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by by Alia Beard Rau
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 29, 2010
Each election, thousands of provisional ballots are thrown out in Arizona because the voter went to the wrong polling place.
State elections officials say workers tell voters who show up at the wrong precinct on Election Day that their ballots may not be counted, but allow them to vote there anyway. The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona and other voter-advocacy groups say they want the state Legislature to change what are some of the toughest laws in the nation so the votes of these wayward thousands can be counted.
ACLU of Arizona on Tuesday released a report analyzing how state law impacts provisional ballots, particularly provisional ballots cast at the wrong precinct in Maricopa, Pima, Coconino, Pinal and Yavapai counties. The federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 requires states to allow voters to cast a provisional ballot when there is a question about the voter's eligibility. But the act allows each state to set its own criteria for such ballots.
Arizona is one of 30 states that requires voters to cast a provisional ballot in the voter's assigned precinct to be counted.
The ACLU analyzed data from the November 2008 presidential general election and found that of 131,476 provisional ballots cast in the five counties, 13,467 were discarded because the voter cast the ballot at the wrong precinct.
According to the Arizona Secretary of State's Office, 14,929 ballots statewide were discarded in that 2008 election because of a wrong polling place.
Statewide data for this year's primary election is not yet available. But in Maricopa County, 1,059 provisional ballots were discarded because voters cast them at the wrong polling place, county elections spokeswoman Yvonne Reed said.
Following the election, Arizona election officials go through all provisional ballots by hand to determine whether they should be counted. In addition to a wrong polling place, ballots can be discarded if the voter can't provide proper ID, was later determined to be ineligible to vote or had already cast a mail-in ballot.
Linda Brown, executive director of the Arizona Advocacy Network, said research conducted by her group has shown that Arizona typically distributes - and discards - more provisional ballots than most other states. Since 2005, members of her group have stationed themselves at polling places. She said they wanted to help alleviate confusion surrounding voter ID rules and discovered that many people had problems finding the correct polling place.
"People would say they had been to three polling places, and nobody could tell them where to vote," Brown said.
Brown said she had seen the statistics from the November 2008 election and "was appalled."
"We've had elections decided on 50 to 100 votes," she said. "These things matter."
One of the causes of the voter confusion, according to the ACLU and Brown, is that population shifts in Arizona regularly result in changing polling locations and their boundaries. Between 2006 and 2008, about 40 percent of the polling locations in Maricopa County changed, according to the ACLU.
ACLU of Arizona Executive Director Alessandra Soler Meetze said poll workers are instructed to tell voters they are in the wrong place and have maps to help them find the correct precinct. But she said workers can give lost voters provisional ballots and may not make it clear that the ballot will not be counted.
"A lot of this comes down to poll-worker training and voter education," Soler Meetze said.
The counties offer ways for voters to find their polling place online or by telephone. But Brown said on election days, at least in Maricopa County, the website freezes up because of high traffic, and the hotline can have a long wait.
Reed said workers cannot unequivocally tell a voter whose name doesn't show up on a precinct's voter list that their ballot won't be counted because that's not always the case. For example, if someone recently moved to the area, their name may not yet be on the precinct-voter list even though that is their correct polling place.
"We instruct them that they are not listed, and this is more than likely the wrong place," Reed said. "We can't turn a person away. The law won't allow us."
Secretary of State Ken Bennett is pushing to move from having a large number of small precincts to a smaller number of larger polling centers that would allow voters to cast their ballot at any center within their county.
Several other states, including Colorado, have been trying this format. Yavapai County tried it at a few polling locations in a May 18, 2008, special election.
Spokesman Matthew Benson said technology would allow a poll worker to use a computerized system to determine the appropriate ballot for each voter and print it out on the spot. Benson said the idea is at the research and discussion phase.
Soler Meetze said in the meantime, voters need to double-check their polling places, and election workers need to make sure voters understand that a provisional ballot cast at the wrong place will not be counted.
Brown said voters can avoid the problem by voting by mail. The deadline to request an early ballot for the Nov. 2 election is Oct. 22.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2010/09/29/20100929wrongprecinct0929.html#ixzz11QQCbIiF
