This time a lot of votes for Democrats may be thrown in the trash:
An estimated 49,500 votes were cast incorrectly in Los Angeles County by nonpartisan voters in the presidential primaries and cannot be counted because the voters' intentions are unclear, acting Registrar Dean Logan said Monday.I'm no fan of "voter intent" divination when the voter's marks are ambiguous. But I also don't support nullifying votes because the voter failed to make redundant marks on their ballot when their intent is otherwise unambiguous -- especially when the rules are concocted by bureaucrats and not described in statute, as seems to be the case here. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 12, 2008 06:39 PM | Email ThisThe mismarked ballots were the result of a confusing ballot design and poor education of poll workers and the public, Logan said. That left many decline-to-state voters unaware of the need to fill in a bubble indicating whether they were voting in the Democratic Party or American Independent Party primary.