Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Big trouble at Peoria polling places (UPDATED)

Eyebrows McGee is reporting that she encountered a huge problem when she went to vote: She was given a ballot with only national races. She contacted the Peoria Election Commission and was given this explanation:

The Peoria Election Commission, when I called, informed me that this is a special case for people who've moved precincts within the last 30 days and that it was poll worker error that I was given the incorrect ballot. They also told me this was a SYSTEM-WIDE PROBLEM that they've had many calls about today, and have workers out trying to "fix" the poll worker error on the fly.

This, in my opinion, could taint the result of any local election in which the results are close. How many people are affected by this? How many of those people who were affected able to realize that something was amiss? Even if the numbers affected don't rise to the level that would affect the results of a race, there's still a perception.

I respect Tom Bride, executive director for the City of Peoria Election Commission. He's gotta be having a really bad day because of this.

UPDATED: It may not be as bad as all that. Rich Miller says in a subscriber-only post that the problem is NOT system-wide and affects only a "handful" of voters. Bride also told Miller that turnout is heavy.

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