| Page 3 of 3 < |
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)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
"The degree of incompetence is beyond belief," he said. "It's just incredible. It's not like this was a surprise. They knew the election was coming. And whoever is responsible should be fired today."
Gareth Rosenau, a lawyer with the Federal Railroad Commission, said the voting cards arrived shortly after he did at the polling place in Takoma Park. But when the registered Democrat put his card into the voting machine, a Republican ballot appeared on the screen, he said.
Other voters were having the same problem, he said, and complained to election officials, who didn't know how to fix the machines so they would produce the proper ballots.
"I felt like I was in a Third World country," he said.
Baltimore was also plagued by election day problems, prompting a judge there to extend voting by an hour as well.
The Maryland Democratic Party alleged in a court filing that at least 75 precincts in Baltimore opened late because election officials failed to show up on time and struggled with the electronic voting machines the city was using for the first time.
Baltimore Elections Administrator Gene Raynor said there were problems with some judges showing up on time. But he said the number of affected precincts was closer to "two dozen."
"When you have 1,500 [election judges], you're going to have problems with some of them," he said.
States across the country scrambled to revamp their election systems after the debacle in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. In an attempt to avoid hanging chads that plagued that election, many states, including Maryland, moved to an electronic voting system. Montgomery has been using the electronic voting machines since 2002 without significant problems.
Critics have described the electronic systems as vulnerable, and a report in June by Common Cause concluded that they "are highly vulnerable to machine malfunction and human manipulation." It also found that Maryland was one of 17 states with voting systems that are at "high risk" because their machines don't have a paper ballot backup system.
In Prince George's County, about 15 to 20 of the county's 206 precincts were delayed on average of about 25 minutes yesterday morning, according to Alisha Alexander, deputy elections administrator for the Prince George's County Board of Elections. Most of the precincts were in the northern part of the county, including Beltsville and University Park.
Alexander said about 20 technicians, who were scheduled to deliver and set up electronic poll books by 6 a.m., quit yesterday morning, resulting in long lines and frustrated voters at numerous polling places.
"We had to find other staff and send them out," said Robert J. Antonetti, the interim Prince George's elections administrator.
