Hang on to your chads. Just in time for one of the biggest elections in years, Los Angeles County may have hatched California's own version of the butterfly ballot: the double bubble.
LA City Attorney and erstwhile attorney general candidate Rocky Delgadillo is calling on the Secretary of State and the L.A. County registrar to investigate problems that some decline-to-state voters had casting Democratic ballots in today's primary.
In California, as you may recall, DTS voters can vote in the Democratic primary. In most counties, poll workers give such voters a Democratic ballot. In Los Angeles, however, DTS voters had their own ballots that required them to fill a bubble next to their presidential pick AND a bubble next to the word "Democrat" — hence the double bubble.
But according to media reports, lots of DTS voters weren't getting the word that they had to fill out that second bubble. And if that bubble wasn't filled in, the scanners will reject the ballot. No one knows yet just how many DTS ballots have been rejected because of the missing double bubble.
But Steven Reyes, a Kaufman Downing associate working for the progressive group Courage Campaign, has already warned the L.A. registrar that his client may sue if the DTSes' single-bubble ballots aren't counted.
"That's all part of the spectrum of options," Reyes said Tuesday afternoon.
Los Angeles County is home to more than 750,000 DTS voters, a huge pool of independents that Sen. Barack Obama — who has been drawing well among independents in other states — was undoubtedly hoping to tap. His attorneys, too, are reportedly watching L.A. returns closely. Tony West, of counsel at Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco and co-chairman of Obama's California campaign, told reporters that Obama just wants to make sure all DTS voters have a chance to vote.
Later, a more combative Ace Smith, son of Arlo Smith and current state director for the Hillary Clinton campaign, said in his own teleconference that Obama's complaints are "absurd" and that Delgadillo's calls for an investigation are biased since he supports the Illinois senator.
"This is nothing more than a cynical attempt to create confusion and cast doubt on the upcoming election results," said Smith, who also ran the successful 2006 attorney general campaign of Jerry Brown (who defeated Delgadillo in the Democratic primary).
Clinton spokesman Luis Vizcaino declined to comment on Courage Campaign's threats of litigation but said the election "rules are the rules and they've been out there for months."
Just like in 2000, voters will have to stay tuned. It's going to be a long night — if not days — of election returns.
— Cheryl Miller
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