Bubble trouble

Election administrators have a tough job. They need to pull off a massive voting and vote-counting effort in a short time frame with a limited budget and a slew of underpaid poll workers. Some hiccups are inevitable. At my polling place Tuesday morning, for example, the machine that scans ballots for errors wasn't working; a technician was "on the way." A poll worker simply put my ballot and others in an envelope, and I left with the confidence that it would be properly handled and eventually counted.

Still, some problems can be avoided with a little common sense. And the "bubble trouble" fiasco in Los Angeles County -- which led many independent voters to cast ballots that may not be counted in the Democratic primary -- is simply inexcusable.

Here's the issue. In California, each political party decides whether independent voters -- technically called "decline to state" voters -- can cast ballots in its primary. The Democratic Party and the American Independent Party allow that.

This caused minor confusion up and down the state as election officials tried to sort out which primary ballot, if any, to give to decline-to-state voters. But a problem specific to Los Angeles was much more serious. For their votes in the Democratic or American Independent primary to count, decline-to-state voters here had to fill in a bubble at the top of the ballot indicating which primary they were voting in. A voter who failed to fill in that bubble -- such as a decline-to-stater choosing Barack Obama -- would not have had his or her presidential vote counted. Only votes on local and state propositions would be recorded.

The printed instructions on the ballot (as well as the registrar's website) were confusing and unfamiliar. They directed "nonpartisan voters" to fill in the extra bubble. Did decline-to-state voters know they were also "nonpartisan?" Moreover, some independent-minded decline-to-state voters intending to vote in the Democratic primary could have ruined their ballots by indicating they were voting "American Independent."

Paul Drugan, executive assistant with the L.A. County registrar-recorder's office, told The Times that the instructions were clear and voters were educated about the problem, but he acknowledged that his office foresaw the problem months ago.