Super Tuesday is behind us, but the validity of the election outcome has been undermined by reports surfacing of votes not being counted, of confusing ballots and under-informed poll workers. These issues need to be addressed immediately to secure the future of the democratic voting process.
After the secretary of state’s voter hotline received a number of calls from declined-to-state voters who said some county poll workers were unaware of decline-to-state voter rights, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen asked the news media to remind voters of their rights on the very evening of the election, several hours after polls had opened.
Those who called in should be commended for bringing about the attempt to inform voters, and Bowen acted appropriately to address the potential for voter disenfranchisement. However, the scenario should not have taken place at all.
It frustrates voters to think that their ballots don’t matter. Both voters and poll workers need to be better informed about the process in order to ensure that election results are legitimate.
Voters should not have to petition the secretary of state on election day to ensure that their votes are counted.
Additionally, the Los Angeles ballot was confusing because it required voters to fill in a bubble declaring which party primary they were voting in, and many voters reported they were either unaware of the requirement or had been told not to fill in a bubble.
As a result, the Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office has had to examine more than 94,000 ballots cast by voters who did not declared party affiliation.
Rather than attempt to place blame on the poll workers or their superiors, we as a nation need to realize that these are very serious problems that must be discussed before the presidential elections in November.
These problems are widespread. In Southern California, machines were reportedly not delivered to locations in Los Angeles; in Northern California, Santa Clara and Alameda counties ran out of ballots. Numerous other problems cropped up nationwide.
We need to work to ensure that our elections are legitimate.
Too often we sit in front of a television on election day, watching news media declare winners and losers without realizing that almost 100,000 ballots still need to be checked in counties such as Los Angeles.
Rather than complacently letting the media tell us that our elections are legitimate and the selection of winners infallible, we need to take the responsibility to stay informed so that we can speak up and hold our government accountable when voting conditions are poor.
We as college students are constantly being chastised for being an uninvolved demographic, but if we can’t even trust our government to count our vote, then what incentive do we have to participate?
Los Angeles County needs to make its ballots explicitly clear, and if ballots are too inherently complicated for some voters to understand, poll workers need to be qualified to provide clear instructions.
Voting is a fundamental right in the United States and is the foundation of our democracy. The least we can do is make sure that the much bigger, more prominent presidential elections allow all qualified voters the chance to have their votes count.