San Bernardino County Grand Jury • 2004-2005

Economic Development/Public Services

Published: July 06, 2005 21 pages
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Findings 4 findings

F1
The voter’s name is not on the official roster of voters and the voting official cannot verify eligibility.
F2
A voter has moved within the County, but did not re-register to vote.
F3
Records indicate that the voter requested an absentee ballot and the voter fails to turn in the absentee ballot at the polls.
F4
The voter is a first time Federal Election voter in the County and was unable to provide the required proof of identification. The ROV will count all provisional ballots prior to the declaration of the final and official count of the election. Each polling place in the County had provisional ballots for immediate use. It was reported that various polling places experienced long lines and slow voting due to the large number of voters requiring a provisional ballot. Some voters were at the wrong polling places and were unable to locate their official polling places because of changes of policies by the ROV. Precinct maps were not available at polling places. A large number of new registrations came in at the end of October and keying them into the system was not a priority of the ROV. Over 20,000 new registrations had not been keyed into the system by Election Day. The ROV determined that those voters not registered could go to the polls and vote using the provisional ballot. As a result, each provisional ballot had to be individually opened by hand and researched for authenticity. Checks had to be made on each ballot for duplications of registration, correct address and whether or not the ballot was correctly filled out. Signatures had to be verified and precinct numbers had to be placed on the ballots, which was time consuming. In the 2004 elections there were 44,888 provisional ballots compared to the normal 10,000 ballots. This was due to the priority set by the ROV. Because of the large number of ballots, additional staff was required to process the ballots. Each polling place had only one voter list available, which caused long lines. Voters were unable to determine whether their names appeared on the list without waiting in line to do so. When it was learned that they were at the wrong precinct they were then required to find their actual precinct. The poll workers did not have maps to help the voters locate their proper voting place, or they had to stand in the provisional ballot line to vote.

Recommendations 26

Commendations 1