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Election Workers' Error Blocks and Delays Voters
Poll worker Natividad Funelas prepares the voting station so Eileen Curtis can vote at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville.
(By Alexey Tolchinsky -- The Washington Post)
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County elections officials said they simply forgot to include the cards in the supply bags provided to the chief election judge of each polling place.
The trouble began Friday when eight county elections employees and a supervisor met in a locked room on the first floor of the elections headquarters building at 751 Twinbrook Pkwy. in Rockville.
They packed the large canvas bags which were to contain the items needed to operate the computerized voting system. But the stacks of the critical voter access cards were forgotten, locked a few feet away behind a caged door. Once the bags were packed, they were padlocked for security, and polling place judges were prohibited from opening them until yesterday morning.
About 6 a.m., the judges realized the cards were missing, said Margaret Jurgensen, the county's elections director. She said the county has checklists to keep employees from forgetting to pack any of the items, but she did not know if they were used.
Jurgensen said the error "was a team effort."
Linda H. Lamone, chairman of the State Board of Elections, said she was appalled by the day's events and said it was the work of poorly trained election judges.
"We push the information out to them," said Lamone, who was appointed by Ehrlich's Democratic predecessor, Parris N. Glendening. "If they choose not to follow it, there's nothing we can do."
Ehrlich's initial reaction on learning of the problems was: "That's negligence. That's inexcusable."
Later in the day, the governor added: "The training is Linda Lamone's responsibility, period. The apology should come from her. . . . She's going to have to answer a lot of questions tomorrow."
But Douglas F. Gansler (D), the Montgomery County state's attorney, who is running for attorney general, joined several other candidates who lambasted the county election board yesterday.
"The level of incompetence that led to this is almost surreal -- especially in Montgomery County," he said.
When David Belkin showed up to vote at a polling place in Bethesda at 8:30 a.m. he was told he could vote by provisional ballot, but the line was too long and he was late for a meeting.
