Voting problems spring up across country, groups say
WASHINGTON — Civil rights groups and election officials fielded thousands of reports of voting irregularities across the country Tuesday, with voters and advocates complaining of broken machines, rejected ballots and untrained poll workers improperly challenging Americans’ right to vote.
The wave of complaints came at the end of a campaign season dominated by concerns about ballot access and voting rights. It remained unclear Tuesday how many of the complaints were legitimate, how many voters were affected and whether the problems would affect the outcome of any races.
Some of the anxiety stemmed from a spate of restrictive voting laws passed by Republicans in recent years affecting dozens of this year’s closely contested races for House, Senate and governor.
By Tuesday afternoon, the nonpartisan Election Protection hotline had received about 17,500 calls from voters experiencing problems at polling places. A coalition of voting-rights organizations referred many callers to state and local election officials, the groups said. Together, the voting-rights groups deployed about 6,500 lawyers and monitors across 30 states to protect ballot access — more than any previous election.
In Georgia, voters waited more than four hours to vote at an elementary school in suburban Atlanta, where some voting machines were not working at the start of the day. Reports of broken machines also surfaced in Arizona and New York.
“This was voter suppression at its finest,” said Takeya Sneeze, 35, a truck driver who said she watched 100 voters leave Annistown Elementary School after discovering the voting machines weren’t working. Sneeze said she arrived at 7 a.m. to discover a long line already formed. Voting didn’t start until after 11 a.m.
In North Dakota, a voting-rights lawyer said dozens of Native American voters were being turned away because of issues with their identification. Poll workers were rejecting identification issued by tribal officials, according to Carla Fredericks, director of the Indian Law Clinic at the University of Colorado.
“After I caught a voter who was being denied his right to vote and told him to go back in and request a set-aside ballot, the election worker told me I was interfering and need to leave,” said Fredericks, a member of the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara Nation in central North Dakota.
Complaints also emerged of voting machines flipping voters’ choices in Illinois, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas, and of voters with limited English proficiency in the Houston area being blocked from bringing an interpreter with them to vote, as required under the Voting Rights Act, according to civil rights groups.
“We will continue to provide these updates and field these reports throughout the day and throughout the night, and work with election officials to troubleshoot and resolve them,” said Kristen Clarke, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
“If we need to, we’ll go to court,” Clarke said. “Our goal is to make sure that every eligible American that seeks to have their voice heard is able to do so this election cycle.”
In Houston, a Harris County deputy cited a poll worker for misdemeanor assault after she allegedly bumped a voter during an argument and made a racist comment.
The Houston Chronicle reported the dispute began over a discrepancy with the voter’s address. The confrontation escalated and the worker, who is white, made a racist comment to the voter, a black woman. Witnesses confirmed to the newspaper that the worker said, “Maybe if I’d worn my blackface makeup today you could comprehend what I’m saying to you.”
Harris County authorities are investigating.