February 11, 2008
Up to 100,000 LA Votes May Not Be Counted
Both the Democrat and American Independent parties held open primaries on Super Tuesday. Voters who declined to state an affiliation were handed a "nonpartisan" ballot and were allowed to select a presidential candidate in either of the open primaries.
The Los Angeles Times is reporting today that a large number of those voters in LA County may have failed to mark a special bubble on their ballots which could mean their votes won't be counted:
Dean Logan, acting Los Angeles County registrar, estimates that about 100,000 nonpartisan voters cast ballots without marking a party bubble. How many of them intended to vote for a presidential candidate is unclear -- some may have wanted to vote only on the propositions on the ballot.
Based on numbers provided by the Times last week, about half of LA's independents may have been effected.
In last Tuesday's election, almost 20% of Los Angeles voters were registered as Decline-To-State (784,296 of 3,963,780). There were also 31,667 registered as "miscellaneous." That category includes people who filled in organizations not formally recognized in California, like the "Let's Have a Party" Party.
The County Registrar-Recorder is still working on the final election numbers. They are releasing regular updates, which is how the media is able to declare winners early in the process. By law, they have up to 28 days to certify the official results.
Previously on LAist:
* Rocky Delgadillo on 'Double Bubble Trouble'
* Mimi Kennedy, Actor and Poll Worker on Voting Confusion
* Trouble in Paradise
* Voting is Tricky Business
* Voting Problems Everywhere?
Photo by atomicshakespeares via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr



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I'm just curious about something. All these articles keep mentioning a Non-Partisan ballot. However, I am non-partisan and requested a democratic ballot and the ballot I got actually said democrat at the top (it was the same exact ballot my friend, who is registered Democrat, got). Did I get an incorrect ballot?
I then marked the Democrat bubble. If you actually have a democrat ballot and you mark the democrat bubble does that effect how your vote is counted?
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You were handed an incorrect ballot. That happened to a lot of people.
Since your ballot already said Democrat on it, there's not reason why it wouldn't be counted correctly. However, that may throw off any audits of how many people from each party voted in each precinct. That doesn't affect you, personally, but it affects how campaigns make strategic decisions in the future.
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I was a pollworker in Weho that day
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i went above and beyond to make sure people did it right.
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I could understand how all the senior citizens who usually are the volunteers could've got it wrong.
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they honestly change the polling rules every few months, it's ridiculous.