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Editorial: 'Double bubble' trouble
L.A. mess shows need for ballot redesign
Published 12:00 am PST Friday, February 8, 2008
Story appeared in EDITORIALS section, Page B6
A major voting disaster Tuesday shows the pitfalls of having each of the state's 58 counties set its own rules and ballot designs. Voters in Los Angeles County who belong to no party ("decline-to-state" voters) and who wanted to vote in the Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday got a raw deal.
Where most counties simply give nonpartisan voters a party ballot at their request, Los Angeles County gives nonpartisan voters a separate ballot that requires voters to fill out a bubble for the presidential candidate of their choice – and a second bubble for a political party.
Many voters do not see and do not fill out the second bubble – and, thus, their votes do not count.
The scale of disenfranchisement is huge – 94,500 of 189,000 decline-to-state votes. That's half of the nonpartisan ballots. By comparison, in the infamous Florida "butterfly ballot" debacle in the 2000 presidential election, 19,120 Palm Beach County ballots went uncounted because of the bad ballot design.
Worse, acting Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters Dean Logan told county supervisors that the county had used the same "double bubble" design in 2004 and 2006. In those elections, only 40 percent of the county's decline-to-state voters' ballots were counted. It is outrageous that the county knew of this massive disenfranchisement and did not make changes. This calls for an investigation.
County election officials knew that the decline-to-state vote in the Democratic Party primary Feb. 5 would be huge. Yet they failed to establish a system that would ensure that nonpartisan voters' votes would count.
Registrar Logan now has said that the county will look at the 94,500 uncounted ballots to see if they can "clearly identify the voters' intent." A clear mark for a presidential candidate should be enough.
California's patchwork of voting rules is a serious problem, and the Legislature should change it. The exciting 2008 election has encouraged a massive surge of participation. The state shouldn't squander it by disenfranchising qualified voters.
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