July 31, 2006

Panel of senators to meet on Kern County election troubles

"A committee of three state senators will meet at 1 p.m. Monday at the Kern County Board of Supervisors chambers, 1115 Truxtun Ave. in Bakersfield, to take testimony on the difficulties Kern County voters faced in the June 6 election.

A large number of electronic cards used to record votes on Diebold Election Systems voting machines failed to work and voters were delayed, given paper ballots or asked to come back later to vote.

California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson's office investigated Kern's problems and said the Kern County election was not invalidated. A report congratulated Auditor-Controller Ann Barnett and her staff for handling the situation well.

But the Select Committee on the Integrity of Elections is investigating statewide voting problems further.

They will start their investigation in Kern County Monday afternoon.

"We had polling places that didn't open until several hours after they were supposed to, voting machines that didn't work at all, and hundreds of voters around the state who were told to 'come back later' once the problems had been sorted out," said Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, who chairs the committee. "That's not acceptable and we need to begin addressing these problems now to ensure they don't repeat themselves in November."

Bowen is running against McPherson in November's election."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at July 31, 2006 10:16 AM