Brennan Center for Justice

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
February 5, 2008

CONTACT:
Jonah Goldman (703) 201-5586
jgoldman@lawyerscomittee.org

Justin Levitt (323) 365-9773
Justin.Levitt@nyu.edu

Nationwide
Summary of Calls

866-OUR-VOTE

February
5, 2008 

Overall, Election Protection received over 2,647 calls to the 866-OUR-VOTE Election Protection hotline on February
5, 2008.  Administered by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and
representing a coalition of national, state and local non-partisan not for
profit organizations committed to protecting the rights of all eligible voters
to cast a ballot, the Election Protection hotline had over 500 legal volunteers
on hand this Election Day, answering over 70 phone lines in 5 call centers from
coast to coast.  Legal volunteers assisted voters on the phones and at the
polling place. 

Once again, Election Protection has painted a complete picture of
the experience of American voters from their perspective.  While election
officials and poll workers worked valiantly, a disturbing number of eligible
voters were disenfranchised due to poor administration and insufficient
resources.  Americans came out in record numbers to exercise their
fundamental right to vote; unfortunately, in many jurisdictions, the
infrastructure of our elections weren't up for this historic challenge. 

Across the country, properly registered voters were left off of
voter registration rolls forcing them to vote provisional ballots, uncertain if
they will count.  In every state targeted by Election Protection partners,
voters called to complain of poll workers who were misinformed or under trained
causing myriad problems at the polling place, leading to eligible voters being
disenfranchised.  Poor ballot design and problems with voting machines
continue to lead to voters being turned away without casting a ballot, and polling
place breakdowns and poor planning continue to cause long lines forcing voters
to choose between exercising the most fundamental right and other, essential
responsibilities.   

February 5 has made clear that we all have a lot of work to do
before Election Day on November 4 to ensure that all eligible voters have a
real opportunity to cast a ballot that counts for the candidates of their
choice. 

Over the coming days and weeks Election Protection will be delving
further into the data collected on February 5, and the primaries to come, and
working with election officials to guarantee that all eligible voters have an
opportunity to cast a ballot in November.  Below are some specific
examples of the problems voters faced from across the country:

Arizona

• Many voters, both long time and recent registrants, who
  showed up to the correct precinct but were not on the voter registration
  rolls.
• Multiple polling places in Maricopa County reported
  waits of over two hours.
• A voter who had recently moved, and who had recently
  re-registered at his new address, went to the polls and presented a
  driver's license with his old address.  He was asked to vote a
  provisional ballot; that vote will only count if he is able to drive an hour
  and a half to the county recorder's office with two different forms of
  proof of residency.

California

A total of 1,280 calls
were made to the Election Protection hotline from California.

• The call center assisted over 400 California voters in
  locating their polling places on election day.
• A poll worker in Baldwin Park was going down a long
  line of voters demanding they show identification before they could vote,
  despite no identification being required.
• The call center received many calls indicating problems
  in correctly accommodating voters unaffiliated with any party.  These
  voters were eligible to vote in the open Democratic and American
  Independent Primaries.  However, many such voters were refused a
  ballot for these open primaries.  Other voters, particularly in Los
  Angeles, were not instructed to fill in a confusing extra bubble
  indicating their choice of party primary, which is necessary to ensure
  their ballot is counted.
• A number of callers have indicated that they are
  registered in one party, but the registration rolls indicate they are
  unaffiliated voters or affiliated with a different party.  While this
  phenomenon has not been limited to Republicans, Republican voters seemed
  to report this problem most frequently.
• Voters report continued confusion over registration
  procedures and registration validity.
• Voters reported concern that optical scan machines
  intended to check ballots were not counting their ballots correctly.
• Callers have reported that they did not receive the
  vote-by-mail ballots they previously requested.
• At one polling place, a pollworker challenged a student
  voter's right to vote and refused to issue a regular ballot because the
  pollworker asserted that the voter no longer lived at the address the
  voter used for voter registration.
• Broken voting equipment or other related machinery has
  been reported in some precincts.
• In Oxnard, a polling place did not have the voter
  registration roll for any voter with a name beginning with "M" or later in
  the alphabet.  All voters with a last name beginning with "M" or
  later were being instructed to vote by provisional ballot.
• Several polling places opened late, making it difficult
  for working voters to vote prior to going to work and creating confusion
  for voters.
• Voters have reported long lines at a polling place in
  Long Beach.

Georgia

There were over 900 calls made to Election Protection by Georgia
voters, as well as an additional 300 calls during the advanced voting period.

• Some long lines were caused by a shortage of systems
  used to check in voters and problems with new computerized poll books;
  though there were a sufficient number of voting machines in most
  precincts, voters experienced bottlenecks waiting to check in.
• The majority of calls were from voters asking about
  their registration status, their poll location, and what kind of photo ID
  was required.
• A number of voters reported intimidation concerns
  caused by roving roadblocks and in one case by an armed Secretary of State
  elections investigator who was in a precinct.
• There were scattered reports of voters being issued an
  incorrect ballot. In some cases, the problem was resolved, in other cases,
  the machine appeared to cast the incorrect ballot and the problem was not
  resolved.
• Many voters showed up to vote, believed they were
  registered, and in some cases had received confirmation of their
  registration, but were told they were not on the rolls.

Illinois

There were 136 inquiries from Illinois.  Forty-four of those
inquiries were from Cook County. 

• The overwhelming majority of calls involved a request
  for a polling place location. 
• Some individuals were asked to show identification when
  identification was not required; one individual witnessed other voters
  being turned away for not having ID.
• There were several reports about electioneering close
  to the polls, or about pollworkers encouraging individuals to vote for
  particular candidates.
• There were several reports about difficulties obtaining
  ballots for minor-party (in particular, Green Party) primaries.
• At least one polling place opened late, which prevented
  a caller from voting because he works an hour away from the polling
  place. 

New York

Election Protection received over 350 calls from New York voters.

• Across the city, longtime voters are showing up at the
  polls to find that their names are not on the registration rolls.  In
  one location in Brooklyn, for example, many voters who had been living and
  voting in the same spot for over 20 years were told they could not vote by
  regular ballot because their names did not appear on the
  rolls.   
• There have been voting machine failures in a number of
  districts across the city, including Bushwick in Brooklyn, the Upper East
  Side, Upper West Side, Midtown, West Harlem, and the Lower East Side in Manhattan,
  and areas of the Bronx.
• Where machines have broken down, poll workers have
  become confused about proper procedures, and have distributed affidavit
  ballots to voters instead of emergency paper ballots In other cases, they
  have placed emergency paper ballots in affidavit envelopes, increasing the
  chances that eligible voters' votes will not be counted.  In one
  location, poll workers were entering the voting booths to try to fix
  machines while the voters were still in there attempting to vote, and at
  another location, poll workers handed out paper ballots that were already
  filled in.
• Many New Yorkers who tried to change their party
  enrollment before the voter registration deadline on January 11, 2008 -
  but after October 26, 2007 - discovered that, under state law, they were
  not allowed to vote in their new party's primary today.  Instead,
  their new affiliation will not take effect until after the November 2008
  general election.