The petitoning candidate, Don Howell, was told that there were voters going into Provincetown polling places wearing Peake buttons and taking GOP ballots. He was curious enough about this phenomenon to request – in addition to a district-wide hand recount to verify the tabulation – a look at the sign in and sign out sheets, and the registration records; for instance, did some Democrats unenroll in order to mess with the GOP primary? And more to the point, since they can do so legally, did they unenroll AFTER the Aug. 31 cutoff date?
When Howell asked for the records, it turns out that Provincetown KEPT NO RECORD of which ballot unenrolled voters received. I’ve gone to five other towns, and looked at my own, and they all do the same thing – if your are a Democrat, they check you off and give you a Democrat ballot. If you are a Republican, they check you off and give you a GOP ballot. IF YOU ARE UNENROLED, they ask which ballot you would like, and put a ‘D’ or a ‘R’ next to your name, so you can verify that the number of GOP’s and Unenrolleds who request a GOP ballot EQUALS the number of GOP ballots cast.
Provincetown’s procedures make this impossible to verify. And before you say, oh, well, if the gross total matches, who cares, consider this – I went to a town today which uses paper ballots like Provincetown and watched the recount. The number of blanks seemed a little high, and I wondered why. We had several primaries, and some people voted just in the Senate race, or the State Senate race – and SOME turned back in a ballot with no vote cast for ANY race. Completely blank. How easy would it be to just decide that ‘X’ should mark the spot? And since we cannot know WHO took a GOP ballot in order to verify – we can never know.
When counsel asked the town clerk if this was his normal practice, whe said – no, but he was out of town the day of the primary and he doesn’t know how the poll workers were instructed.
The gut reaction at Galvin’s office is that this should just go away, and there is much putting of fingers in the ears and humming. However – this could invalidate the Democratic results as well, as they don’t know which Unenrolleds took Democrat ballots either.
I honestly don’t see how Galvin can certify the results of this primary election – but I don’t see a result that doesn’t disenfranchise the Provincetown voters either.
I am taking a long shower and going to sleep now. Two more towns tomorrow – and then by 5 pm, a determination from Galvin’s office.
This should be interesting.
In those circumstances, you can’t call a new P-town election.
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Imagine this scenario. I’m a P-town unenrolled voter. I vote in the Democratic primary. Now we have a do-over. I can now come in and vote in the Republican primary. Or, if I am unenrolled, and I didn’t vote at all, I can come in and have fun while P-town unenrolleds have absolute say in the final results.
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Provincetown was wrong in not recording the ballots taken by the voter. However, at this point we need to assume Republican ballots were only given to Republicans and Unenrolleds – and just count the ballots in the ballot box.
And that there were more GOP ballots cast in this primary then there were in the last two Presidential elections?
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Gee, how AMAZING that all these closet Republicans were just WAITING for a legislative primary to go to the polls!
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Yes, I can see why we should assume the integrity of the only town to fail to keep proper legal records.
It’s the same thing I was saying about all the unenrolleds in Republican clothing who play in Democratic Party primaries. When you consider that Democrats usually have interesting primaries, and Republicans generally don’t, I think my side of the street has more problems with mischief from unenrolleds.
that in no way justifies the obvious problems in this election.
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Here’s what I don’t get: the rules just aren’t that hard. They’re not always obvious a priori, but they ain’t hard. Why isn’t there sufficient training to make sure that these problems don’t crop up? Why aren’t the “voting rules” made sufficiently simple to avoid these kinds of cases*? Why doesn’t this just work?
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Personally, I blame Galvin. It’s his job to make sure this “just works” — and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t. I voted for Bonifaz in the primary, and I’ll leave his spot blank in the general.
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p> * Like, in this particular instance, telling the unenrolleds to stay home in September. You want to play in the primary? Pick a party.
In most small towns, the same people have been working the polls since the Eisenhower administration. Do they have their memories “refreshed” on a consistent basis?
I don’t agree. This is sort of like blaming Mitt Romney for a broken parking meter.
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The responsibility for elections is probably with the Town Clerk and/or the Board of Election Commissioners.
Mitt runs the state. There are many levels of administration between him and a parking meter.
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Galvin’s most important job is to make sure that elections are executed correctly. That means making sure that voting day goes off without a hitch about 4 times each two years, as well as making sure absentee, voter reg, sig gathering, etc. are done properly. Furthermore, there aren’t many levels of beurocracy. IIUC, the Town Clerk’s “boss” is Galvin. There’s nobody in between.
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Galvin’s role is limited and important. He doesn’t get a free pass on this one. Every single voting irregularity is within his responsibility.
Galvin runs a statewide agency just like Mitt run the state in your example. Galvin also has several other responsibilities beside the elections (corporate oversight, charities, public records) -a fact that John Bonifaz never addressed during his run.
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Reality is municipal officials control this on the ground and the Secretary’s office takes action when requested or required. Unless you expect that Galvin will be in over 2000 precincts on election day – I doubt even your Green Party candidate Johnny B could accomplish that – then as issues rise they are addressed.
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The traditionally progressive primary voters who gave Deval a convincing win laughed John Bonifaz off the ticket.
The town clerk’s boss? The people of Provincetown. It’s an elected position.
Bonifaz again. I may do that.
Meant to add I may vote for Bonifaz again by writing him in.
Dunno how it is in provincetown but I did pollchecking in Norwood and I assume it is the same: The generated list shows every registered voter as either D, R or U. Presumably that was their status as of the cut-off date. By law, R’s vote on the R ballot, D’s vote on the D ballot and U’s are free to choose one or the other. If they hadn’t changed their enrollment in time, they would have showed up as their original enrollment on the list, eh? So I’m not clear what you are accusing people of. If it is unenrolleds voting in a primary that isn’t really where they lean…well isn’t having the option of doing that the point of being unenrolled? I stay unenrolled so I can vote in the primary of whichever party is most interesting to me on any given election year.
a “U” voter chooses. The polling place should write “R” or “D” next to his name so that an audit can show how many “U”s took the D ballot and how many took the R ballot. This is useful to make sure the vote counts match.
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Without this, issues like entirely blank ballots showing up are a cause for concern, since they can’t be checked.
Why are those blank ballots a “cause for concern” and what would they be “checked” for?
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I have no idea if it is SOP to mark whether U’s take D or R ballots. If it is, shame on them for not doing so. But either way, I’m still missing how this might affect the outcome of the election. Assuming the poll workers were diligent in only giving people ballots they were legally entitled to, then the results are valid, right?
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There seems to be an accusation here of some possible fiddling with the results but I don’t understand it.
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Maybe you could actually spell out the scenario you fear occurred as a result of not marking D or R?
It’s a very important missing check here. You’re supposed to be able to verify that the total number of votes counted equals the total number of eligible voters who got ballots – but now there’s now way to tell how many voters there were, in either primary, in Provincetown. So you can’t compare the total and be sure you’ve got the right number of votes.
If three hundred total votes were cast in both primaries in P-town with 100 register Ds voted and 100 registered Rs voted and 100 unenrolled voted (but we don’t know which unenrolled’s took what ballot) what is the problem. Yes, it is messy and we should know which ballots the unenrolled’s took (because by the act of taking a certain party’s ballot, they infact become a member of that party–until they unenroll again). But, I don’t see how the red flags of fraud appear? In my example three total voters, three total ballots? Messy but it all adds up. What am I missing?
“because by the act of taking a certain party’s ballot, they infact become a member of that party–until they unenroll again”
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Not true anymore, that law changed a few years back. Unenrolled voters remain unenrolled without taking any action.
after I decided to stick with being a D, after a decade or so of flirting as an unenrolled and voting in the D primary, just to change back again.
If you vote Democratic or Republican in a presidential primary, you have to change your registration back. In all other elections, you stay unenrolled.
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This is how Massachusetts complies with the party rules that only party members vote in the presidential nominating process.
From today’s Cape Cod Times:
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http://www.capecodon…
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So – who’s with me? A June primary – to ALLOW for valid court challanges – and no unrolled voting in primaries?
I’m with you on the earlier primary (though June might be a little too early, but maybe), but definitely not on the closed primaries. Keeping track of which ballow people choose is important, especially for choosing who is allowed in a revote, but closing primaries off from 50% of the population is flatly undemocratic.
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Also, I’m really not surprised that given the situation there was an increased GOP vote in Provincetown: I’m sure there are many gay libertarians and gay conservatives who generally don’t vote in primaries and only reluctantly vote for either party in the general. I am somewhat concerned about people wearing Peake buttons asking for GOP ballots, but I’m surprised if they were allowed in wearing those, as I had to put my jacket on over my TeamPatrick shirt whenever I went into the polling place here.
Yes. I don’t want to close the primary altogether, it would make sense to require someone to enroll (even at the polling place) and require someone who votes in a party primary to maintain that enrollment for a year. That way, you don’t go pull one party’s presidential ballot in March, then another party’s local ballot in June or September.
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A June primary makes a ton of sense. It allows for the dust to settle on primary season, then an even start on the general election campaign around Labor Day. A problem such as the Outer Cape GOP primary really puts the winner at a disadvantage, as they now have five weeks to get everyone together and organize a winning campaign. You want a candidate to win on ideas, not based on the logistics of the primary.
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And Peter, just be thankful that your recount didn’t use punch cards. I’ve been through one of those, 15,000 punch cards and hanging chads before anyone ever heard of Bush v. Gore.
…and you may want to bring it up at any Republican functions you go to, because it’s the GOP that’s kept the primaries in September thus far.
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We need to change Mass. law to change the primary date, and it has always been my understanding that the main obstacles are the Republican governor and the Democratic legislative leadership — the two interests most to benefit from GOP governors. Because of the delay in getting Democratic unity, and the Republican dislike for competitive primaries for governor, it was always in the GOP interest to have primaries in September.
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That said, I’ve been pleased to see 2 truly competitive Republican primaries — the one you’re mentioning and Tom O’Brien’s old seat.
Since you mentioned Bonifaz in your headline … did your candidate (or his opponent) try to get him involved in the recount at any point?
…and had absolutely no idea of how to reach him
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Ms. Peake’s primary opponents were interested in this, too, but since the number of Provincetown votes cast was less than her margin of victory on that side, nothing happened. And, because they didn’t orginally request a recount, they had no standing when the problem emerged.