Mike and I are traveling around today with Morgan Llewellyn, one of Mike’s graduate students, watching the California primary. If the first place that Morgan and I visited today is any indication, there will not be a problem in the primary because NO ONE IS VOTING!
We arrived at the Luther Burbank School in Eagle Rock–a community in LA County between Pasadena and the City of LA–where two precincts are consolidated. In the first 15 minutes of voting there were all of two voters who cast ballots. By contrast, when Mike and I visited the same precinct in the LA City mayoral election in 2005, at least 10 people voted in the same time frame. The polling place was very well signed regarding which precincts were which when you wanted in–they were both color coded and a map was provided–and there were interpreters for Spanish and Tagalog who were wearing name tags. (Humorous note: the name tags stating which language they spoke were in English!)

One interesting issue that we noted, to follow up on yesterday’s post, is this: what constitutes educating voters about how to check their ballots. Does having a set of signs that say “Got Dots?” for the County’s Ink-a-Vote system constitute educating voters, or should HAVA’s Section 301(b) be interpreted as requiring more proactive efforts to educate voters on how to check their ballots for errors?

We are off to watch voting in Brea and Orange County and will blog more later (thanks to T-Mobile Wireless and Starbucks!)