I got their two bubbles hangin ... dumb and dumber ... and if they keep it up I am going to call Larry "third bubble" Craig (R-Closet) and ask him to take a break from "interviewing" interns to come over and pop one on the acting (that is for sure) registrar.

You would think arithmetic would be within their friggin grasp wouldn't you?

I'm not clear on what you (and Judy Alter) are saying.

Are you saying that on the unremade ballot, the voter marked Bubble #5 or bubble #6, but when the ballot was remade, the 'remaker' failed to properly mark #5 or #6 in the same manner that the voter had?

Or are you saying that the voter failed to mark bubble #5 or #6 on the original (and the remaker accurately reflected that failure on the remade ballot), but there is some indication on the voter's provisional envelope which - much like the notation in the Roster books, can be used to infer the voter's original intent?

If it is the second, I am not aware of any such 'checkbox' or other field to fill in on a provisional envelope. (Though I admit I am less familiar with provisionals than I am with the rest of the process at the polling place; I have managed to avoid being the 'provisional clerk' in my time working the polls.)

If it is the first: 1) I cannot imagine that such a mistake could happen 10 or 15 thousand times. A handful of times, sure. But thousands of times. No way. Or 2) I cannot imagine that be refusing to correct such a mistake.

Can you get a clarification from Judy?

- Robert

Oh, and on the "notion" that provisionals voted out of precinct being remade as "bad":

I worked at a precinct located in a car dealership (Power Ford on PCH in Torrance). We had several - maybe as many as a dozen - employees of the car dealership come in and vote out of precinct. It is my distinct impression that had they not been allowed to vote 'at work', out of precinct, at the dealership, they would not have voted at all.

So, if you are in favor of as many people voting as possible, allowing people to vote out of precinct cannot be viewed as 'bad'.

After that, remaking the ballot is a necessity.

The provisional voter, voting out of precinct, has voted in precinct A, on a precinct A ballot. But their ballot has to be counted with the other votes in their home precinct, precinct B. And, as we know, the order of the candidates' names on the ballot were likely to be different, precinct A vs. precinct B. So if you feed a precinct A ballot into the counting machine set up to count precinct B ballots, either the votes are going to credited to the wrong candidates, or not be counted at all.

So these ballots must be remade. A necessary step in the process.

What are we to make of Debra Bowen's decision to take no action to prevent the Logan scheme from being implemented?

Robert Earle -

To answer your question (and my apologies if it wasn't all crystal clear in the original article. As you know, this is damned confusing to figure out, much less make clear when writing about it), neither of the two options you offered is what happened.

If a voter voted provisionally, outside of their precinct (and their ballot was accepted because they were properly registered etc.) it was remade for their specific precinct. If on the original provisional they didn't mark the party bubble #5/6 then the remade ballot didn't include that bubble either. But worse, the remakers also didn't bother to include the Presidential selection on the remade ballot, under the presumption that it wouldn't be counted anyway because the voter hadn't selected a party bubble!

Make sense now?

As to the "necessity" of remaking, I appreciate your point. But it seems to be the dumbest (and most dangerous) of all possible ways to handle the issue. I think it's ridiculous that anyone should ever be allowed to "remake" anybody's ballot by hand, unless absolutely necessary.

It's also a huge time waster.

If they have these wonderful machines they are so thrilled to use, then there is no reason that a provisional ballot couldn't have an identifying mark that it is a provisional when it is scanned, and should therefore be recorded as part of X precinct (that part could be input by the "remakers") and factored into that precincts numbers.

If you're going to use computers, that's the sort of thing that they (should) excel at!

Confabulator -

I don't know what you are to make of it. But as you're an opponent of Bowen's, as demonstrated time and again through your anonymous BRAD BLOG comments, I suspect you hope to use it against her politically.

As to what I make of it, I think it's a disappointment that she wasn't more outspoken about Logan's horrible plan, but at least she didn't give "concurrence" to it as he requested. As you well know, she has no actual final say over how LA County counts their votes or not.

I certainly wish she had stood up to have ALL of the votes counted, and this certainly isn't a mark in her favor. But if you suspect it's evidence that your guy Bruce McPherson or his ilk should ever be allowed in the doors of the SoS office ever again, I'd suggest you are horrible mistaken.

Not that it won't keep you from continuing to try to play politics with such things in any way that you can. That's what you're paid for after all, eh?

Brad

First, thanks for the clarification.

Second, while it seems utterly presumptuous - and a bad, bad idea - of the remakers to not have reproduced all valid marks (see what I mean by 'valid' below) on the ballot they are remaking, under the Registrar's current (and previous) counting schemes, they are correct: provisionals with the 'double-bubble' problem are in one sense even less countable than regular double-bubble ballots, in that there are no notations in the Roster to make the inference that the Registrar is currently relying on (in the 8-through-10 range; in the 11-through-15 range, this is simply an inexcusable mistake that the Registrar's office should correct).

Yes, in your subtraction scheme, they would also be counted. On the legality of that, we're going to have to agree to disagee.

(The language fails me here: by valid in this context, I mean recognizable markings on the ballot. That set of markings might still render a ballot 'invalidly voted' in the 'double-bubble' sense. Another reason ballots sometimes get 'remade' - besides the out-of-precinct remaking - is that the ink mark made in a attempt to fill a given bubble gets smeared, such that the card reading machine might have trouble with it. That is, a smeared bubble #8 might be recognizable to a human, but not to the machine. Such ballots will often get 'remade'.)

Third, just to be clear on one other point:
"there is no reason that a provisional ballot couldn't have an identifying mark that it is a provisional when it is scanned, and should therefore be recorded as part of X precinct (that part could be input by the "remakers") and factored into that precincts numbers."

"Provision ballots" are - currently, at least - just regular ballots that get put into pink provisional envelopes instead of directly into the ballot box. That is, once out of the pink envelope, they are just like any other ballot. So, if you are suggesting that there be separate provisional ballots that are pre-printed differently from regular ballots, that could be done...but it would drive up the County's costs, and give the pollworker even more ballot variations to handle. This time around, the ballot clerk had seven different types of ballots to keep track of; next time it will probably be nine (with NP ballots becoming pre-printed NP, NP-AI and NP-DEM ballots). If you throw in 'provisional vs. regular', that will be 18(!) types of ballots.

Or are you suggesting that there be a 'provisional' bubble somewhere on the ballot, to be filled in by the voter, or pollworker, or the remaker? What could go wrong with that?

Brad said #6: "As you well know, she has no actual final say over how LA County counts their votes or not."

Your position is consistent with the position taken by San Diego County (joined by Kern, Riverside and San Bernardino counties) in its lawsuit against Debra Bowen over her new "Post Election Manual Tally" (PEMT) requirements.

The counties' lawsuit asserted that, when issuing her directives the Secretary of State failed to follow the requirements of California law, specifically, the Administrative Procedures Act (Government Code sections 11340 through 11361). And, because Bowen's directives would nullify laws enacted by the California Legislature regarding PEMT, which established the PEMT requirements, the lawsuit contended Bowen's directives infringed upon the Legislature's authority to set policy.

The Secretary of State argued, successfully, that she does have authority to tell, not only San Diego County, but all CA counties, how to count the PEMT ballots.

As you well know, Confab, post election audits are a different beast entirely from counting the actual ballots in the first place.

Once processes are set, the SoS can't order a specific county to change that process, or otherwise have the final say on those processes. The county Registrar's act on their own in that regard, with the cooperation of the County Board of Supes.

Issuing directives for audits and/or certifying voting systems overall is a different matter, and clearly within the SoS' purview as was confirmed again by the court in the decision you refer to, as San Diego et al, surely must have known before wasting their tax dollars on such a ridiculous lawsuit.

The spirit of Bruce McPherson's shitty reign still permeates throughout the worst of the Election Directors in California, beginning (but unfortunately not ending) with San Diego, Riverside, San Bernadino, Kern, Confabulator County et al.

A couple of questions for you, Brad

If you believe the authority of California's Chief Elections Officer concerning the double bubble episode is as limited as you describe, what did you expect Bowen to do about the double bubble?

In the world of negotiation and arbitration a "consensus" is reached when none of the "stakeholders" voices a "strong disagreement." There doesn't have to be universal agreement, but the absence of an expressed "strong disagreement" means a consensus has been reached.

Don't you agree that it appears that Bowen, LA County, and the Courage Campaign have reached a consensus on the Logan scheme, and that may be the reason Bowen has neither publicly objected to, nor taken any steps to stop, the Logan scheme?

While Bowen doesn't have the final authority over how LA County will count the votes they failed to count, she has both the bully pulpit and was specifically asked for "concurrence" by Logan for his plan.

I agree that her not speaking out against his plan means that she passively approved of it. I believe that was a terrible mistake on her part. No question.

It was similarly a mistake by Courage Campaign to not only passive agree with Logan's plan, but in fact to applaud it. It was, however, based on the opinions of their attorney who, I believe offered them some very very bad advise. That, based on my discussions with other attorneys concerning this matter.

To say, however, that the plan was developed by Bowen and Logan (as Logan has been suggesting to newspapers) would be a misrepresentation, big time, of the situation.

I have no problem being critical of her lack of action at the end of this scheme. To use it a political bludgeon against her, as most of your anonymously posted comments here at The BRAD BLOG attempt to do, is a different matter entirely.

Robert Earle #7 -

(Missed this one previously, sorry)

provisionals with the 'double-bubble' problem are in one sense even less countable than regular double-bubble ballots, in that there are no notations in the Roster to make the inference that the Registrar is currently relying on

I will take your word on that, since I haven't dug in to find out. But my understanding is that a notation of the intended party is written on the envelope itself, so there wouldn't even be a necessity to go back and figure out the intended party in the poll roster.

if you are suggesting that there be separate provisional ballots that are pre-printed differently from regular ballots, that could be done...but it would drive up the County's costs, and give the pollworker even more ballot variations to handle.

Hmmm...Let's see. What would have been more costly, printing a ballot variation for provisionals (essentially, as with the others, the same ballot, but with a different colored strip on the back), or going through the process the county has been going through to deal with this prob since the election.

In any case, if it meant yet another possible ballot that needed to be handed to the voter, I'm confidence the poll workers could have handled it. Particularly if there was just one ballot for Provisional voting, and notations were made on the outside of the envelope (or something) by poll workers to specify the type of ballot it was on the inside, or some such.

Haven't thought it through, but I'm quite sure a scheme such as that would have been preferable to what has happened. And I understand (though have yet to be able to confirm), that the provisional ballots referred to in the original article above are now to be hand-counted as Judy Alter had suggested.

Brad -

"But my understanding is that a notation of the intended party is written on the envelope itself, so there wouldn't even be a necessity to go back and figure out the intended party in the poll roster."

The type of ballot issued is indeed indicated on the provisional envelope. But that would just mean 'non-partisan' in this case. I don't think there was any discussion whatsoever of pollworkers marking the provisional envelope 'NP-AI' or 'NP-DEM', which is what would be needed to make the inference. As for an indication in the Roster book, one of the reasons - perhaps the main reason - that someone was voting provisionally is that their name didn't appear in the Roster book.

So no cross-over indication in the Roster and no indication on the envelope means no way to make the inference necessary for the 8-through-10 bubbles.

If you want to see what the provisional envelope looks like, go here...

http://www.lavote.net/VO...TION_GUIDE_CHECKLIST.pdf

then go to page 31, and blow it up to like 600% and you can read the envelope.