Maryland: Election Board Workers' Error Hinders Voting

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MONTGOMERY PROBLEMS

Election Board Workers' Error Hinders Voting
By Christian Davenport and Miranda S. Spivack
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 13, 2006; Page A01

The most basic of human errors threw Maryland's primary election into chaos yesterday: Someone forgot the wallet-size plastic cards needed to operate the voting machines in Montgomery County, frustrating early morning voters who lined up outside polling places and often were turned away without voting.

Courts ordered polls to remain open an extra hour in the county and in Baltimore, where at least two dozen polling places opened late, but it seemed doubtful that the extensions would resolve the confusion.

Some Montgomery County polling places didn't receive word of the order to remain open until minutes before 8 p.m., when they had been scheduled to close. Others ran short on the paper ballots that the court instructed be used during the extended hour of voting, with voters scribbling their choices on scraps of paper in Takoma Park.

"You had to laugh. It got more and more ludicrous," said Dennis Desmond, who cast his "vote" on a discarded flier handed to him by election officials after ballots ran out in Takoma Park.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/12/AR2006091200535.html

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1. Ri-i-i-ight, they "forgot" the cards

Sure. I believe that. Happens to me all the time. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've been preparing for something for weeks, if not months, and then, when the big day comes . . . Fuck! I forgot to rent a tux!

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2. kick because it's important

:kick: