Have we found yet another glitch in California’s voter system, or a conspiracy to control the outcome of elections?
More than 118,000 voters were somehow left off the voter rosters on the state’s primary election day in Los Angeles County. When citizens showed up at their assigned polling stations, many were turned away and informed they were not registered.
A Glendale resident, Bernadette DeMesme-Anders, had been going to the same location for decades. However, she was informed this year that her name was not on the polls. She told Los Angeles Times of her experience:
“We were told it must have been our fault, we must have sent them a mail-in ballot request. I assured them it wasn’t the case.”
“Why, all of a sudden, after all of these decades, would this glitch suddenly appear?” she said. “It made me very frightened for our democracy.”
Another voter, Patricia Sanders, had a similar experience. She said the ordeal was “just an awkward interaction.” It took a while for the confusion to lift long enough for Sanders to receive a provisional ballot to cast her vote. “My concern was, ‘Was this done correctly? Did it go where it’s supposed to go?’ I didn’t leave feeling very confident that my vote was handled correctly.”
Voter Concerns
Supervisor Sheila Kuehl said one of her aides tried to vote in Sylmar and one of the poll workers told the aide to try a different precinct. The aide demanded a provisional ballot instead and cast her vote. Supervisor Hilda Solis wrote in a letter that she was concerned many of her voters left off the rolls were individuals of color. Her district stretches from downtown Los Angeles to South Gate and east to Pomona.
Professor Jessica Levinson from Loyola Law School said more than 100,000 people being left off of the voting roster is nothing to shrug about. “It’s a herculean effort to get anybody in L.A. to the polls,” she said. “To get them to the polls, and then get them through a conversation about why they’re not on the rolls, even though they should be, and then talk through provisional voting — it’s less than ideal.”
“It’s an inevitability that many will have seen their names not on the voter roll and be turned off from voting entirely,” said Mark Gonzalez, L.A. County Democratic Party Chairman.
That’s an understatement. It’s already difficult to get people to vote, but when such issues as this and the recent Department of Motor Vehicle voter registration fiasco that compromised approximately 77,000 voter records occur, trust in the process diminishes even more.
Dirty Dealings?
It does make one wonder, though. Are there dirty, behind-the-door dealings going on? Are California lawmakers worried Republicans might have a stronger foothold than they want to admit? The predicted Blue Wave wasn’t as ferocious as they’d thought, as Liberty Nation’s Graham Noble explained. But then, these are just conspiracy theories. Right? Or are they?
“We fell short in meeting the more than reasonable expectations of the voters and poll workers,” Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean C. Logan said during a board meeting prompted by the voter poll problem. “It’s an issue that I take seriously, I understand the gravity of it, especially in an environment where there is so much discussion about the security and integrity of our voting process.”
On the other hand, perhaps it’s Russia pulling the strings.
