I received my Democratic primary ballot in the mail and I was pleased to see right there at the top of page 1 these fateful words: "NONPARTISAN VOTERS ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED TO MARK AN ADDITIONAL BUBBLE TO CROSSOVER."
Check it:
Back in February, The Courage Campaign led the charge not only to educate DTS voters in LA County about the bizarre requirement to fill out the "Democratic Party" bubble in addition to requesting a Democratic presidential primary ballot but then faught hard to get the LA County Registrar of Voters to count the votes of DTS voters in February 5th's primary. Thanks to that effort, acting LA County Registrar Dean Logan reversed himself and ended up counting 50,000 or so Democratic presidential votes where the intent of unaffiliated voters was clear.
What's great about the triumphant post-script that the disclaimer at the top of the LA County Democratic ballot represents is that it signals that our victory was not fleeting and it was not merely putting a bandaid on a wound. Thanks to the mobilization of progressives by the Courage Campaign and Secretary of State Debra Bowen's leadership, thousands of Los Angeles DTS voters will no longer have to fear being disenfranchised because of a stupid rule and a poorly designed ballot, which is progress indeed.
BradBlog, as is the norm over there, provides an excellent evaluation of where things currently stand with the DTS 'double bubble' ballots. It's long, in-depth, and awesome. In part:
For the moment then, some 50,000 voters in Los Angeles County have had their votes for Presidential candidate currently miscounted. An intended vote for Hillary Clinton, for example, has not been registered as a vote for her. She has lost that vote for the moment, and the voter has been disenfranchised. Needlessly.
Moreover, current acting Registrar Dean Logan is claiming that, due to the fact that the same sets of bubbles were used for both Dem and AI candidates, it's "impossible" to determine with absolute certainty the intent of the voter. But he is wrong. In almost every single case.
The current miscount/error rate for those 50,000 ballots is now at 100%. Thus, any ballot counted at this point will only lower the current miscount/error rate.
Since almost every single one of those ballots can be counted accurately, as per the voter intent, beyond a shadow of a doubt, it's an absolute absurdity and outrage that Logan is claiming that none of them can be, as he argued in an absurd report [PDF] delivered to the County's Board of Supervisor's on Monday.
He closes with an elegant summation:
The excuses must stop. Dean Logan must get to work and start counting. NOW.
Today I have on my Music for America shirt that reads "Voters Make Better Lovers" and an "I Voted" sticker proudly on it.
I just got back from driving around to 5 polling locations with a friend. Before I headed out to vote I decided to drop by the Obama office. I picked up my precinct to go door hang when they got an urgent call. The campaign had been getting reports across the state from Decline-to-State voters who were being told by poll workers that they could not vote for president. They grabbed a random sample of precincts and sent volunteers out to check on them.
We were given a precinct at a church in Rancho Cordova, a short drive East on 50. We saw another polling location within a couple blocks and stopped in there. Then we hit up a mega church that was two polling locations in one. At all of them, the poll workers knew the drill. The only thing troubling was one poll worker who told us adamantly that a voter could switch party registration on the spot to pull a different ballot.
When I was waiting in line at my polling place, a church just a few blocks away from my apartment a young guy walked back up to the desk with his ballot in his hand and said "I wanted to vote for president, but it is not on here." The poll worker then asked if he wanted a Democratic ballot. He said yes and they destroyed the non-partisan ballot he started to fill out. The guy has to be one of many, who despite our best efforts, didn't know he had to ask first. Good thing he didn't just fill out the vote, turn it in and then ask and also that the poll workers knew the drill. After he was handed the Democratic ballot one of the other poll workers lamented that they were explicitly instructed not to automatically ask DTS voters if they wanted a Democratic or American Independent ballot. That is something that really needs to change. I don't understand why they don't do that in the first place.
This is a thread for anybody who wants to talk about their voting experiences, especially folks in Sacto.
I should add that I asked the poll workers in all of the locations about turnout. Nothing remarkable. Turnout was neither low, nor really heavy. About 120 people had already voted at my precinct, a Democratic neighborhood in Midtown.
For weeks now here at Calitics we have been discussing the puzzle of Decline to State voters. They make up the only growing part of our electorate at 19.3% (about 3 million voters), but they greatly underperformed during the 2004 primaries (only 8% vote for a presidential candidate). These voters should be ripe for the picking, but are hard to target. They include true independents and both regular Democratic and Republican voters. DTS voters have three choices in this election 1) just vote on the initiatives 2) vote in the American Independent party primary or 3) vote in the Democratic party primary. Unfortunately not many of them know they have to be proactive about requesting a Democratic primary ballot or risk having a blank spot at the top of their ballot instead of candidate's names.
The Courage Campaign has launched a campaign to help educate DTS voters and make sure they know how to participate in the Democratic primary. We are calling and emailing 300,000 registered DTS voters with the simple message: Yes, you can vote for president, just ask for a Democratic ballot.
The NYT covered DTS voters and our "yes you can vote" campaign today. (quotes and more on the flip)
(I was going to write a post about the deadline for voter registration being tomorrow, but this has all the deets. So, if anybody you know is not registered, let them know their application must be postmarked by TODAY!!! - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Last night I was watching football with friends and at one point the discussion turned to the upcoming election. One of my friends has not yet registered and was remarking that she was going to mail in her registration on Tuesday, aware of the deadline. This friend is quite moderate and despite the fact that politics is a fairly regular topic of conversation for our group of friends, I was not sure if she was going to want to vote in the Democratic of Republican primary. Quite frankly I was just happy she was intending to register. So I went through and explained to her and another friend who is DTS, but wanting to vote in the Democratic primary the rules for California's primary.
Make sure all of your family and friends who are DTS voters are aware:
1) They are not permitted to vote in the Republican primary.
2) They must request a Democratic ballot if they wish to vote in the primary, otherwise they will only get a ballot with the initiatives.
3) Vote by mail people have until Jan 29th to request a Democratic ballot from the registrar.
Literally right after I finished that conversation I got this email from the Obama campaign. It is exactly in keeping with the overall message from the Obama campaign about bringing people into the process and drawing voters who may not be registered Democrats to vote for Obama. The email is on the flip.
