The story is painfully unsurprising. More than 94,000 primary votes in Los Angeles County are in danger of not being counted because of a design flaw in the ballot.

The Courage Campaign is doing some of the legwork to insist that the votes be counted, but we're powered by you. Your signatures on our petition and your tales from the polls. I keep saying it, but the overwhelming response is both humbling and outrageous (as in, how can so many people have to do this in a functioning democracy?), but as Rick Jacobs discusses on the flip, adding your voice today can only make us stronger as we push forward.

From Rick:

We warned Los Angeles County about the impending trouble with the "double bubble." Now, the Sacramento Bee editorial board is calling it "a major voting disaster." And there is speculation that the outcome could change how many delegates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama receive in California.

94,500. That's roughly how many people in Los Angeles County voted for Obama and Clinton on Super Tuesday, only to see their votes rejected by the now infamous -- and fatally flawed -- "double bubble" ballot.

Here's the bad news: Despite a record-breaking turnout of 189,000 voters registered as "Decline-to-State" (DTS), Dean Logan, L.A.'s Registrar of Voters, is still refusing to physically hand-count these ballots, effectively disenfranchising 94,500 -- at least HALF -- of DTS voters because they didn't fill in an extra, redundant bubble before voting for President.

Time is running out to change Dean Logan's mind. Nearly 20,000 people have signed our "Count Every Vote" petition. Have you? Please sign it now and forward it to your friends immediately, so we can deliver as many signatures as possible directly to Dean Logan:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CountEveryVote

Calling it "a major voting disaster" and a "raw deal" for Decline-to-State voters, the Sacramento Bee's editorial board puts "94,500" in perspective:

"The scale of disenfranchisement is huge - 94,500 of 189,000 decline-to-state votes. That's half of the nonpartisan ballots. By comparison, in the infamous Florida "butterfly ballot" debacle in the 2000 presidential election, 19,120 Palm Beach County ballots went uncounted because of the bad ballot design."

That's right. Five times as many voters are now being disenfranchised than in Palm Beach County's "hanging chad" catastrophe of 2000. The only difference is that Dean Logan, the L.A. County registrar, knew this would happen ahead of time -- because a lawyer for the Courage Campaign warned him in a detailed letter prior to the primary.

18,007 (and growing). That's the astounding number of people who have signed the "Count Every Vote" petition so far, building a movement for election integrity that could become our largest signature-gathering campaign ever. Sign your name, tell your friends, and demand that Dean Logan count every vote today:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CountEveryVote

Excited by the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, an unprecedented number of Decline-to-State voters rushed to the polls last Tuesday to vote in the Democratic Party primary. But at least HALF of these voters in Los Angeles County -- 20% of the electorate in the largest election jurisdiction in America -- are now finding out that their vote was rejected because they "failed" to fill out a meaningless bubble on a confusing ballot.

We don't know if -- as the Los Angeles Daily News speculated -- the "double bubble" debacle "could affect the number of delegates each candidate gets -- potentially determining the Democratic nominee for president." We do know that, no matter the speculation, we can't take one vote for granted:

Sign the petition. Spread the word. Count every vote:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CountEveryVote

The stakes are high. And, with a deadline looming to certify the vote, time is short.

Your signature will help make sure the "double bubble" disaster does not disenfranchise independent voters inspired by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Please sign today so that we can bring the largest number of signatures possible directly to Dean Logan and remind him that the integrity of our elections -- and the faith of people in the process -- depends on counting every vote.

Thank you for taking a minute of your time to defend our democracy today.

Rick Jacobs
Chair

P.S. On Thursday, we told you about Julian H., a young man who told us his first vote "amounted to nothing" because he didn't fill in an irrelevant bubble. Julian wasn't alone in his disgust and disappointment. Hundreds of frustrated voters have contacted the Courage Campaign. Charles C., another first-time primary voter, just wrote the following to us about his Election Day experience:

"When I walked into the polling place, I was asked what party I was with. I told them I was an Independent. They asked me which party I was going to vote for, and I stated Democratic. They handed me a ballot and pointed me to a particular booth. Because this is the first time I have voted in a primary, I was really excited. When I saw my candidates name, I marked it and then moved on to the remainder of the ballot. I didn't know I had to mark Democratic again. I felt proud to cast my vote, but now feel like a fool knowing my vote will not be counted."

If you know of any "Decline-to-State" voters in Los Angeles like Charles or Julian, please send them to a special web page we have set up specifically for disenfranchised DTS voters:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/LosAngelesVotes