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Update: CP confirms reports of voting problems around Philadlephia
Reports are still coming in, and City Paper's own reporting seems to confirm irregularities in several parts of the city.
Update: CP confirms reports of voting problems around Philadlephia
Updated at 7:20 PM
Since earlier today, the Committee of Seventy, which monitors Philadelphia elections, has been reporting stories of voters who didn't appear on poll books when they showed up to vote.
"The issue of registered voters coming to the polls in Philadelphia today - only to find their names were not listed in the poll books – was raised in a court proceeding in Philadelphia Elections Court late today.
A short time ago, Common Pleas Court Judge Pamela Pryor Dembe turned down a request from Organizing for America, a grass roots arm of the Democratic National Committee, which asked the court to order the City Commissioners to distribute additional provisional paper ballots to polling places throughout the city.
Seventy urged the court to order the city to provide more provisional ballots to any polling place that needed them - since voting could go on in some places for hours. (The polls close at 8 p.m., but all voters in line at 8 p.m. are permitted to vote.)"
A few hours ago, the Daily News reported that the Philadelphia City Commissioners, who oversee elections, said that the problems "were not widespread."
But reports are still coming in, and City Paper's own reporting seems to confirm irregularities in several parts of the city.
* Samantha Melamed visited the 66 Ward, 46th Division in the city's northeast section, where election judge Heather Kelly told her that as many as 20 voters whom she knew well from previous elections showed up to find that their names were no longer in the book. Melamed reports that this judge called the City Commissioners and was told that provisional ballots would not be counted. In some cases, Kelly discovered, that these voters were registered at old addresses - 10 years old in one case.
Updated: Samantha reports more than 100 provision ballots in the 20th ward, 9th division. Over 50 provisional in the 20th ward, 9th divison -- near Temple, but some of the voters are non-students and previous voters, according to the election judge.
* Committee of Seventy told this reporter of at least one case of a polling place running out of provisional ballots. Normally, polling places are given 75. Reports are apparently still coming in to Seventy of names not being in poll books.
* Daniel Denvir reports that a source close to the Obama campaign told him that over 200 provisional ballots had been reported at University of Pennsylvania polling places and over 400 at Temple University.
Updated: Denvir reports that election judge Christine Abbot in Ward 27, Divisions 11 & 3 (near Penn campus) had more than 100 provisional ballots in her two the third divsions because people were not in the polling books.
* This reporter spoke with Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez who reported similar problems in the city's 43rd ward. Additionally, she says 6 divisions were moved without notice to voters. Quinones-Sanchez says volunteers for her office were out until 11 last night informing voters themselves of the change.
I am registered in Ward 18 in Fishtown and was not in the books. Submitted a provisional ballot and was told the issue came up all day, even for people who had voted in numerous previous elections and whom the polling officials and election judge knew personally.— caseyobrien
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