As I wrote HERE, thousands of Decline To State voters (California's version of independents) who had voted in the Democratic primary in Los Angeles County on February 5th were in danger of having their votes not count since they failed to fill in a second bubble on their ballot indicating that they intended to vote in the Democratic primary even though they had already requested a Democratic ballot, a step that is required of DTS voters when voting in the primary. It was a classic case of a really poorly-designed ballot leading to the disenfranchisement of almost 100,000 voters but at least in this case the intent of the voters could be easily ascertained and, if allowed, be counted.

My friends at the Courage Campaign (for whom I do part time work) were the first to flag the potential problem and set into motion some pre-emptive measures as well as some legal challenges to make sure as many DTS voters' votes were ultimately counted.

The issue was ultimately taken up by the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors who heard arguments from Los Angeles Registrar of Voters, Dean Logan, who was resistant to counting the votes and Rick Jacobs of the Courage Campaign, who, armed with a petition signed by almost 33,000 supporters urging for the votes to be counted, made the case for letting the voices of thousands of Californians be heard.

You'll never guess who won.

Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan said Tuesday his office will try to count about 50,000 improperly marked nonpartisan ballots from this month's presidential primary election. [...]

Logan estimated about a quarter of the 190,000 ballots submitted by decline-to-state voters in Los Angeles County did not have both bubbles filled in. Those were among 1.8 million votes cast altogether in the county's Super Tuesday contest.

Logan told California Secretary of State Debra Bowen that he may be able to determine what some of those independent voters intended and count their ballots before he certifies the election results next week.

He said he can count ballots in precincts where there is no confusion between the two parties because independent voters asked exclusively for either Democratic or American Independent ballots.

This will no doubt result in a slight uptick in Barack Obama's California vote tally, although my friends at calitics tell me there's no way for it to impact the delegate count out of the state. But really, no matter who benefits, this is a huge win for the cause of counting every vote, a value all Democrats should share and a huge win for the power of thousands of names on a petition to make real world change.

As I first wrote back on Super Tuesday, my friends at The Courage Campaign (for whom I do part time work) were the first to catch a potential speed bump for Los Angeles Decline To State voters ('DTS' -- our version of Independents) who chose to vote in the Feb. 5th Democratic primary.

Here, we have an Ink-A-Vote system where you mark your paper ballot with an ink marker and the ballot is then scanned through an optical reader right in front of you and you're sent on your way after confirmation that the vote was recorded. The problem for DTS voters is not only do they have to request a Democratic ballot, but then they must mark an extra bubble, which is placed above the names of the candidates, that confirms they're voting on a Dem ballot. Stupid, right? They already requested the ballot, that would seem to be confirmation enough, but alas, if it's not marked the scanner won't record it.

The Courage Campaign did an excellent job of educating voters and alerting the LA County registrar of voters in the days leading up to the primary, but ultimately their fears of disenfranchisement have unfortunately been borne out. As of today, a full 9 days after the primary, a total of 94,500 DTS voters' ballots have not been recorded because they failed to fill in the "Democratic" bubble on the Democratic ballot they'd already requested.

The Sacramento Bee rightly calls it a "major voting disaster" and through the continued pressure from The Courage Campaign, the LA County Board of Supervisors has entered the fray, passing a sort of half measure. From a Courage Campaign e-mail blast:

...the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has asked Logan to, as the San Francisco Chronicle reports, "tally the ballots of tens of thousands of nonpartisan voters... (and) change the confusing ballot in the nation's largest voting jurisdiction to prevent such a mishap from reoccurring."  

This is good news, but there's one big catch: The resolution passed by the Board of Supervisors merely asks Logan to expand his random sample -- it does not force him to hand-count every "Decline-to-State" ballot.

That's why, until every vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is counted, we can not let up the pressure.

I agree whole-heartedly, which is why I signed their petition demanding that Logan count all of the votes. The petition already has more than 31,000 signers but the more that join, the more pressure we can exert on LA registrar of voters Dean Logan to actually give voice to those that voted on Feb. 5th.

The number of disenfranchised DTS voters represents almost half of all DTS votes state-wide. That is outrageous. No wonder they don't register with a party, this doesn't exactly give them confidence in our elections. We as Democrats should fight disenfranchisement wherever we see it and should do everything we can to encourage non-partisan voters to vote with us. So I hope you'll sign it today and help The Courage Campaign out so they can continue doing this important work.