Volunteers leafleting against Prop 54 and against the recall outside Los Angeles polling places this morning report late poll openings, missing voting materials and equipment, and disenfranchised voters walking away from closed polls in frustration.
As one of perhaps twenty volunteers leafleting outside more than a dozen Hollywood/Silverlake/Echo Park polling places early this morning, I heard several stories of disenfranchised voters during our shift debrief at 9:30 a.m. One volunteer arrived at her assigned polling place just after 7 a.m and discovered that while voters were there and ready to vote, the polls were not yet open. The volunteer, a supporter of the statewide Coalition Against Proposition 54, immediately called the nearest campaign office for advice. Per organizers' instructions, she began redirecting voters to either of two nearby polling places, explaining that they could vote at these alternative sites by requesting provisional ballots. While several voters did go to these alternative sites, others were wary of the provisional ballots and concerned that their votes would be thrown out. Some voters, the volunteer said, simply walked away in frustration. These voters' official polling place finally opened at around 8 a.m., citing missing voting materials as the cause of the delay. The volunteer described the voters as "mostly people of color."
At another polling place in the same area, a volunteer reported that voters were being instructed to punch their ballots over a hole in a table, as official voting equipment had yet to arrive.
At least two other polls in the area were not open at the official 7 a.m. opening time.
Some volunteers reported problems with polling place workers, who claimed that the volunteer leafletters had no right to be in the area, although all volunteers were conscientiously outside the 100-foot no-electioneering zone. One polling-place worker said she received a call from a man claiming to be an election official, ordering her to remove the leafletters from the area under threat of discarded ballots and closure of the polling place. She believed the man to be an election official until the volunteer leafletter clarified his legal right to speak to voters outside the 100-foot zone and referred the polling-place worker to a Legal Aid representative.
More promisingly, nearly all voters at the Echo Park polling place where I worked were informed about all questions on the ballot and expressed their intentions to vote no on the recall and no on Prop 54.
Here it comes. You knew it would only be a matter of time. The insessive whinning of those who just can't believe that people don't see things the way they do, so it must be outside forces that are keeping the TRUE reflection of the will of the people from being heard.
Typical.
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Any US citizen 18 or older who is not a felon has the right to vote. What he does NOT have is the right to have his vote counted when he marks it the wrong way. That is not disenfranchisement, any more than "walking away in frustration" is disenfranchisement. Follow the instructions, follow the law, and vote. Stop trying to claim that there is some kind of "plan" to keep liberals from voting. The stupidity factor is a lot bigger problem.
Uh, the felon law only applies to Florida where the people in charge are backwards to begin with (jeb bush et. al.). When polling places don't have proper equipment or people are discouraged to vote in this manner, that is disenfranchisement. To call working people ignorant in this case is indicative of your own condescenidng stupidity.
>the felon law only applies to Florida where the people in charge are backwards to begin with
Hey, that's all those Democratic party controlled counties. You're stepping on your own comrades toes.