More Voting Problems

Confidence in elections? What confidence in elections?

From the Gazette:

The Prince George's County Board of Elections is scrambling to process thousands of absentee ballot requests just days before Tuesday's general election, and is placing the blame for any delays squarely on the state elections chief.

Interim County Elections Administrator Robert J. Antonetti, Sr. said that as of Wednesday -- the deadline for requesting absentee ballots -- the elections board had received 13,501 absentee ballot requests. All but 2,953 have been processed. Nearly 250 ballot requests are unfilled because the board ran out of the demanded ballot styles.

The board is missing three of the 37 ballot styles. Antonetti could not say which districts those ballots belong to.

In addition to meeting the absentee ballot requests, the board must also prepare about 300 provisional ballots for each of the 206 precincts. But the board does not have provisional ballots on hand to fill the needed 61,800 slots.

While most overseas absentee ballot requests have been filled, Antonetti said he is hopeful that all of the requests will be met. Each ballot must be postmarked by Monday for it to be valid.

"It would be a shame if we couldn't get them all out," Antonetti said.

What is holding up the ballots are issues with the ballot-maker, Diebold -- the same company that is supplying the sensitive voting machines, Antonetti said.

And from the Baltimore Sun:

With Baltimore scrambling to make sure next week's voting goes smoothly, city elections officials expressed concern Wednesday at reports that a rogue caller was contacting poll workers and changing their Election Day assignments -- raising the prospect that some precincts might not have the staffing they need.

State elections chief Linda H. Lamone contacted the FBI Wednesday after Baltimore officials reported that someone called at least 10 poll workers and falsely told them that their precinct assignments had been switched.

Baltimore Board of Elections Chairman Armstead B. Crawley Jones Sr. said that poll workers are receiving legitimate calls this week from employees at the University of Baltimore's Schaefer Center, reminding election judges where to go and what time to arrive.

But the assignments have not been shuffled, Jones said. Such changes might be needed to fill vacancies but would not be made until early next week, he said.

Why oh why do we have such a rotten elections system?