Poll workers accused of pushing provisional ballots on voters

[lonestarnot]

Source: KPHO NEWS

PHOENIX (CBS5) - More than 115,000 Maricopa County voters filled out a provisional ballot Tuesday and most of those ballots are still sitting in the county recorder's office yet to be counted.

Sam Wercinski, with the non-partisan Arizona Advocacy Network Foundation, had hundreds of poll watchers stationed across the state on Election Day.

Wercinski told CBS5 that poll workers in several precincts were not prepared to handle the big crowds, so when a problem popped up they simply offered up a provisional ballot instead of addressing individual voter needs.

"In many poll locations the poll workers were put in the middle of a very chaotic situation because of the volume of first-time voters," said Wercinski. "The common advice provided for voters who didn't have proper ID or who's name didn't appear in the signature roster was to go stand in the other line and get a provisional ballot."



Read more: http://www.kpho.com/story/20047677/poll-workers-accused-of-pushing-provisional-ballots-on-voters

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Fingerpointer same name is blaming voters! That hairbrained fuckwad!

[bkkyosemite]

1. I wonder if they are afraid that AZ could go Blue if they count all those votes.

[chuckstevens]

2. Arrest Them All

Enough already! I wat to see some arrests this time or they'll just do it again in 2 years and then again in 4 years. The Justice Department needs to make these asshole think twice about pulling this shit in the future.

[PatrynXX]

3. Sure. AZ putting Iran first.

Making sure Iran and Russia's method of counting votes look like ours. It just weakens us. I'd say just kick them out to Russia... (not Iran. thats too cruel)

[lonestarnot]

4. I don't care where they kick them to just get them out there!

[The Wielding Truth]

8. Iran's really not bad. It's pretty and the people are friendly.

[Scootaloo]

11. I think he meant it'd be cruel to the Iranians

[The Wielding Truth]

12. I think you are right. I wouldn't want to put the Iranians through that. Haha.

[jerseyjack]

13. It ain't gonn happen. Eric Holder is the A.G.

[Reio88]

5. Confusion + poor training in Colorado

I talked with several polling place workers prior to election day. A recurrent theme emerged. Nope sorry not voter suppression, at least not intention. There were several complaints made during election day about the same issues.
Confusion of the volunteer workers as to where voter rolls are. The front of the book is for usual in person voter, then another for new voters, another for inactive voters, another for occasional mail in voters and finally one for regular mail in voters. Rumor had it there would be a supplemental with possible fraudulent voters such as Micky Mouse of 123 Main St.
Not all poll workers were trained with this, you might be assigned to guide people in but when someone goes home you get a new job that you know little about.
One urban worker said the issue in his neighborhood is people think they can register the same time they vote. That creates an angry confrontation. You did not register in time to vote, so here is your proxy.
The issue I found was the lack of training and knowledge among the volunteer staff. Not to mention possible dementia complexity disorder aka your too old to handle this.
At least in S.E. Denver and central Aurora , that's what I encountered.
You get what you paid for. You paid nothing but asked for volunteers to take a day off and 2 saturdays of 4 hours total training. With that in mind I would let you cut my grass.
Want it easy ? Want it right ?
Mail ballot with ballot track. More than 10 years , I've had no issue.

[sweetloukillbot]

7. I think redistricting had something to do with it too.

I recieved a new Voter ID in August, my polling place stayed the same, but I know that the districts were changed significantly. If people were in one district and now suddenly in a new one - they'd have a new polling place - and may not know that. This would lead to a lot of provisional ballots.

[The Wielding Truth]

9. Welcome to DU, Reio88. This ballot track is a slick idea.

http://www.denvergov.org/tabid/438587/ClerkandRecorder/ElectionsVoting/VoterInformation/BallotTRACE/tabid/437429/Default.aspx

[sweetloukillbot]

6. This has happened in every recent election to varying degrees...

This is by far the worst case of excess ballots waiting to be counted, and I'm not sure why they are only able to count so few in an 8-hour period when they can count millions in about 4 hours on election night. When I worked for the newspaper I covered a recall election in 08 in a suburb that was decided by about 300 votes out of 200,000 - and it took a week to get the final count - not recount, initial count.
But this is actually good news, despite the wait.
Every time we've had one of these protracted ballot counts, the Democrat has come out ahead - Napolitano for gov. in 2006, Harry Mitchell for house in 06 and 08, Gabby for house in 2010, MMJ in 2008. All were behind or leading by a hair's breadth with no clear winner after election night.
I don't know that there are enough to get rid of Sheriff Joe (Maricopa is pretty red apart from the streak of blue down the middle that is voting for Sinema) but we might be able to get Carmona into the Senate with a lot of luck. I'm sure we're sending Kirkpatrick, Sinema and Barber to the House though - giving Dems a majority from AZ.

[BVictor1]

10. Rachel Maddow talked about this situation on her show tonight.

Hopefully with more attention being placed to the issue, these ballots will actually get counted instead of tossed.

They were understaffed and ill-prepared for the number of voters that turned out which is more of a shame seeing as the power of the people was underestimated.

[Ash_F]

14. Imagine the margin Obama would have won by...

...if not for these shenanigans.