Six years ago, Los Angeles County began using a ballot for nonpartisan voters that had a little-noticed design flaw. Confusion over how to mark the ballot, critics say, caused tens of thousands of votes to go uncounted in three elections between 2002 and 2006.
At the time, election officials knew that some votes were not being counted but saw no need to make changes. After all, the missing votes went unnoticed in the three primary elections and no one complained.
That all changed with the Feb. 5 presidential primary.
Just before election day, a grass-roots advocacy group called the Courage Campaign realized that the ballot was defective because it required nonpartisans wanting to vote in a party primary to mark an extra bubble designating which party they were choosing.
On Feb. 4, the organization warned the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder's office that many voters could easily miss the party bubble and that many votes could go uncounted.
The group also charged that the ballot design violated state law by requiring some voters to take an extra step not required of others.
After the election, a vote survey conducted by acting Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan found that about 50,000 nonpartisan crossover votes were not counted, sparking outrage among voters across the county.
Some have likened it to the 2000 Florida debacle of butterfly ballots and hanging chads.
"Our contention is that the ballot design is illegal, and that it is illegal not to count the votes," said Rick Jacobs, chairman of the Courage Campaign and former chairman of Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign in California.
The ballot problem affected only those people who chose not to affiliate with a political party when they registered to vote. These voters, whom California places in a category called "decline to state," were allowed to vote in the Democratic Party or American Independent Party primaries Feb. 5, but not in the Republican Party primary.
In Los Angeles County, decline-to-state voters who wanted to vote for a Democratic or American Independent presidential candidate needed to vote in a polling booth designated for that party.
Once in the polling booth and given an ink stamp, they were required to fill in the circle indicating which of the two party primaries they were voting in.
But many people found the system confusing. Also, many poll workers didn't understand it, and so were unable to advise voters as to what they were supposed to do.
