Super Tuesday Polling Report

My friend Scott regularly works as a polling precinct manager in the Marina district and had this report on Super Tuesday. It's not encouraging.

California has seven registered political parties. Two of them (the American Independent Party and the Democratic Party) have open primaries. This means that people who are not members of a political party can elect to vote in these primaries. 40% of San Francisco voters are “non-partisan” (not members of a political party).

We had 288 votes cast in the machine, 35 absentee ballots brought in by voters, and 40 people that voted provisionally because they weren’t listed on the registry of voters. This is a very high percentage, unique to the neighborhood (the Marina) of my precinct that has many residents moving in and out of the area frequently, and not getting re-registered in time.

Turnout was much higher than expected, but we did not run out of ballots or have any other related issues. The longest wait in my precinct was 10 minutes (during the 6pm rush). Most voters received a ballot in less than 2 minutes. Many people (20?) wanted to switch political parties; specifically, many registered Republicans wanted to vote in the democratic primary, but California does not allow same-day voter registration or party-switching.

I was supposed to have 4 poll workers. One was a no-show. Two were an elderly Russian immigrant couple that spoke very little English. One was a high-school student, recently emigrated from China. He was not a US citizen and could not count or alphabetize. This meant that during my 6am to 10pm shift, when I left to go to the bathroom, incorrect ballots were distributed and people were denied the right to vote.

In a precinct with only one registered member of the American Independent Party, 8 of those ballots were handed out. All of them had “Obama” written in as a write-in candidate by people that probably identified themselves as “Independents” but didn’t get the correct ballot due to language/competency barriers on behalf of my staff (they used “Independent” as a synonym for “non-partisan”). None of those votes will be counted despite the clear intent of the voters.

At least 5 people complained that they had been sent away to a different precinct after their names were not located in the registry. Turns out that my staff was unable to look up names successfully, and the voters had actually come to the correct place originally. It’s not clear how many people were turned away and simply gave up on their efforts to cast a ballot.

Many people were upset that you do not need to show ID to vote (since it costs money to get an ID, it is considered a “poll tax” and is therefore not allowed). Also of concern: The list of registered voters in the precinct, their party affiliation, if they have voted yet, and their home phone number is posted publicly at the entrance to the polling station, as a matter of law.

We probably disenfranchised about 4% of the voters in my precinct (amplified by the fact that only 50% of registered voters bother to vote). This makes me sad. Additionally, it boggles my mind how easy it would be to cheat this system if one were so inclined.

I encourage anyone who finds my Election Day experience surprising/ depressing/ enlightening to volunteer during the next election cycle. Contact your election office for details. Democracy depends on an educated (or at least literate!) populace. I encourage you to get involved.