Warning: This is a very long post.
Introduction
I've spent the past week looking over the voting equipment problems captured by the Election Protection Coalition's 25 nationwide call centers into the Our Vote Live database. There were around 1900 such incidents in the database, although that number is probably closer to 1700 taking into account duplicates.
Before I launch into the analysis, a few caveats:
- This is voter-reported data, which means it can be inaccurate.
- There has been no attempt to control for multiple reports from a single precinct.
- In many cases it is hard to tell what exactly happened as the incident reports were taken by mostly non-technical legal volunteers from mostly non-technical voters and volunteers in the field.
- Given the unbelievable popularity of the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline, OVL was unable to capture all incidents that people wanted to report.
- There are undoubtedly incidents that were not reported to the OVL hotline for a variety of reasons.
Bottom-line: This is useful for qualitative notions of what went wrong on election day.
Yesterday, a year-long collaboration between The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Election Protection Coalition came to fruition. OurVoteLive.org, powered by EFF's Total Election Awareness project, helped EP's thousands of hotline operators and legal response teams document and respond to over 86,000 calls to the 866-OUR-VOTE voter-assistance hotline on November 4th and during early voting. Over 5,000 more calls were documented during the primaries.
Now that the election is over, Our Vote Live contains the largest database of voting-related inquiries, problems, and discrepancies ever created — all searchable and visible to the general public. While important prototypes were used in prior elections, Our Vote Live was by far the most comprehensive and must successful effort to date.
Behind the simple features visible to the general public is a complex system that enabled hotline call centers to provide information to callers, record their questions and complaints, and coordinate legal assistance and media outreach in response.
I'm going to try and do today what I didn't have time to do yesterday: some discussion of voting machine and voting technology incidents. Since I was based out of OVL's Simpson Thatcher call center in NYC, I'll first talk about the main states we covered: New Jersey and Michigan.
New Jersey - Early on we were getting tons of reports about broken machines and emergency ballots. In a number of cases poll workers were confused and were offering provisional ballots instead of emergency ballots. In follow-up on a few cases, this was simply poll workers issuing emergency ballots and having voters place them in provisional envelopes without asking the voters to fill out the provisional information (affidavit?). Places we followed up with further here ensured us that they were no longer using the provisional envelopes past the mid-morning. Unfortunately, some of these polling places will undoubtedly run out of emergency ballots by the end of the day. Two other consistent problems with the AVC Advantages are "premature voters" and "fleeing voters". In these cases voters either: 1) report accidentally casting their ballot — pressing the "VOTE" button — after making only a few selections on the ballot (casting an incomplete ballot) and 2) report either entering a booth with an uncast ballot on it or realizing later that they neglected to cast their ballot. A few voters reported what might be broken buttons or dead lights on the Advantage… they report having pushed a button next to their candidate of choice and the button not lighting up. It's hard to tell here if the button is broken — vote not registered or cast — or the light is broken — vote cast but not apparent.
Today’s Events Exemplify the Need for True Reform
Washington, DC — Election Protection, the nation’s largest nonpartisan voter rights coalition, has fielded over 200,000 calls to its 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline, including over 80,000 calls on Election Day alone. Questions and concerns from voters across the country – from the hotline, website and social networking sites like Twitter – were answered and acted upon by a network of over 10,000 trained volunteers across the country.
"Today, millions of citizens exercised their fundamental right to vote in a truly historic election. And they were aided by a truly historic Election Protection effort - ten thousand trained volunteers who helped address multiple important election issues in a variety of states,” said Jonah Goldman, Director of the National Campaign for Fair Elections at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “The stories and the data that we collected create a record for comprehensive election reform. Many of these pressing challenges we uncovered demonstrate our duty to ensure that American voters are granted a system worthy of the resolve, courage and dedication to democracy seen today."
As Election Protection partner Rock the Vote is documenting, this election saw the rise of new and innovative voter suppression tactics aimed at youth, including the use of deceptive text messages and the use of Facebook.
Nevertheless, early indicators point to possible historic levels for young people turnout. For instance, CNN exit polls are showing that the youth in Virginia made up 21% of the voters, as compared with 17% in 2004. In Pennsylvania, youth made up 18% of the vote this year. At the precinct for Ohio State University, the number of voters rose 16% from 2004 levels.
Despite all the efforts to keep the youth home, this year it looks like the youth owned their right to vote and headed to the polls.
We just surpassed the 75,000 number in the number of calls.
Remember, you can go through and search all of the reports we have been getting. There is a real face to each one of these 75,000 calls.
UPDATE (7:08 p.m.): We have received reports that the situation has improved significantly and wait times are now much shorter.
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As the second wave of voters in Virginia return home from work, we're seeing a new crop of problems arising throughout the state. Chesapeake, today's perennial issue, is seeing the lines again approach seven hours. Election Protection has secured sworn affidavits from voters regarding their waits, one of whom has sworn to a 7 hour, 15 minute wait in line to vote at Cuffee Community Center.
At this rate, voters who arrive at 6 p.m. might be in line until 1 a.m. Election Protection is urging the Board of Elections to pour additional resources into this area for assistance.
Problems have been appearing elsewhere. According to Election Protection attorneys on the scene at Mt. Vernon Woods Elementary precinct, poll workers were liberally using provisional ballots with voters. A similar situation emerged earlier at Word of Faith Church in Suffolk, but the problem has been resolved according to Election Protection mobile legal volunteers. At that precinct, poll workers did not have hard copies of voter rolls and no sample ballots, both of which are required by law.
Voting lines at University of Central Florida and the University of South Florida reportedly are stretching five and four and a half hours, respectively.
Jon Greenbaum, Director of the Voting Rights Project of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, has released the following statement:
All legal voters standing in line to vote by 7 p.m. should be given a regular ballot. But we are concerned that individual poll workers may send voters who have yet to cast a ballot home. It is up for the Secretary of State's office and county supervisors of election to ensure that polls remain open until every voter in line by 7 p.m. has voted. In the future, the Secretary of State's office should ensure that polling locations across the state are properly and fully staffed, so voters will not be forced to wait in lines of this length.
USF: The Marshall Student Center (precincts 252 & 253) is the polling location at which every USF student who lives in campus housing votes. Approximately 1,900 students are registered to vote at this location, and voter turnout was wildly underestimated. Two poll workers are handling intake – about 60-90 voters an hour, squeezing into room about 160 sq. ft. Additionally, this site is running out of ballots.
Hundreds of requests for assistance have been received today from Colorado voters, stemming from translation problems as well as other issues large and small. Most problems have been honest mistakes by undertrained pollworkers and overwhelmed election officials, but they nevertheless threaten Colorado voters' right to fair elections and the integrity of the entire system.
Among the more serious issues have been Spanish-speaking voters in Weld County, Colorado who reported that they were denied bilingual voting material, hindering them from casting their votes. More than one of every four residents of Weld County — 27 percent — is Hispanic. Spanish speakers must receive translation assistance at the polling sites.
But according to reports from Latina Initiative and Colorado Progressive Coalition, Weld County Clerk Steve Moreno did not print voting instructions in Spanish and hired bilingual pollworkers at only two of the county's 11 vote centers — despite written assurances to non-profit organizations that translators would be provided at no less than five centers.
Among the more troubling complaints is that volunteers who are willing to stay at the polls to provide translation assistance are being allowed only to translate for no more than two total voters.
As polls start closing, an important reminder: if you are in line before polls close then you have the right to vote. In addition - and this is critical - you have the right to vote on a regular (i.e. not provisional) ballot.
The American people have shown great energy for 22 months of this race; keep it up just a few hours longer! Whatever you do, please don't get discouraged and leave the polls, and don't be deterred in your attempt to vote if you are in line before polls close.
Please, make sure any family or friends currently in line to vote are aware of this as well.
