Several issues have come up at Ferguson polling locations during the evening rush tonight. One voter alleges that only 1 in 4 voting machines is up and running, a claim Election Protection is currently verifying. Nearby locations ran out of paper ballots, causing long lines. Officials requested additional ballots at 1:45pm, according to Denise Lieberman, the lead attorney at Election Protection’s command center. Fifty additional ballots were sent at 5:00pm.
Lieberman was quick to point out the consequences of such ballot shortages: people who leave a voting site due to problems are unlikely to come back.
Elsewhere in North County, the section of St. Louis where Ferguson is located, one voter who moved, re-registered, and had ID says she was told that she was considered inactive because she hadn’t voted in the past 8 years. She was allegedly deleted from the voter roll, but she claims that she voted in the last two presidential elections. She was ultimately able to vote by provisional ballot.
Lieberman explains, “If you do not vote for 2 federal elections (a period of four years), you can be put on an inactive voter list. You’re still a registered voter, but there’s reason to believe that you may have died or moved. Legally you cannot be purged from the roles just for not voting. They can start the purge process, which involves election officials sending at least two non-forwarding mailings to the address where you’re registered. If both pieces bounce back, they are considered undeliverable, and you can be purged from the rolls. But nobody can be purged from the voter rolls sooner that 90 days from the election. And if you’re on an inactive list and show up to the polls, you’re supposed to be put on active status.”
Source: thinkprogress.org/Author: BY ANNIE-ROSE STRASSER
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