Two Bullhead City residents were denied their right to vote in Tuesday’s primary election, apparently over the county’s mapping of the street where their residence is. Shaukat and Marie Ali were told they don’t live in the city. Someone at the polling place contacted the Mohave County Voter Registration office in Kingman. “When they called up, they gave them my registration ID number, and based on the ID number, they said we didn’t live in the city,” Shaukat Ali said. “I can’t be more sorry that he was disenfranchised,” said Mohave County Voter Registration Supervisor Kim Stewart. Ali’s street, Lakeview Drive, was built in 2005 and has seven registered voters living on it, according to Stewart. The street was incorrectly shown to be in the Davis Dam Precinct, outside of the Bullhead City limits. Lakeview Drive certainly is within the city limits; it’s a U-shaped cul de sac off Desert Trails Drive east of the Bullhead Parkway. It is nowhere close to the Davis Dam Precinct, which is north of the city limits in the area of Davis Dam and Lake Mohave. “No one’s ever mentioned it to us (by asking why their ballot didn’t include city elections) so we didn’t know it was broken,” Stewart said.
New technology, not available in 2005, would ensure this wouldn’t happen today, she said. “So when that street was built before we converted into the new system, it got left out somehow.”
“There’s a lot of streets and there’s a lot of county and we, all the time, are constantly looking over the streets to make sure that they’re in the right precincts and all the right taxing districts,” Stewart added.
Ali called City Hall on Thursday and talked with Mayor Jack Hakim.
“That is totally wrong for someone to say, ‘No, you can’t vote. You don’t live in the city,’ and that’s that and it’s over with,” Hakim said. The city checked with the county to find that Ali pays the Bullhead City Fire District and school districts tax, which verifies he lives in the city.
Full Article: Mohave Daily News > News > Local > Glitch costs couple their right to vote.