California is refusing to count 94,000 votes by independents voting in the primary, according to the Courage Campaign. Independent voters make up almost one-fifth of all registered voters in California.
Democrats permit voters to vote with "Decline to State" as their party affiliation (this is not allowed in the Republican Primary).
In Los Angeles County, with more than 700,000 unaffiliated voters, independent voters were required to check an extra box on their ballots for them to be counted. In 15 precincts, independent voters said they were not told they must mark the extra box for their ballot to count; in some polling places, independent voters reported being told they could not vote (New York Times article here).
The Obama campaign thought this important enough to robocall, reminding independent voters to fill in the second oval on the ballot.
Dean Logan, the Acting Registrar of Los Angeles County, is refusing to conduct a physical count of every "Decline To State" vote before the official vote is certified in a few weeks. He has stated he'll do a one percent manual recount to come up with the number of disenfranchised voters. (Daily News article here).
Then it will be decided how many independent votes go to Obama and Clinton.
Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, said she didn't know another jurisdiction anywhere in the country with so many votes not being counted.
The Florida mess in 2000 only involved several thousand votes. Rick Jacobs, The Courage Campaign Chairman, said we can't have another Florida. "It's important for the next two elections in June and November."
Obama's Communications Director, Debbie Mesloh, reported hundreds, and possibly thousands, of phone calls about this.
Obama won 41 percent of the votes in LA County; Clinton won 55 percent.
A Supervisor speculated that these uncounted votes might tip the primary election. Would you like to sign the petition to Dean Logan, the acting registrar of Los Angeles County, urging him to count these ballots?
You do not need to live in Los Angeles County to sign the petition.
http://www.couragecampaign.org/counteveryvote
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