More than 10,000 Georgia voters in the last presidential election were forced to vote on paper instead of electronically. A Channel 2 Action News investigation found that thousands of votes didn’t count, though many should have. State investigators still don’t even know how many people actually voted. “Having looked forward to voting for a long time and following the election, I was very excited to go there and to cast my vote,” said 18-year-old Bailey Sumner. But when she arrived at her Sandy Springs precinct, the poll workers refused to give her a ballot. “They told me that I wasn’t on the list, and that I couldn’t vote,” Sumner told Channel 2 investigative reporter Jodie Fleischer.
Confident Sumner had in fact registered, her father insisted the poll workers allow her to vote provisionally. Provisional ballots are filled out by hand. Then, elections officials are supposed to verify registration before deciding whether to count them.
“The people there had no idea how to do that and kept calling their supervisor, trying to get in contact and understand how to do it,” said Sumner.
At election headquarters, the voter rolls clearly show Sumner was registered as of April 2012, but county officials rejected her November ballot anyway.
“Knowing that I was indeed registered to vote and that my vote should have counted, yet it didn’t, is frustrating and it makes me upset and disappointed,” said Sumner.
Full Article: 2 investigates: Uncounted votes | www.wsbtv.com.
The Voting News
A News Service of the Verified Voting Foundation
