AR-Sen: Long Lines and Delays at Garland County’s Two Polling Places - FDL

[WillyT]

AR-Sen: Long Lines and Delays at Garland County’s Two Polling Places
By: Michael Whitney Tuesday June 8, 2010 1:55 pm

<snip>

After Garland County, Arkansas closed 40 of its 42 polling places for today’s runoff election, voters who wanted to vote early were turned away all week: http://elections.firedoglake.com/2010/06/06/video-voters-being-turned-away-in-arkansas/ Now, on Election Day, the full extent of the county’s boneheaded decision to make it more difficult for residents to vote is coming to bear. Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times reports:

The mess that Garland County Election Commission made has come to full flower. A voting rights activists reports long lines and parking problems at the two — count ‘em, two — polling places that the Commission decided to open for runoff voting. It closed 40 other polls to save money despite the fact that every voter in the county, where some 12,000 voted in the first primary, has three statewide races to consider...

Those in line by 7:30 still may be able to vote. One question, however, may be what constitutes a line. Confident that Commission Chairman Charles Tapp and Co. will have a good answer?

This county went heavily for Halter in a three-way race – a full 3% of his total haul on primary day came from the county’s 42 polling places. Now that all the county’s voters will be funneled into just two polling places, voters with tight schedules could decide to go home rather than face the “long lines and parking problems” already evident.

For more on the Garland County fiasco, be sure to read the Blue Arkansas Blog, which has been all over the story.

You can get full coverage of the Arkansas Senate race at Firedoglake’s page for the latest news and information on Election Day.

UPDATE: Reports from Arkansas indicate that after Halter volunteers spent the morning trying to direct the huge amount of traffic at the two polling places, the state police have been called in to try to alleviate the massive parking problems.

<snip>

Link: http://elections.firedoglake.com/2010/06/08/ar-sen-long-lines-and-delays-at-two-garland-county-polling-places/

:mad:

[Enrique]

1. Blanche-mentum! n/t

[PBS Poll-435]

2. Diet Ginger Ale out the nose

Thanks. :grr:



:D

[Hawkeye-X]

3. Someone needs to contact a district judge and request extended hours

until polls are closed.

Tapp can go jump off the cliff. He did this on purpose to disenfranchise Halter since he's a Lincoln supporter.

[WillyT]

4. A Yep...

Spot On!

:hi:

[LiberalFighter]

5. After the election they need to go after those responsible for this fiasco.

[hvn_nbr_2]

6. People should go to jail when they pull this kind of shit.

I refer to the a**hole who decided to close 40 of 42 polling places. Such a blatantly obvious attempt to suppress voting should get jail time.

[Rex]

7. Hey this is America! Land of the Freedoms!

You only have a certain, narrow, time period in which to practice Democracy! If you cannot make it out to the polling booths in good time, then you must not care. Must I use sarcasm? Yes! I most!

[droidamus2]

8. Was I mistaken?

I thought the idea of elections was to make sure everybody that wanted to vote has a chance to vote and every vote gets counted. I don't see anywhere in there saying 'saving money' is one of the desired outcomes of a democratic election. I don't know if the guy in charge is a Democrat or Republican but why is it that these people that control our elections always seem to make the decisions that make it harder to vote rather than easier? There couldn't be some ulterior motive could there?

[rocktivity]

9. You close twenty of 42 polling places to save money

You close forty of them to swing an election.

:mad:
rocktivity