Page 12 - April 2016

election day fiasco: Is THeRe A FIx?
BY charles seiverd
the “Electronic Poll Book” verified DMV voter info.
Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan.
March 22 marked a dark day for democracy for many who waited dutifully to cast a ballot in Arizona’s Presidential Preference Election. not only did fewer polling stations exist — 85% less than at the same time 8 years ago — but citizens were met with a systemic error: software at the Department of Motor Vehicles defaulted party affiliation to “other” or “undes- ignated,” negating as many as 623,000 citizens’ rights to vote.
Percilla Stoeckley of Flagstaff summed up the frustration told across social network web- sites and within public houses and coffee shops in the days following:
I have been a registered Democrat since I turned 21. I headed down to the Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church to vote, waited in line as usual, then the woman behind the table asked for my ID. I was told I am an ‘undesignated voter.’ I told her there must be a mistake, and she asked if I had changed it at some point. I told her ‘No,’ and she said, ‘Well you have to be a registered Democrat to vote. This is a special election.’ I told her that was why I was there. She insisted I wasn’t registered.
“By this time I had a sinking feeling in my gut because I know this is wrong. I could only stare at the woman in disbelief. My first impulse was to walk out of there, but finally I said, ‘I only hope this is not happening to other people because this is so wrong.’ Looking uncomfortable, the woman said, ‘Well, if you feel it’s an error you can go over there and fill out a form, and if you are a registered Democrat your vote will be counted.’ I felt stunned, took a while to fill it out the form, then was handed a ballot and sent to a voting booth.
what Ms. stoeckley was unaware of since the last time she voted: when she updated her driver’s license with a new photo in 2012, the software at DMV “overwrote” her party affiliation on her voter identification, replacing it with the innocuous term: “undesignated voter.” she, like many other citizens across the state, had come to believe that once you choose a party, you were with the party for life, unless you made a conscientious decision to change it.
But as the scenario played out on election Day, this was hardly the case.
According to poll worker training materials, every citizen who arrived at a polling station were to have their driver’s license scanned to a“real-time”wireless modem-driven touch-screen computer console — an “electronic Poll Book” connected to “election Central” — which then displayed the voter’s name, address, and party affiliation to the poll worker. To “verify” the voter, the poll worker was trained to ensure no error prompts occurred (like “inactive voter” or “mail- in ballot already sent”), and confirm the address on the screen matched the address on the ID. Then, because the Presidential Preference election was considered a “closed primary” instead of the “open primary” available in statewide elections, the poll worker had to affirm a party affilia- tion was attached to the voter information found on the screen — only Democratic, Republican, or Green Party members were to be given an official ballot of their respective party race.
However, as Ms. stoeckley can attest, too often this simple transaction strayed beyond the scope of the norm.
said one rural poll worker who wished to remain unidentified: “People would come in, show their ID, and we’d look at the roster and say, ‘it says here you have no party affiliation.’ And people on both sides — Republicans and Democrats — would say, ‘How can that be? I’ve been registered with the party for years.’ we’d say, ‘well you can cast a provisional ballot.’ And they’d ask, ‘well, will it count?’ And that’s where it got sticky.”
what became apparent as election Day rolled on: nearly 1 out of 3 Arizona citizens, when their driver’s license was scanned, would have one of three messages pop up in the party affiliation field on the ePB: “Party not Designated” or “Other” or “none.” This was markedly unique from the
“Independent” distinction viewed infrequently that day, and occurred with individuals who then countered something like: “no, that’s not right” and affirmed their party affiliation, either Demo- crat or Republican, often with an assertion, like Ms. stoeckley’s, of the number of years they had voted with that party. Despite a voter’s protest, poll workers were authorized only to offer a
“provisional ballot,” and did not have the ability to correct party data on the electronic form. And while rural poll workers were trained to politely direct any voter who showed up on the electronic roster as “not affiliated” to cast a provisional ballot, it is unclear how well that
mandate was followed throughout the state, and how well those provisional voters were in- formed that they needed to contact their County Recorder to correct their information. And reports from overloaded urban poll stations attest to a pattern of the opposite, as poll workers accosted citizens with “this is a closed primary” and “your vote will not count” — language culled from a “cheat sheet” provided by the secretary of state’s Office — invariably ensnaring a drawn-out argument within the polling station, even if the voter legitimately believed their party designation on the roster was in error.
Citizens would then either begrudgingly accept a provisional ballot, or exit the polling sta-
tionindisgust,mumblingsomethinglike“what’sthepoint?”Thosewhochosetoleavearethe most important number not recorded and leave election watchers curious as to how many citi- zens actually did show up to the polls and were ultimately disenfranchised due to what could very well have been a clerical error.
noted Sarah Edmonds, a clinical psychologist from Flagstaff:
People being told they aren’t eligible to vote when they believed they were eligible would ex- perience cognitive dissonance in that there would be an inconsistency in what they believed was true and what they were now finding out. But how they go about trying to reduce that disso- nance would vary from person to person.
Some people would be appeased by the promise that their provisional vote would be counted, some people would give up and let it go (especially those who thought their vote wouldn’t mat- ter or count anyway) and some would fight, protest, and insist that the provisional ballots be counted or a revote be taken (especially those who believe that everyone has a right to vote, that the government should ensure elections are fair, that it is the government’s responsibility to right its wrongs, or that the election system is rigged and it is up to us to change it, for example).
The scenario of mistaken party affiliation played out throughout the day, as provisional bal- lot ratios climbed to a consistent 30% of votes cast in rural northern Arizona districts, and were ubiquitous to individuals who had been issued a new ID in the past 4 years.
Thirty percent is a rather large ratio, and to put into perspective, if the same logarithm tele- vision networks use to project election results were overlaid in this election’s subset of voters and applied to all precincts in Arizona, the total sum of potential “provisional voters” would yield 320,317 (out of 1,067,726 votes cast March 22 and reported March 25). As the number of voters turned away at polling stations throughout the state had not been officially recorded, and presuming this election year had galvanized a majority of registered voters and they did turn up only to have a computer error thwart their ability to cast a ballot, the 30% figure would equal 623,275 disenfranchised voters (from 2,077,586 party-registered voters, not including Independents). That sum is consequential when applied to the current results posted at azsos. gov, and would upend all calculations, considering election Day voters, distinct from their mail- in counterparts, are especially tuned into individual candidate news, and are privy to debates and issues presented within days preceding the election.
To her credit, the new “election czar,” secretary of state Michele Reagan, was merely accom- modating her party’s penchant to “shave the budget” as nearly $1 million was cut from her office’s expenses from last year, when there was no votes to tally; what she may have not pre- pared for in her first election at the helm was the “trickle down” effects of those cuts. embold- ened by the nod for fiscal integrity in Arizona elections, Ms. Reagan publicly acknowledged early this year her disdain for moneys outlaid to elections and suggested that political parties chip in to “foot the bill” for the costs of ballots, poll workers, and the myriad of roles Constitu- tionally assigned her office come election season. seasoned political observers lament had she taken cues from her predecessors on the job — Betsey Bayless, Jane Hull, and Rose Mofford, to name a few notable secretaries of state who accomplished the same role with nowhere near the controversy — Ms. Reagan might have found a way to include many more voters in an elec- tion season already feverishly followed and hotly contested.
Yet the official explanation of the election fiasco now being touted by those in higher office revolves not around a vast clerical error that may have single-handedly nullified voter prefer- ence but is rooted in an extension of “individual doubt,” the shifting of blame to the “uneducated Independent voter” and the confusing semantics of the state’s “open primary” codes. Instead of informing all citizens of the requirements of an upcoming election with a simple postcard sent to all households within the state, those in higher office chose to again shave budgets. while Governor Doug Ducey does admit “it’s unacceptable ... that many had to battle incredibly long lines ...” he stops short of calling for a revote, which would be the ultimate harbinger of a responsible government whose primary objective is sworn as “by the people, for the people.”
As is proposed by online observers, who have by press time petitioned the white House with 149,000 signatures, a relatively simple and cost-effective solution does exist. Arizona already has a special election scheduled for May 17 to decide Mr. Ducey’s education funding fix, Proposi-
tion 123. To hold a revote on this date would not only meet the criteria for fiscal conservancy so desired by the present administration, but would restore the necessary citizen confidence the electoral process needs to sustain a successful democracy. After all, if we’re telling the rest of the world how great this form of government is, shouldn’t we be doing it correctly ourselves?
| Charles Seiverd would like to see every vote count. chuck@thenoise.us
12 • APRIL 2016 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us