From WRAL:
Election officials began the tedious task of looking at questionable ballots from Tuesday’s election by hand on Thursday.
The ballot instructions showed voters how to complete the arrow on the ballot, but hundreds of people scribbled dots, drew double lines or put the line in the wrong place. The voting machines could not read those ballots.
"They know they’re in there to vote and they don’t really pay attention to the specific instructions," said Cherie Poucher, of the Wake County Board of Elections.
Hmm. Cannot draw a simple line. If this was school, all the way from First Grade to getting a PHD, you would fail. No do over. Here is a sample ballot that was put on the ‘net for Durham County as an instructional tool. Pretty self f’ing evident to me what to do. Especially the part that says: READ INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY BEFORE VOTING! Nuff said?
Posted over at the Command Post Election 2004.
The same type ballots are used in Oklahoma and Arkansas, though the arrows point to the right ironically. I always thought these were the simplest, hardest to screw up ballots out there, how could anyone but a complete idiot not figure these out?
The only problem I’ve experienced with these are in the ’02 elections, confused poll workers were handing out ball points instead of felt tips, which make the ballots unreadable. Luckily, I alerted the state election commision and the ballots were all hand counted.
What, I wonder, ever happened to the the “flip the switch” booths I remember my grandmother voting in?
No sense in keeping a system that works. Dems couldn’t cheat and complain, then :)
If you’re too stupid to draw a line, PLEASE do not count that person’s vote!!!