services, was “responsible for the problem,” not the county clerk. “Two years ago, some voters had to wait five hours to cast a ballot (KRQE).

In Bernalillo County (Albuquerque), voters faced long lines even though only about a fifth of 52 voting booths were in use at any one time.

North Carolina:

“[T]he wrong voter rolls were sent to a polling site just down the street from Bennett College, a historically black college in Greensboro … two precincts in Cumberland County received the wrong thumb drives for the voting machines that were sent. (MSNBC).”

In Johnston County (southeast of Raleigh), the online system provided incorrect polling information for at least one location, according to voters who spoke with WTVD.

The North Carolina Association of Educators filed a complaint with the North Carolina State Board of Elections over campaign material paid for by NC Healthy Leadership Committee. The material, supporting candidates Tom Murry, John Szoka, and Chris Whitmire, is modeled on the “Apple Card” paid for by the NCAE-PAC and claims that the candidates were “SUPPORTED BY THE NORTH CAROLINA ASSOCIATION OF EDUCATORS.”

The statement is made knowingly, in reckless disregard of the truth. Murry’s “apple card” was produced and is being distributed with the calculation and intention to affect the chances of the candidates mentioned being elected (pdf).

North Dakota:

The photo ID law in North Dakota requires that the address on the ID match the address on your voter registration. In other words, if you are a college student, you have to change the address on your driver’s license to vote where you live to go to school. When did this change happen? Not like that when I went to college — you kept your driver’s license address as your “permanent” address.

In the past, voters had the option of signing an affidavit on the back of the ballot swearing their eligibility to vote. But that option was taken away last year when Republican lawmakers passed a bill that requires voters to bring an acceptable form of ID showing their current address and birth date to the polls, saying it would help eliminate voter fraud (JamestownSun).

Texas:

“[T]he state emailed counties Tuesday morning to inform them that the statewide voter registration system was down … That meant poll workers were unable to access information about a voter’s registration status, likely leading many voters to have to cast provisional ballots. (MSNBC).”

In one Houston-area precinct, “voting machines were sent to the wrong location.”

Virginia:

Problems with touchscreen voting machines were reported in 43 precincts in the Virginia Beach area.

In Newport Beach, 32 touchscreen machines were taken out of service.

John Owens, who voted Tuesday morning at All Saints Episcopal Church, told The Pilot that when he called the registrar’s office to complain about difficulties with touchscreen voting, an official suggested that his fingers were too fat and that next time he might want to bring a Q-tip…
 
These are “direct recording electronic voting machines,” Sasnett explained. They’re known in the business as DREs. They create no paper trail. No record of individual votes. There are DREs that give the voter a paper receipt showing a vote record, but the printer option is expensive. Few – if any – jurisdictions bothered with those models (emphasis added, PilotOnline.com).

According to Virginia Department of Elections spokesperson Cameron Sasnett, “the machines were knocked out of calibration while they were being transported to polling sites around the city.” The machines are almost 10 years old and are “at the end of their life cycle.”

 
 
Politicians who vote against measures to replace DREs without paper trails should go to jail.

It’s long past time to move to mail voting and paper ballots.
 
 

Call the hotline — 1.866.OUR.VOTE (866.687.8683) — if you have (or had) problems:

The national Election Protection Hotline had already received 9,027 calls by noon Tuesday, the bulk of which came from Florida and Georgia (Time).

Waiting impatiently for the Department of Justice report from its in-person monitors that were at 28 jurisdictions in 18 states on Tuesday.

Posted: 3:30 pm Pacific, Tuesday 4 Nov
Updated: 10:40 pm Pacific, Tuesday 4 Nov
Updated: 9:30 am Pacific, Wednesday 5 Nov

For more about this issue: Everything That’s Happened Since Supreme Court Ruled on Voting Rights Act, ProPublica, published in the Boise Weekly

Featured photo: Flickr CC Licensed

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