Wednesday, March 02, 2016

Some facts about the Georgia primary


I saw a claim that people in Georgia who wanted to vote in the Democratic primary were given voting cards for the Republican primary.

I worked at the polls in Georgia, and some people were confused by the paperwork where they had to check which party primary they wanted to vote in. The checkmark for the party was in front of the party name, with the parties listed as Democratic Republican NonPartisan. (There were no non-partisan candidates in this election). Some people who wanted to vote in the Democratic primary mistakenly checked the box after the word Democratic, so they got a Republican card. When they saw the Republican ballot come up, they told us, and we fixed the problem. A few people who wanted to vote in the Republican primary checked the Non-partisan box. Since there were none in this race, we would inform them that in order to vote, they had to choose one of the other options. At the beginning, when I was creating their voting card, I didn't say the party, for the sake of their privacy. After several people get ballots they didn't want, I started saying the party out loud, which reduced problems. Those of us working that day agreed that it would have been better to required people to circle their choice. Hindsight is better than foresight, of course.

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