November 2, 2010 ballots in New York city tell the voters to vote by marking “the oval above” the name of the preferred candidate. Actually, voters are supposed to fill in the oval below. The Board says it is not a problem because most voters don’t read the instructions anyway. See this story.
Do judges in election law cases read VOTER INSTRUCTIONS — aka HOW TO VOTE [a LEGAL vote] ???
What day will SCOTUS bring down the HAMMER on the MORONS in another State ??? — like they did in FL in 2000 — the ENTIRE FL regime filled with MORONS — legislative, executive and judicial — NO definition of a LEGAL VOTE in FL in 2000.
— causing the party hacks in Congress to require ALL States — even MORON States like FL — to have such a definition of a LEGAL vote. See the HAVA law.
Thus – how about nonstop criminal indictments to put the arrogant MORONS in NY in jail and/or nonstop mandamus and injunction civil cases to bankrupt such arrogant MORONS ???
Actually the comment about voters not reading the instructions was not attributed to a Board of Electoins official. It was attributed to someone representing the New York Public Interest Research Group. Even that person acknowledged that this could be a problem anyway in close races.
The Board of Elections issued a statement on Thursday in response to questions about the erroneous ballot instructions. “On November 2, New York City voters will vote using a paper ballot and optical scanner. To vote for a candidate whose name appears on the paper ballot, voters need to fill in the oval that appears within the voting square for that candidate.”
“To ensure that all voters are comfortable and confident using the new voting system, the Board of Elections in the City of New York is placing in every privacy booth at all poll sites, instructions that inform voters that they need to fill in the oval below the candidate name they wish to vote for. The Board is also reinforcing instructions on how to correctly fill out the paper ballot by highlighting this information in upcoming newspaper advertisements and by producing a detailed instructional voter palm card which includes a photo of a correctly marked oval. This palm card will be distributed at every poll site on Election Day and will also be available shortly on the Board’s website,” the statement concluded.
The incorrect wording of the instructions is actually mandated by state law.
The provision of New York State Election Law § 7-106 which mandates how the instructions are to be printed on the ballot, reads:
“(2) To vote for a candidate whose name is printed on this ballot fill in the (insert oval or square, as applicable) above or next to the name of the candidate.”
City election officials have previously said that almost every aspect of the ballot design is dictated by state law, preventing changes that would make ballots easier to use.
This is another sample of the dysfunction with our state government. They never thought to change the election laws after picking their new voting system.
How putting the dysfunctional party hack gerrymander MORONS in the NY legislature in a Zoo for public ridicule ???
— Look at the election law MORONS behind the zoo bars in a cage. Ha, Ha.
— or better yet in a FED Jail for about 100 years — with no laughs.
Which of these political timebomb MORON regimes is going to set off Civil WAR II ???
… common sense.
Does no one in the government have enough common sense to NOT follow a law when it is just plainly stupid.
The people who decided to print the word “above” on a ballot when the circle to be marked is clearly “below” should be charged with criminal stupidity.
# 5 Party hack robots in the various gerrymander regimes have NO common sense — because they are such robots.
#4 It gets even better. The instructions specified in the law were changed, apparently as part of the implementation of the scanners. § 7-106(1) now specifies the use of a special marker; the old law said to use black or blue ink or black lead pencil. § 7-106(2) used to specify marking with a “cross X” or “check V” mark. So they were describing an ordinary paper ballot.
The old version of the law is right where one might expect it: on the NYSBOE web site section on “election law”
The demonstrations of how to mark a ballot for use on the two types of scanners shows a box for a candidate, with the candidate’s name in the center, a party symbol in the lower left corner, and the oval in the upper right corner. It is kind of an odd format for a paper ballot, but might be attempting to duplicate the look and feel of the old lever machine behemoths, where the voting lever is rotated clockwise to cover the candidate box and expose a vote mark in the upper right corner.
I didn’t find anything in the law that specifies the arrangement of the square for each candidate. It is oriented more towards the layout of the ballot in party rows and office columns. There appear to be some requirements that the NYSBOE approve the ballot forms for the individual counties. Smaller counties may simply have gone along with a recommendation from the state and vendor. NYC probably decided that they could be a do-gooder and modify the form, and decided that the oval would be better below the candidate points.
We award bonus points if the Brennan Center advocated for the change in form for the NYC ballots along with inconsistent changes to State law.
To add to the confusion, NY allowed the counties to pick from two different optical scan vendors. In NYC the ballot shows the party columns from left to right with one of the scanners. But in most of the rest of the state, the ballot shows the party columns top to bottom with the other vendor’s system.
So the discription of the error make sense for the top to bottom version, where selecting the oval above the name would select a different candidate for the same job.
But in NYC, selecting the oval above the name, you could be selecting a candidate for a different job.
How many losing candidates will be filing mega lawsuits and demanding a NEW election ???
This time even the SCOTUS party hacks may agree about having a NEW election — with rational voter instructions and boxes.
What is the cost of having elections as a percentage of GDP ???
Even O.1 percent ???
Former Communists whom are still alive must be laughin and laughin ………..