Election-Campaign Law

Elections in the News

By inelefi

Registration Issues

• Louisiana (Orleans Parish): Citizens registered at the DMV don’t show up as registered. However the source points out that most of the cases were resolved in the last few days.
• Maryland (Baltimore): A YPR listener complained about a bottleneck created by too few registration books. He argued that even though his precinct had 16 machines, 6 were idle because there was a bottleneck at the desk. While the Chief Election Judge had asked for 6 registration books, the request was denied and the precinct counted with only 4 registration books to serve all voters.
• Massachusetts (Middlesex): A statewide computer glitch caused “incomplete registration rolls.”
• Minnesota: Same-day registration is helping solve problems with citizens who show up to vote but are told that they are not registered even though they voted before.
• Missouri (Kansas City): Earlier we posted about a problem with voters registration lists in Kansas City. Now, CNN reports that the registration books problem was resolved and that “the county dispatched additional pollworkers to help with the backlog of voters and long lines.”
• New Hampshire (Manchester): Republican observers filed a suit against the state to complain about limited access to same-day registration tables. For more about this issue check out this link.
• South Carolina: Citizens registered at the DMV don’t show up as registered. Voters with this problem are told to “contact their county voter registration office first. If that doesn’t help, they should contact the DMV and the DMV can send their information to the polling place showing that they are registered.”
• Ohio (Cincinnati): CNN reports that judges were issuing provisional ballots by mistake because “because they were confused about whether state drivers’ licenses with outdated addresses could be used as proof of identification”, even though Ohio law “mandates that drivers’ licenses can be used as proof of identification and address, even if the address does not match the voter’s current address.”
• Ohio (Delaware): Approximately 200 students were disenfranchised due to a “voter registration drive”, which though dated in early September, arrived to the registration office past the Oct 6 deadline.
• Virginia: Radford university students who registered at Radford with their college address do not fulfill Virginia registration requirements, because they should have used their permanent address. Students claim they were misinformed. Apparently, these students will be able to cast provisional ballots, but “there is no guarantee that those votes will be counted.”

Inés and Janell

Full post as published by Election Updates on November 04, 2008 (boomark / email).