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Widespread Potential for Post-Election Chaos in Today’s US Presidential Election
6 November 2012
A myriad potentials exist for chaos and confusion on election day, and for protracted legal battles which could leave the final results undetermined for weeks or longer. These are compounded by the devastation from Hurricane Sandy which will leave many thousands of voters unable to vote in the affected states. Monday’s New York Times, for example, reports that legal clashes are expected in at least six battleground states; Republicans are mobilizing to defend against what they say is voter fraud, and Democrats are preparing to protect against what they call voter suppression. After reviewing a number of fights already underway, the Times says that these pre-election legal skirmishes are "a potential preview of the clashes that could emerge in as many as a half-dozen swing states over Tuesday’s voting," adding that, "The closeness of the races in those states has intensified the stakes of voter turnout, smooth operations at polling places, ballot problems and recounts." Various sources report on existing and potential challenges in key states: In FLORIDA, a judge extended early voting hours in Orange county Sunday, after Democrats sued to allow more time. The Florida Democratic Party filed separate lawsuits to get four counties to offer more time for voting before Election Day. The other counties are Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward. Voters in those counties had to wait as long as six hours Saturday, the last scheduled day of early voting. More than 4 million ballots have already been cast in Florida. The Tampa Bay Times indentified five things that could go wrong, including problems with provisional ballots triggered by a 2011 election law which forces Florida voters who move outside their county without updating their registration by Election Day, to vote by provisional ballot; absentee ballots which have a rejection rate double that of voting in person; challenges to poll watchers; and confusion caused by redistricting. In OHIO, there is already underway a legal fight over provisional ballots, which is likely to continue for weeks. Secretary of State Jon Husted and the GOP had tried to eliminate all early voting—which was rejected by the Federal courts—but they did succeed in reducing the number of weekends for early voting from five to one. We have previously reported that Ohio officials mailed every registered voter in the state an application for an absentee ballot, resulting in a total of 1.3 million applications flooding in, and to date, some 1.1 million actual absentee ballots have been returned. Anyone who requested an absentee ballot will have to vote by provisional ballot if they show up at the polling place on Election Day. Others will have to cast provisional ballots for other reasons, such as a change of address, or their names not showing up on local precinct lists. By law, none of those provisional ballots can be opened and counted for ten days. Additionally, absentee votes that arrive after Election Day will remain uncounted for ten days. If the margin of victory is within one-half of one percentage point of votes cast or about 25,000 votes, an automatic recount kicks in at that point, which might not begin until early December. PENNSYLVANIA: Some people have been told that if they vote a straight party ticket on Tuesday their vote for President would not register. Others were told, wrongly, that their polling place had been moved. And there is the continuing confusion over Pennsylvania’s new voter photo ID law. Zack Stalberg, president of the election watchdog group Committee of Seventy, said Monday that "this is beginning to look like a messy election.... I hope it’s clean and hope it’s resolved tomorrow night but it may not (be)." "I do not want to overstate things but we’re talking about a race that’s neck-and-neck nationally and we’re in a state that seems to have moved back into a swing-state category," Stalberg said. "The margin in this region (Philadelphia) determines, probably, the outcome for the state. So funny things will happen probably," Stalberg added, as reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer. FLASH POINTS: In a long article yesterday reviewing recent legal fights and rulings on election cases, the Christian Science Monitor identified four election-law flash points: —VOTER ID LAWS, which were passed in at least 11 states in recent years. Legal battles have already taken place in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Texas, and South Carolina. —EARLY VOTING: With early voting increasing dramatically in recent elections, legislatures in Ohio and Florida passed laws cutting back on the amount of time available to cast an early ballot before Election Day, and there has already been extensive litigation in both states, which could continue after Nov. 6 in a close race. —PROVISIONAL BALLOTS, which are provided to voters who arrive at the polls without proper identification, who arrive at the wrong location to vote, whose name does not appear on the voter rolls, or who have requested an absentee ballot but nonetheless show up in person at the polls, are another flash point, and as reported above, are already the subject of court fights in Ohio. PURGING VOTER REGISTRATION ROLLS has been the subject of extensive legal wrangling in Florida and Colorado. |