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It's better news than yesterday's estimate of 100,000 votes not to be counted. In a LA Times article today, acting County Registrar, Dean Logan, was very honest and straightforward about the situation that took place last Tuesday: "We want voters to know that we hear loud and clear that this ballot layout is confusing and we need to identify a less confusing method for crossover voting for future primaries," he told the Times.
The lost votes are said to be too few within the margin to affect the outcome of the Democratic primary. According to LAist's Super Tuesday Map, 658,937 (55%) votes went to Hillary and 496,192 (41%) went to Obama.
However, even if the there was a potential need to recount, the Times reports that Logan "said he had now concluded that the ballot design made it impossible to determine voters' intent. One problem is that ballots do not contain the names of any of the candidates and some of the same ballot positions were used for both Democratic Party candidates and American Independent Party candidates." Not only that, some who intended to vote Democratic were sent to Republican booths. It was also noted that training of poll workers was not consistent as some locations had a high rate of nonpartisan ballots that did not make the cut.
It's sobering to hear Logan so transparent about the issues that occurred last Tuesday. Mistakes were admitted and that's the first step to correcting a problem. The next election that the LA County Registrar will be administrating will be on June 3rd.
Previously on LAist: Apparently, The Only Thing More Difficult Than Building A Subway To The Beach Is Casting A Vote
Photo by idcross via Flickr
