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In Georgia, 10,000 Misprint Absentee Ballots to Be Recopied by Hand
At least 10,000 absentee voters from Gwinnett County, Ga., used a ballot that was printed with the wrong bubble. Scanners refused to read the heavily-outlined ovals, as the county election officials learned last week during "routine testing."
More than 19,700 misprinted ballots had already been mailed out.
Election officials are going to hand-copy those 10,000 votes -plus any additional that come in onto new ballots that can be scanned successfully.
The County acknowledges that correcting the errors could be "complicated," and will follow strict guidelines in correcting the problem:
- Between 200 and 300 election workers will look at the misprinted ballot and transfer the vote to a second ballot.
- There will be two sets of eyes on each ballot.
Workers will be sequestered throughout the process, with no personal or electronic contacts whatsoever.
Sheriff's deputies and party auditors will be assigned to maintain integrity of vote transfers.
The two-envelope system (an outer one for mailing, an inner one with no identification) assures anonymity of the voters.
The County says it has contacted representatives of both parties. Also contacted was Secretary of State Karen Handel, who is a Republican.
Overwhelmingly middle-class Gwinnett County, located about thirty minutes north of Atlanta, has voted Republican -- with few exceptions -- since 1990 in presidential, gubernatorial, and senatorial elections.
Lynn Ledford, director of Voter Registration and Elections for the county claimed the error "was not apparent to the naked eye," and that registrars aren't required to test their absentee ballots until three days before an election. She did so several weeks in advance.
It would seem that running the ballot through a scanner before printing [20,000?] of them would be a matter of policy. The County won't be able to tally the cost of this mistake until well after the election, depending on the number of "bad" ballots they receive.
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How can a country as big and as progressive as this have such haphazard voting systems. It's beyond me why the election of the nation's president is run by so many independent groups and laws. Shouldn't there be one set of rules for general elections to ensure that the process is fair? This is garbage. No wonder the elections have continued to be stolen by the Republicans.
To quote David Letterman (about McCain, no less):
"Ladies and gentleman, that's starting to smell."
Not a surprise. After years of voter disenfranchisement, illegal intimidation tactics and vote-theft by republicans, at this point it's practically designed into the system.
Where has the DNC been for the past 4 (or 8) years? Why wasn't Dean shoring up the voting systems and implementing real ballot safeguards between election cycles? Must we always wring our hands desperately at the very last minute as if we didn't see this coming a mile away?
This election was handed to us on a silver platter, what with an inspiring and visionary candidate, Bush's unpopular 8-year Track Record of Doom laying the foundation for change, the tanking economy and global financial chaos, skyrocketing unemployment and bankruptcies, the dismal ongoing war(s), looming environmental concerns, the cartoonish Mac-and-Cheese opponents. Seriously, if we can't manage to win under these circumstances, because of the usual republican shenanigans of vote stealing WHICH WE KNEW WOULD HAPPEN WELL IN ADVANCE, then I think we don't deserve to occupy the White House.
What, were we "hoping" the republicans wouldn't steal votes this time? WTF?
If we were serious about voters making a difference, we'd standardize national ballots for general elections and test the ballots before they were mass printed. And not let parties challenge anyone's vote this close to an election -- and pass laws to that effect.
I'm very dispirited by all the vote suppression going on across the country. Again. We're played for fools Every. Single. Time.
Encourage your friends to vote, bloggers. We are in serious trouble if the count is close. Obama needs to win by a landslide to quash any attempts by any group to taint the election. Astounding events !
And so it begins......
corporate theft.
That's right. Who didn't know that states that have a Republican Secretary of State were somehow, someway, going to have problems???
LISTEN ALL: Please Go Vote! There has been many confirmed reports of voting fraud with the Republican Party and Obama is in need of all the votes necessary to create a landslide. Let's make sure that our state turns blue! Voting is a right and a privilege. Let's all make history together!
http://politicaladattacks.blogspot.com/
vote vote vote vote vote vote
early early early early early
Why can't ballots just be the same across the board! Why does it have to be so freakin' complicated. Oh that's right - this is AMERICA - we like things as complicated as possible.
This looks like a good faith attempt to correct a problem.
I agree. Congrats Georgia!
I also agree with previous comments about voting forms. Why do they need to be complicated? Why can't they all be the same in every state across the country (for national elections)? We should have one bi-partisan government agency making the forms, getting them approved and sending them out. We should all be voting on the same forms, in the same way, with the same systems. And it should be relatively low-tech so that hacking and fraud are just non-existent. If the voting time was extended for a week, we would still get the results on election night.
Yes, it would be a good idea to have the same ballot in every state, but it gets complicated. First, not every state will have every candidate for the presidency/VP the same as every other state. The candidates must register in every state to be on the ballots.
Then there are state races. They're all different. Local races are all different. Then the bond/proposition questions are included on the ballots, all different.
For sure, I'd like to see a return to paper ballots in all states and reliable electronic or hand-counting..
Does the fact that this county has voted overwhelmingly Republican have anything to do with why this problem is being remedied so quickly?
Strange, that the manufacturer of the scanners cannot make a small adjustment to the optical system's sensitivity parameters - or put a template over the sensors themselves to exclude the "bubbles" - and carry on.
Regardless, I'd be curious to know if the "extra ink" mysteriously favored one Party or another.
Oh, Gwinnett... there's a reason I live in DeKalb. There's always something fishy about Georgia voting if you don't stay on top of things, esp since Karen's been around...
Why COPY the ballots for the process of scanning? Copying introduces a possiblity for fraud or mistake, and scanning is supposed to have a small percent error rate. Just HAND COUNT them. There's one less chance for fraud or error then.
That's exactly what I was thinking... Why go to even more effort, have more room for error, and waste more time and resources? It's like a Rube Goldberg device for voting.
But that is common sense, and we know that Repubs don't have any. I think Sarah Palin is proof of that.
A friend of mine, who lives in Michigan, told me they have a group called "IWASP": Intelligent women against Sarah Palin. This woman has been a Republican for 27 years. I think this says alot about McCain's pick, don't you??
Gross incompitence or deliberate ploy to steal an election by the GOP?
Everything about them is flawed from conception to execution.
the economy,Iraq,Afghanistan, and the list goes on.
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