Not the arguably-good kind of chaos — unruly throngs of new voters, eager to participate in the thrills of the electoral process, overwhelm a sleepy polling station. Democracy whiskey sexy! No, this was the certainly-bad kind of chaos: incompetent bureaucracy renders voting experience difficult to impossible.
So I show up at my decidedly non-thronged voting place — five machines, three or four workers, a handful of voters, no more than one or two hundred square feet in total. But my name is not on the list of registered voters. The volunteer worker seems not at all surprised; did I register recently, he asks? Well, it was some time in December — I’ve been receiving sample ballots and all that in the mail, so I know that my registration successfully went through. Ah, he explains, your name is probably on the “supplemental voter list.” Which, apparently, they don’t currently have. But it’s coming! They’ve sent another volunteer over to fetch it (from someone’s house, apparently — I didn’t pry), shouldn’t be more than another ten minutes.
So I wandered over to Starbucks to have a coffee and peer at the internets through my iPhone, and came back about fifteen minutes later. Now it was approaching lunchtime, and something of a throng was indeed gathering — fifteen or twenty would-be voters were squeezed into the tiny space. But there wasn’t that much voting going on. More than half of the people who showed up were, for some reason or another, not on the list of registered voters. They were now encouraging people to cast “provisional ballots” — you could vote, but it wouldn’t be immediately counted. Someone would later check to see if you were really registered, and if you were, then it would be added to the total. Did I trust the finely-tuned machine I saw before me to successfully check on my registration status? No, I did not. Besides, I wanted my vote to be included on the totals to be shown later tonight on CNN. But almost everyone affected did end up casting provisional ballots, amidst much grumbling and requests for the phone number of the Board of Elections.
I inquired about the status of the mysterious supplemental list. Well, it was explained, it was not successfully fetched. But now it is being faxed right here! So I settled back to observe the voting. (About five Democrats for every one Republican, but that shouldn’t be a surprise in Downtown LA). After about ten minutes I inquired again — still being faxed! That seemed like an awfully slow fax machine. So, to clarify, I asked whether it was actually emerging from the fax machine at present. Ah, no, but there were definite plans in the works to fax it! Soon.
At that point I gave up and left, although I plan to go back tonight and give it another shot — the polling stations are open until 8 p.m. (Sorry, East Coasters — California will be reporting late tonight.)
And then, of course, I walked back to my car in time to see an officer drop a parking ticket on my windshield. I had put (just to be safe!) about 36 minutes on the meter, but the whole affair took about forty minutes total. Our Board of Elections may make the Three Stooges look like the Kirov Ballet, but Parking Enforcement is a marvel of ruthless efficiency!
What an embarrassment.
Update: So I went back, inquired about the supplemental voter list, and happily it had arrived. (Not, evidently, by fax, but I was too polite to press the issue.) Sadly, my name wasn’t on it. I toyed briefly with the notion of flying into a Hulk-like rage, upending the table piled high with paperwork and generally inflicting even more chaos on the already-disordered polling station. But I decided that wouldn’t be productive.
So I filled out a provisional ballot, and whiled away the extra time in line commiserating with the others who were in the same predicament. It seemed to be a common occurrence, and the volunteers verified this casual impression. I suspect that my poor little ballot will never see the light of day, and the state of California will find itself bereft of my opinion that it’s okay to let the Indian casinos install more slot machines. (A weighty decision, the kind that the Golden State simply won’t entrust to its legislature, preferring instead to decide via the exciting mechanism of Direct Democracy.)
The much worse problem seems to be the hidden button that independent voters must push (on an already unwieldy butterfly ballot) to indicate that yes, not only are they expressing a preference for a candidate in the Democratic primary, but they would also prefer if their vote actually counted! Being a proud Democrat myself, I didn’t have to jump through the tiny little extra hoop.
I understand that the United States is slowly and painfully making it way toward becoming a functioning modern technological society, and wish it all the best during the difficult transition.
Of course, this entire enterprise is built on volunteer labor.
I have actually voted in California in someone’s garage, so I would not bat an eye to a voter list in someone’s living room. The possibilities for fraud are legion (and, no, asking for my driver’s license will not help).
I think that provisional ballots are not counted unless the election is close. So, if you wanted your vote counted, waiting was the right thing.
I voted a little while ago in northern California. After ~30 minutes in line, I reach the front to find out that they had run out of Democratic ballots. I was told not to worry, however, since we could just use the sample ballots instead!
Those of us near the front of the line were looking extremely skeptical, but we were reassured that indeed the sample ballots would count, and we should “just trust” this volunteer.
So I voted without showing any ID with a sample ballot. I really hope these sample ballots don’t end up counting — it would mean that anybody could have walked in with a stack of 1000 sample ballots and slipped them into the voting box with no questions asked.
The potential for fraud is so much greater than I ever thought.
It is close to two decades since I was first introduced to the American way of doing elections, and I am still in awe: different rules in each state, none of which particularly relevant to this century (or the previous one), very little time or money invested in the system, no central oversight of any sort, etc.etc. etc., … and amazingly it still works!
(or not, as the case may be).
Well, these are ‘just’ primaries, I guess, but would the OECD ever be able to sign off on these elections being free and fair?
By contrast, I voted today as an American abroad on the internet, with reasonable security, with confirmation of personal data, id number and password similar to that involved in online banking. I also got in return a copy of my ballot to print out and save. This is part of a primary being held by Democrats Abroad which will select 22 delegates to the Democratic convention representing Americans living abroad. The whole process including registering last month and voting today took a total of no more than 10 minutes online.
As Lee said, in Canada as a U.S. citizen (or dual) you can vote more easily than you did before (either as a citizen abroad or absentee at your last U.S. residence), you don’t have to pay U.S. taxes for an overpriced war, the salaries are as good or better than American ones, and better yet, Bush is not your president. My quality of life has improved immensely.
Brad:
But the delegates are assigned according to proportional representation, so the result will always depend very sensitively on the voting results.
Iblis: California is 241/441 district-by-district proportional, so it takes a significant percentage shift to change a district from, e.g. 2 vs. 1 to 1 vs. 2, unless it gets very near 50-50%. But you’re right that another 129/441 delegates are state proportional — so those will indeed count very sensitively. (And then there are the 71/449 super who can vote how they please.)
I voted just over a week ago using an envelope and some stamps.
Count Iblis said:
But the delegates are assigned according to proportional representation, so the result will always depend very sensitively on the voting results.
My understanding is that delegates are apportioned by Congressional district. If Sean is in a district with an even number of delegates, a 51/49 split and a 50.5/49.5 split yields the same result, each candidate gets half of the delegates.
Districts with an odd number of delegates give the winner the extra in a close tie (a 51/49 split in a 5 delegate district awards 3 to the winner.)
Now, this understanding came from listening to a news program this morning, and, to be honest, I still am not sure I have this right. So, if someone wants to correct me, please go ahead.
There are also the “unpledged”, namely unelected, delegates. They are up for grabs, they can vote for whichever candidate they choose, I’m wondering how they are going to decide… It’s all very entertaining, since they consist of 15-20% of all delegates, and the democratic primaries are very close, they may well end up being this year’s “chads”…
It is quite amazing indeed how the “greatest democracy” in the world has such a poor , archaic voting mechanism! I kid you not that in Brazil the process is quite easier; everybody is initially registered, voting is done in electronic ballots with previous and on the spot id confirmation, very rarely does one have to face queues, etc. Why doesn’t your system get modernized??
I am somewhat confused here. It was my understanding that Prof. Carroll is employed by the California Institute of Technology, which the last time I heard, is located in Pasadena, Ca. Does Mr. Carroll live in the downtown area and commute to Pasadena?
Does Mr. Carroll live in the downtown area and commute to Pasadena?
The phenomenon of living in a different locale than one’s place of work is surprisingly common.
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The guy ahead of me in line at my polling station who registered just before the deadline who wasn’t on the list either. As far as I could tell they gave him a provisional ballot, so you aren’t alone. That “I really want my vote to count” box on the LA County ballots is crazy. As a “Decline to State” voter (not to be confused with “Independent Party”) who voted in the Demcratic primary, I didn’t notice any such requirement on my San Berdoo County ballot. I hope I didn’t just miss it.
Does Mr. Carroll live in the downtown area and commute to Pasadena? I believe downtown LA and Pasadena are only about 10 miles apart. That’s pretty much next door in Southern California terms. At least among the people I know 20+ mile commutes are the rule rather than the exception.
Re: update.
Dude, that sucks.
But look on the bright side, the more provisional ballots there are, the greater the chance that they actually get counted.
Well, if you are crazy enough to vote for the Indian gambling expansion, then I’m glad your vote isn’t going to count. 🙂 These people already have more money (and hence more influence) than any other political group in California, and there is no reason to give them more. If we are going to make gambling legal, we should make it legal for everyone and not hand over a monopoly. If we dared to talk about that, the tribes would certainly sign a deal that gave much more of their “profits” to the state. (I put profits in quotes because they are counted only after every single member of the tribe is paid a salary.)
Was the worker actually a volunteer? I thought they were usually paid (they are where I live, although it is a small amount, maybe ~$100 for the training and work).
Jeff wrote: “I was told not to worry, however, since we could just use the sample ballots instead!”
Sounds very, very fishy.
My old polling place in Pasadena was up the street in someone’s living room. The whole apparatus of democracy is staffed by a small group of civic-minded retirees who probably don’t get enough training when our elected reps decide to dink around with the election laws, but that doesn’t excuse dysfunction. Oh, and I once voted in a Philadelphia Democratic primary, in somebody’s living room, with a candidate’s bumper sticker displayed on the sign-in table!!!
Voting with a magic marker and optical scan ballot in California and Arizona was much easier than operating a godawful touchscreen machine in Maryland, although nothing is as satisfying as using a big old Northeast machine with a curtain and enormous lever.
Ballots are usually designed by state (or county) election departments and maybe there should be a requirement for them to hire consulting graphic designers/usability experts. Or we could just let Steve Jobs design all the voting machines. They’d be elegantly easy to operate, but there’d only be one choice.
Yes! Curtain and enormous lever! In my mind, that is simply how voting booths are meant to be.
I just moved to CO, and tonight I participated in a caucus for the first time. It was somewhat chaotic — apparently no one expected such a large turnout (though one wonders why not) — but after they got us all separated into precincts things went quite smoothly. The Clinton folks went over to one side, and the Obama folks went over to the other, and the undecideds and the Gravel supporter stayed in the middle, and then we all counted off and elected delegates to the county convention according to the same proportions. It was fun and neighborly, and I know my vote got counted correctly. (It would have been pretty easy for someone to crash the party, as there was no official check-in — they simply circulated a list of registered voters and had us sign next to our names. But I suppose they probably do at least compare the total number of votes with the total number of signatures.)
The best part was when I heard a guy say that he’d brought his kids because he wanted them to remember being there when their dad cast his vote for Obama. 🙂
Re Peggy
I realize that the CIT campus and downtown LA are not too far apart. However, it is rather unusual for someone to commute from a downtown area to a suburban location.
SLC, I do exactly that, from the center of Geneva to CERN. It all depends on where you live.
I voted in the Miracle Mile are of LA. I was on the supplemental list, and they tried to give me a provisional ballot. I had to correct them and say that as long as my name was on the list, I got a regular ballot. After a little polite back and forth, they agreed.
They also asked for id , which is not required, and I had to correct them on that, too. To be fair, I’m not sure if they were requiring that, or were just asking so they could more easily look up the names by having the id to look at.
Mostly I’m glad that for once the CA primary counts for something. I can’t believe how stupid our election/voting process is.
Speaking as someone who’s worked as a Cuyahoga County election official (in Ohio)… wow. I am proud to report that that would never fly around here, because Ohio runs a pretty decent system and you need to go to training to be a poll worker before the actual thing.
Though there are other problems to be had around here, particularly as it’s a swing state so things can matter a lot more. For example, during the 2004 presidential election we were happy in our precinct because no dead people showed up to vote…