Panel hears election complaints

Long waits, untrained workers, lack of access among problems recounted

By John Russell

Akron Beacon Journal    05 December 2004

When Shenita Johnson arrived at Fairlawn Lutheran Church bright and early to vote on Nov. 2, she couldn't find a place to park in the church lot. So she drove to nearby Summit Mall, left her car in the lot, and hiked across the muddy lawn to the church, along with her husband and 82-year-old mother.

They waited for nearly an hour, while people at other precincts at the church moved in and out faster.

``People who arrived after us were ushered right in because they were voting in a smaller precinct,'' said Johnson, who lives on Sand Run Parkway. ``We were in a bigger precinct, so we had to wait. That was unfair. My mother was waiting, too, and there were no seats for her.''

Finally, they got to their table, only to hear a poll worker tell them that their names were not listed. They filled out the necessary paperwork to vote anyway.

``After all that, we were told we had to go back and wait in line again,'' Johnson said. ``It was inefficient and disorganized.''

About 15 people told stories during a public hearing Saturday of bad experiences or voting irregularities in last month's presidential election. The stories included polling places opening late, not enough machines and poll workers to meet the crush of voters, power failures at several polling places, volunteers and activists being denied access to public lists of who had and hadn't yet voted, undertrained poll workers unsure of how to solve problems, and possible irregularities in absentee voting.

A seven-member board, which included political leaders and elected officials, listened to the stories during the two-hour hearing, which was held at the Plumbers & Steam Fitters Union on East Tallmadge Avenue.

Bill Harris of Ellet said he had been voting for decades in the same precinct, only to be told on Election Day his name wasn't in the registration book. He protested and was finally given a provisional ballot. ``There's something tricky going on here,'' he said.

Susan Vogelsang of Akron, who was distributing voter rights information at Erie Island Elementary School, said many voters were unsure which line to stand in, and no poll workers were helping them. She estimated 50 people gave up and left without voting because of long lines.

Anna Julia, a poll worker at Grace Lutheran Church in Akron, said she got into an argument with a church janitor when she tried to turn on lights after dark to help voters find their way inside. ``From the street, it looked like the polling place was closed,'' she said. ``I turned on every light switch I could find.''

Another poll worker, Reggie Brooks of Copley, said he received only one hour of training, which he called ``totally inadequate'' for the complexities of such a huge turnout.

Some of the board members hearing testimony said they had heard many ``horror stories'' of their own.

Summit County Councilman Cazzell M. Smith Sr., a Democrat, said he heard of one precinct opening a half-hour late, and of many long lines that discouraged voters. He said he would ask for an investigation at an upcoming council meeting.

``I know we lost many, many votes from people who just gave up,'' he said.

Another board member, Roberta Aber, executive director of Planned Parenthood of Summit County, said she monitored several polling places on Election Day. She said at one place, an elderly poll worker fell asleep. ``You can imagine how that slowed up the process,'' she said.

Officials from the Summit County Elections Board did not attend the hearing, which was sponsored by the Akron Area Citizens Council, the Tri-County Labor Council, the Million Man March of Akron and the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee. The organizers said the testimony will be filed as part of a formal complaint with the Ohio secretary of state and local boards of elections, and will be used as part of a call for election reform.

Board of Elections Director Bryan Williams said in an interview later that the problems were relatively few and the board had worked hard to gear up for the heavy turnout. He said the board increased the number of voting booths to 3,200, from 2,100. He said there were at least four booths in every precinct, and six booths in precincts with 900 or more registered voters. He added that the board is trying to recruit younger poll workers to help handle the work.

``Overall, I was very pleased with the way the election was handled,'' he said.

Meanwhile, in Columbus, about 400 people gathered at the Statehouse to demand a recount of Ohio's presidential election or at least a look into Election Day irregularities around the state.

Several speakers said Ohio voters were the victims of a fraud that took votes from John Kerry and gave them to President Bush.

One group, which says it plans to contest the election in the Ohio Supreme Court, said the fraud details would come out in its court filing, expected Monday.

Critics say Ohio's numbers are suspect because of disparities in the vote totals for different Democrats on the same ballot; the disqualification of more than 90,000 presidential votes on punch-card ballots because they could not be determined; the election night lockdown of Warren County's board of elections because of an alleged terror threat; and a computer glitch on Election Night that recorded an extra 3,893 votes for Bush in one suburban Columbus precinct.

Bush won Ohio by about 119,000 votes, or 2 percentage points.