Showing posts with label missing votes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label missing votes. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Monday, November 03, 2008
Labor's Vote
Working Californians Pound the Pavement for Change
By Art Pulaski
Executive Secretary-Treasurer
California Labor Federation
This campaign season has drawn high enthusiasm among union activists. In my travels around the state, I found more union volunteers than I’ve seen in years. That level of union member commitment is key, because our research shows that nothing is more persuasive than workers talking to their co-workers about the issues: the economy, health care, retirement security and job security.
This election season, union members are hearing about pro-worker issues and candidates at the worksite, on the phone, in the mail and at their doors. Through our 2.1 million members, we’ve reached nearly four million California voters. We’ve distributed over 150,000 flyers on key legislative races at worksites across the state, and dropped nearly 2 million pieces of mail. 12,500 union volunteers have made hundreds of thousands of phone calls and knocked on thousands of union members’ doors.
We are riding the tsunami of change that Barack Obama is creating at the top of the ticket. Obama is talking about the economic issues that workers care about, and that energy and enthusiasm is boiling over into hot legislative races up and down the state.
Union members have put incredible effort into these competitive races, where we have the chance to replace anti-worker legislators with those who will stand with working families.
In Assembly District 10, new voter registration numbers show Democrats have made significant gains and are almost equal to Republicans. These new numbers help put Alyson Huber within striking distance of pulling off a big upset over Jack Sieglock (R). Unions have launched a massive campaign to educate voters about Sieglock's bad record as a career politician.
Joan Buchanan (D) is leading her opponent, Abram Wilson (R), in Assembly District 15, thanks to union volunteers who made almost 15,000 calls to union households in that district. That’s almost exactly the same as the margin of victory in this district during the last competitive election.
In Assembly District 26, momentum is building for John Eisenhut. This is an extremely tight race, but a big push from the Democratic Party, along with over 26,000 calls and door visits by union volunteers, could push Eisenhut over the top.
Fran Florez scored big in the court of public opinion in Assembly District 30, with key endorsements from the Fresno Bee and the Bakersfield Californian – the two biggest papers in the district. We’ve moved more than 100 union volunteers into AD 30 for the final four days.
In Assembly District 78, retired union member Marty Block has been making major strides in the polls. His popularity among workers was clear last weekend, when nearly 400 union members and supporters came out to walk precincts to support Block.
Manuel Perez has run a strong campaign in Assembly District 80, and has easily withstood ineffective attacks by the opposition.
In Senate District 5, Lois Wolk has a modest lead in the polls, and over 300 union members walked the precinct this weekend to keep support growing for her.
Thanks in large part to union volunteers, tracking polls show a dead heat between Hannah-Beth Jackson (D) and her opponent, Tony Strickland (R) in Senate District 19. A win in this district would leave Democrats only one seat away from a two-thirds majority in the Senate. Our labor council leader dispatched 152 union volunteers from her home on Saturday.
With a record turnout expected and a surge in voter registrations, more seats are coming into play every day, including AD 36 (Lancaster), AD 37 (Simi Valley), CD 3 (Sacramento), CD 45 (Palm Springs), CD 46 (Orange County) and CD 50 (San Diego).
Labor Councils throughout the state have gone above and beyond to get out the worker vote. The L.A. County Federation of Labor has vowed to make 500,000 by the end of the campaign, and they’re on pace to make it happen. In San Joaquin County, we’ve reached our goal of contacting over 5,000 union voters. In San Diego, Alameda, and Orange counties, volunteers have come out in record numbers, and in Sacramento, the phone banks and the precinct walks are packed every day.
Working families understand that we cannot afford more of the same in Sacramento and Washington. We need a new direction, one that promises things like job security, retirement protection and affordable health care. That’s why we are putting our all into this election.
For more election resources or to find a labor-sponsored campaign event in your area, visit www.calaborfed.org/political/
Art Pulaski is Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, which represents 2.1 million members of 1,200 manufacturing, service, construction, and public sector unions. For more information, visit http://www.workingcalifornia.org/
From California Progress Report
Friday, September 12, 2008
Vote for Change
You'd be surprised by how many people you know who aren't registered to vote.
Registration deadlines are coming up soon, and we need every single vote we can get to win this election.
Tell your friends, family, and neighbors to check out our new one-stop voter registration website.
Just forward this message.
VoteforChange.com makes it easier than ever to register. Instead of tracking down the right forms, all you need to do is answer a few basic questions and you'll be ready to vote. You can also:
Confirm your existing registration
Apply to vote absentee
Find your polling place
If you don't know your own registration status or you'd like to learn more, take a minute to visit the site right now.
This race is too close and too important to stay home on Election Day.
If you take the time to register and vote -- and make sure everyone you know is registered as well -- we'll be able to turn the tide of the past eight years.
It's people just like you who will transform this nation.
Thanks,
Barack
Registration deadlines are coming up soon, and we need every single vote we can get to win this election.
Tell your friends, family, and neighbors to check out our new one-stop voter registration website.
Just forward this message.
VoteforChange.com makes it easier than ever to register. Instead of tracking down the right forms, all you need to do is answer a few basic questions and you'll be ready to vote. You can also:
Confirm your existing registration
Apply to vote absentee
Find your polling place
If you don't know your own registration status or you'd like to learn more, take a minute to visit the site right now.
This race is too close and too important to stay home on Election Day.
If you take the time to register and vote -- and make sure everyone you know is registered as well -- we'll be able to turn the tide of the past eight years.
It's people just like you who will transform this nation.
Thanks,
Barack
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
94,000 missing votes in Los Angeles
About Those 94,000 Votes Missing in L.A. County’s Democratic Presidential Primary Totals
By Paul Hogarth
While Hillary Clinton won last week’s California primary, the gap would be narrower if we counted every vote. But in Los Angeles County, the Registrar of Voters disqualified 94,500 ballots from “decline to state” (DTS) voters – because most did not fill an extra bubble to say they were voting in the Democratic primary. These voters requested a Democratic ballot, were given a ballot with only Democratic candidates listed, and a manual re-count would clearly indicate who they meant to vote for. But if they didn’t check the extra bubble, the machine did not pick up their vote – a fatal design flaw beyond any voter’s control. To not count these votes would violate state law, as well as the California Constitution – which requires every vote to be counted. With the close delegate count at stake – along with overwhelming proof that non-partisan voters favored Barack Obama – it is incumbent on L.A. County to count every vote, and to do it now.
Last week, 189,000 “decline-to-state” (DTS) voters in California’s largest County participated in the presidential primary – a 20% increase in turnout over 2006. Each party can choose whether to allow DTS voters in their primary, but only two have done so: (a) the Democratic Party, and (b) the American Independent Party – an ultra-right, nativist party. For a DTS voter to participate, they had to request a ballot in one of these two parties. An overwhelming number picked the Democratic ballot, as poll workers were required to keep track by marking it in the voter rolls.
But here’s where it got tricky. As the sample ballot shows below, DTS voters who got a Democratic ballot were given a list of the presidential candidates. But directly above (and in smaller font), they were also told to mark a bubble that they were voting in the Democratic primary. According to the election machines, 94,500 DTS voters who asked for such a ballot did not pick a candidate. While some may have abstained, it’s clear that a solid majority were disqualified simply because they did not fill in that extra bubble.
Was filling the bubble necessary to prevent DTS folks from voting in more than one primary? No. If you asked for a Democratic ballot, you only got a list of Democratic candidates – and so could not possibly vote in the American Independent primary. From the voter’s mindset, taking that extra step appeared redundant – assuming that they even noticed the fine print in the first place. Given the circumstances, most probably did not see it at all.
It turns out the bubble was there for mechanical reasons – due to a fatal design flaw in the voting machines that was beyond any voter’s control. The optical scanners were only set up to read your choice if you filled in the bubble, because each candidate was then boiled down to a number. If, for example, a DTS voter picked candidate #10 without filling in the bubble, the machine wouldn’t know whether to count Democrat Hillary Clinton – or Diane Beall Templin of the American Independent Party. So they would just say that the voter picked no candidate.
Machines are not humans, so it’s easy to see how they couldn’t catch that problem. But a hand count could determine what the machines did not – basic voter intent. When we learned in 2000 about Palm Beach’s infamous “butterfly ballot,” everyone was sure that Holocaust survivors did not vote for Pat Buchanan – including Buchanan himself. But there was no way to definitively prove that they meant to vote for Al Gore – and the remedies under law were not clear. Here, it’s just a question of getting enough human beings to sort through the 94,500 ballots – and determine which candidate they picked.
So far, the L.A. County Registrar of Voters only agreed to do a sample hand count of 1% of the “unmarked” ballots. But that's illegal, because the State Constitution requires them to count them all. Proposition 43, which passed in 2002, gave each California voter the constitutional right to have their vote counted. And California Elections Code Section 15701 says that even if it takes longer than a statutory deadline, the county can ask for an extension.
“It’s not good enough to do a 1% count,” said Rick Jacobs, chair of the Courage Campaign. “The statute is very clear – all votes have to be counted.” The Courage Campaign, a political non-profit based out of Los Angeles, alerted the Registrar of Voters about this ballot problem on the eve of the primary – and have hired attorneys to enforce the law if necessary. 20,000 people have signed their online petition since Thursday, and State Senator Dean Florez has demanded hearings in Sacramento.
These votes must be counted – for legal reasons, moral reasons, and (yes) political reasons. Barack Obama has wide appeal from unaffiliated voters who joined the Democratic Party to vote for him in the primary, so it’s fair to assume that the bulk of these voters are his. Counting these votes won’t change who won California, or even Los Angeles – as Hillary Clinton won the County by almost 170,000 votes. But in the critical delegate race that may go down to the wire, these 94,500 votes could make a real difference in several Congressional Districts.
“It is a basic issue of trust,” said Jacobs. “Are we going to tell people that their votes didn’t count – when an unprecedented number of independents turned out to participate in the presidential primary? It’s simply a question of voter rights.”
Voters were outraged in 2000 that Florida couldn’t get its act together in the general election – besides the blatant chicanery that the President’s cronies were involved in. But the “butterfly ballot” in Palm Beach County only affected 19,000 voters. Here we have a fatal flaw in L.A. County that disenfranchised 94,000 people. And with the delegate count as close as it is, like Florida it could prove decisive in picking the next President.
It’s not a question of introducing legislation to prevent this matter from happening again -- the law already requires it. These votes are just sitting here – and the Registrar must do a hand re-count to determine what voters really meant. It isn’t rocket science, or even brain surgery. It's democracy.
Paul Hogarth is the Managing Editor of Beyond Chron, an alternative online daily newspaper, with whose permission this article is republished.
Posted on February 12, 2008
On California Progress Report
By Paul Hogarth
While Hillary Clinton won last week’s California primary, the gap would be narrower if we counted every vote. But in Los Angeles County, the Registrar of Voters disqualified 94,500 ballots from “decline to state” (DTS) voters – because most did not fill an extra bubble to say they were voting in the Democratic primary. These voters requested a Democratic ballot, were given a ballot with only Democratic candidates listed, and a manual re-count would clearly indicate who they meant to vote for. But if they didn’t check the extra bubble, the machine did not pick up their vote – a fatal design flaw beyond any voter’s control. To not count these votes would violate state law, as well as the California Constitution – which requires every vote to be counted. With the close delegate count at stake – along with overwhelming proof that non-partisan voters favored Barack Obama – it is incumbent on L.A. County to count every vote, and to do it now.
Last week, 189,000 “decline-to-state” (DTS) voters in California’s largest County participated in the presidential primary – a 20% increase in turnout over 2006. Each party can choose whether to allow DTS voters in their primary, but only two have done so: (a) the Democratic Party, and (b) the American Independent Party – an ultra-right, nativist party. For a DTS voter to participate, they had to request a ballot in one of these two parties. An overwhelming number picked the Democratic ballot, as poll workers were required to keep track by marking it in the voter rolls.
But here’s where it got tricky. As the sample ballot shows below, DTS voters who got a Democratic ballot were given a list of the presidential candidates. But directly above (and in smaller font), they were also told to mark a bubble that they were voting in the Democratic primary. According to the election machines, 94,500 DTS voters who asked for such a ballot did not pick a candidate. While some may have abstained, it’s clear that a solid majority were disqualified simply because they did not fill in that extra bubble.
Was filling the bubble necessary to prevent DTS folks from voting in more than one primary? No. If you asked for a Democratic ballot, you only got a list of Democratic candidates – and so could not possibly vote in the American Independent primary. From the voter’s mindset, taking that extra step appeared redundant – assuming that they even noticed the fine print in the first place. Given the circumstances, most probably did not see it at all.
It turns out the bubble was there for mechanical reasons – due to a fatal design flaw in the voting machines that was beyond any voter’s control. The optical scanners were only set up to read your choice if you filled in the bubble, because each candidate was then boiled down to a number. If, for example, a DTS voter picked candidate #10 without filling in the bubble, the machine wouldn’t know whether to count Democrat Hillary Clinton – or Diane Beall Templin of the American Independent Party. So they would just say that the voter picked no candidate.
Machines are not humans, so it’s easy to see how they couldn’t catch that problem. But a hand count could determine what the machines did not – basic voter intent. When we learned in 2000 about Palm Beach’s infamous “butterfly ballot,” everyone was sure that Holocaust survivors did not vote for Pat Buchanan – including Buchanan himself. But there was no way to definitively prove that they meant to vote for Al Gore – and the remedies under law were not clear. Here, it’s just a question of getting enough human beings to sort through the 94,500 ballots – and determine which candidate they picked.
So far, the L.A. County Registrar of Voters only agreed to do a sample hand count of 1% of the “unmarked” ballots. But that's illegal, because the State Constitution requires them to count them all. Proposition 43, which passed in 2002, gave each California voter the constitutional right to have their vote counted. And California Elections Code Section 15701 says that even if it takes longer than a statutory deadline, the county can ask for an extension.
“It’s not good enough to do a 1% count,” said Rick Jacobs, chair of the Courage Campaign. “The statute is very clear – all votes have to be counted.” The Courage Campaign, a political non-profit based out of Los Angeles, alerted the Registrar of Voters about this ballot problem on the eve of the primary – and have hired attorneys to enforce the law if necessary. 20,000 people have signed their online petition since Thursday, and State Senator Dean Florez has demanded hearings in Sacramento.
These votes must be counted – for legal reasons, moral reasons, and (yes) political reasons. Barack Obama has wide appeal from unaffiliated voters who joined the Democratic Party to vote for him in the primary, so it’s fair to assume that the bulk of these voters are his. Counting these votes won’t change who won California, or even Los Angeles – as Hillary Clinton won the County by almost 170,000 votes. But in the critical delegate race that may go down to the wire, these 94,500 votes could make a real difference in several Congressional Districts.
“It is a basic issue of trust,” said Jacobs. “Are we going to tell people that their votes didn’t count – when an unprecedented number of independents turned out to participate in the presidential primary? It’s simply a question of voter rights.”
Voters were outraged in 2000 that Florida couldn’t get its act together in the general election – besides the blatant chicanery that the President’s cronies were involved in. But the “butterfly ballot” in Palm Beach County only affected 19,000 voters. Here we have a fatal flaw in L.A. County that disenfranchised 94,000 people. And with the delegate count as close as it is, like Florida it could prove decisive in picking the next President.
It’s not a question of introducing legislation to prevent this matter from happening again -- the law already requires it. These votes are just sitting here – and the Registrar must do a hand re-count to determine what voters really meant. It isn’t rocket science, or even brain surgery. It's democracy.
Paul Hogarth is the Managing Editor of Beyond Chron, an alternative online daily newspaper, with whose permission this article is republished.
Posted on February 12, 2008
On California Progress Report
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