Flaw on ballot went unheeded for 6 years

Jacobs and other critics say that election officials should have foreseen problems with the ballot for the Feb. 5 primary. McCormack disagrees.

"This is an unfortunate, unanticipated result," she said. "No one could have predicted this."

The problem with the ballot came to light on the Friday before election day when a Courage Campaign lawyer noticed the double-bubble requirement and began questioning whether it could cause votes to go uncounted.

The following Monday, the group delivered a letter to Logan urging him to publicize the existence of the bubble and educate poll workers.

On election day, word spread among nonpartisan voters that they were required to mark the extra bubble.

That afternoon, the Obama campaign began calling supporters and telling them of the requirement.

But by then, many voters had already cast their votes improperly.

At first, election officials blamed voters for not reading the instructions carefully.

Paul Drugan, Logan's executive assistant, said election officials had foreseen the problem months earlier and had been educating voters about the requirement. He dismissed the concerns of anxious voters who were worried that their ballots would not count.

"Is it a perfect system?" he asked. "No, it is not. Elections are an imperfect beast."

Since then, the registrar's office has become more contrite.

Logan said the ballot design makes it difficult to determine voters' intent but that his office is investigating ways to count the disqualified votes.

He acknowledged that many of the county's 28,000 poll workers, who are paid $80 to $120, were not adequately taught about the bubble during their 90-minute training sessions and did not know enough to inform voters properly.

"We can look back now and say it should have been emphasized more," he acknowledged.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen advised Logan last week to check the roster books of every precinct to see how many voters requested Democratic or American Independent ballots.

If all the requests in a precinct were for ballots in one party, it would be possible to count the votes there, she said.

On Friday, the Courage Campaign presented the registrar's office with nearly 32,000 signatures collected over the last week via an online petition, demanding that Logan "count every vote."

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said the Board of Supervisors was never told that the double-bubble design had disenfranchised voters in past primaries but has now directed Logan not to use it again.

"In a close election it could have influenced the outcome of the election, and it could have affected the nominee," Yaroslavsky said. "We have enough of a perception problem with our elections systems around the country without exacerbating them with this. People want their votes counted. They want all their votes counted."

richard.paddock @latimes.com