I received my Democratic primary ballot in the mail and I was pleased to see right there at the top of page 1 these fateful words: "NONPARTISAN VOTERS ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED TO MARK AN ADDITIONAL BUBBLE TO CROSSOVER."

Check it:

The Courage Campaign led the charge not only to educate DTS voters in LA County about the bizarre requirement to fill out the "Democratic Party" bubble in addition to requesting a Democratic ballot but then faught hard to get the LA County Registrar of Voters to count the votes of DTS voters in February 5th's primary. Thanks to that effort, acting LA County Registrar Dean Logan reversed himself and ended up counting 50,000 or so Democratic presidential votes where the intent of unaffiliated voters was clear.

What's great about the disclaimer at the top of the LA County Democratic ballot is that it signals that the victory was not fleeting and it was not merely putting a bandaid on a wound. Thanks to the mobilization of progressives by the Courage Campaign and Secretary of State Debra Bowen's leadership, thousands of DTS voters will no longer have to fear being disenfranchised because of a stupid rule and a poorly designed ballot.

In her best Condoleese, McCormack is quoted by the paper today saying, "This is an unfortunate, unanticipated result...No one could have predicted this."

Sound familiar?

She is shortly contradicted, in the same article, by a spokesperson from her own former office, before she continues on to blame voters and poll workers for the problem that she created --- as now confirmed by both the LA Times and California's Secretary of State Debra Bowen --- before then proceeding to do absolutely nothing about it...

For the moment then, some 50,000 voters in Los Angeles County have had their votes for Presidential candidate currently miscounted. An intended vote for Hillary Clinton, for example, has not been registered as a vote for her. She has lost that vote for the moment, and the voter has been disenfranchised. Needlessly.

Moreover, current acting Registrar Dean Logan is claiming that, due to the fact that the same sets of bubbles were used for both Dem and AI candidates, it's "impossible" to determine with absolute certainty the intent of the voter. But he is wrong. In almost every single case.

The current miscount/error rate for those 50,000 ballots is now at 100%. Thus, any ballot counted at this point will only lower the current miscount/error rate.

Since almost every single one of those ballots can be counted accurately, as per the voter intent, beyond a shadow of a doubt, it's an absolute absurdity and outrage that Logan is claiming that none of them can be, as he argued in an absurd report [PDF] delivered to the County's Board of Supervisor's on Monday.

The excuses must stop. Dean Logan must get to work and start counting. NOW.

Any questions?

In conducting the review and analysis, three central findings have emerged. First, although any quantification is significant, the universe of ballots impacted by the cross-over issue has been found to be much smaller than the number that has been reported in the media since Election Day. Second, the limitations of our voting system and the ballot design impede an ability to determine voter intent on those ballots that were impacted; and third, a clear need exists to immediately modify the ballot layout and voting procedures to facilitate cross-over voting in a manner that does not require additional steps on the part of the voter.

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.

Worse, acting Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters Dean Logan told county supervisors that the county had used the same "double bubble" design in 2004 and 2006. In those elections, only 40 percent of the county's decline-to-state voters' ballots were counted. It is outrageous that the county knew of this massive disenfranchisement and did not make changes. This calls for an investigation.

I've been following politics before I even hit my teens.
And 2 weeks before this election, I turned 18, with my registration in
weeks before. I knew the issues, the candidates, the propositions, and
for the fist time in my life cast a ballot. I heard the next day about
the double bubble. No one at the polls mentioned it, and I didn't see
instructions that even pointed to its existence. It's not such a great
feeling that you're first close up experience in a system you've
watched for so long at a distance could have amounted to
nothing.

The Los Angeles system requires that decline-to-state voters not only ask specifically for a Democratic ballot - but also fill in a special bubble on the ballot specifically indicating their desire to vote on the Democratic presidential ticket. Failure to fill in the bubble voids their presidential ballot.

The Courage Campaign has contacted Los Angeles County election officials "demanding that they count the votes and that they inform voters of this 'bubble trouble,"' said Jacobs. "They finally agreed they didn't know how to count the votes."

But Averell "Ace" Smith, campaign manager for California campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, said he is mystified by the Election Day complaints from the Obama team, since the rules for decline to state voters - specifically the requirement that request Democratic ballots - have been a matter of public record posted on the California Secretary of State's web site for months.

"Every California campaign has known the ground rules on this for three months," he said. "I can't imagine why they waited until 2 pm. on Election Day to wake up ... it strikes me as strange. If you wait until the last minute to complain, they must really be worried we're going to win."

"We've certainly worked with our voters for months and months" to educate them on the process, he said. "They're blaming other people for not having done their homework...this is nothing more than a cynical attempt to create confusion."

Mr. Logan and Mr. Finley,

I write to memorialize our conversation earlier and to outline a number of responses that your office should immediately undertake to remedy a situation that will have the potential of disenfranchising a great number of voters who are trying to navigate a voting process that is already confusing to many.

We have confirmed with your office that in fact, voters who have not marked circles 5 or 6 and who have requested a partisan ballot will not have their vote counted. We have also confirmed that the Inka-Vote system, as implemented, will be unable to tabulate their votes for President and that in effect, those votes will be lost completely.

Our client, Courage Campaign, therefore demands that the Los Angeles County Registrar-Record/County Clerk and the Secretary of State immediately implement the following:

1.) Distribute recorded messages from the Registrar's office to Decline to State/Nonpartisan voters reminding them that they must fill in circle numbers 5 or 6 (the bubble stating they are voting Democratic or AI) if they request a Democratic or American Independent ballot. The notice should also inform them that failure to do so will result in their choice for president not counting. These calls should commence tonight and be distributed throughout the day tomorrow.

2.) Distribute press releases to the English news media and language media for those groups covered by Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act with the same message provided in item number one above.

3.) Instruct "rovers" and other polling place supervisors to specifically instruct pollworkers to remind voters that they must fill in circles 5 or 6 or their vote for President will not count.

4.) Immediately distribute public service announcements consistent with the information mentioned in item one, above.

5.) Permit Courage Campaign volunteers to observe the sorting and vote counting process so that we may assess the extent of the problem caused by the issues with DTS voting.

These steps are reasonable responses to the issues raised in our letter to your office earlier this morning. Once again, our client reserves all of its legal rights. We look forward to hearing from you soon.


Steve J. Reyes
Kaufman Downing LLP

The Democratic and American Independent party ballots given to independent voters who request them include an extra bubble specifying that voters intend to cast a vote in that party's primary. The extra bubble appears before the list of candidates.

If voters fail to mark that spot, the county's scanning machines will not read the selection for president.

If you declined to select a political party when you registered to vote, you can still vote for Barack Obama if you request a Democratic ballot from the poll worker. Make sure you mark "Democratic" in the appropriate space or the vote might not be counted.

DTS voters requesting partisan ballots and registered Democratic and American Independent voters will receive the exact same Ink-a-Vote ballot. However, contrary to statutory provisions set forth in the Election Code, Los Angeles County requires DTS voters to complete an additional hurdle by marking either box number 5 (for American Independent ballots) or box number 6 (for Democratic party ballots) or their vote for President of the United States will not be counted. Invalidating a ballot based solely upon the failure to mark a box, (box 5 or 6) even though the voter has cast his/her ballot for a candidate for president, constitutes an improper basis for rejection and a policy that violates the rights of DTS voters. (See Cal. Elec. Code 15154(c).)