March 3, 2020

California Voters Face Long Lines, Glitches, and Dysfunctional Voting Machines

This evening, hours before the polls closed in California, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged the state’s voters to “stay in line” amid reports of long lines and dysfunctional voting machines.

A spokesperson for California’s secretary of state told the Associated Press that election workers in 15 counties reported problems connecting with the state’s voter registration database.  

In Los Angeles, where more than 5 million people are registered to vote, voters have reported long lines outside polling places. Inside, poll workers have been trying to keep up with LA County’s first redesign of its voting technology in more than a half-century. In some places, the wait to vote was three hours.

The New York Times detailed the snafus: 

At the root of the delays seemed to be slow technology. For the first time, voter rolls were electronic so people could cast their ballots at any vote center. But that meant when the tablets poll workers used to check in voters were overwhelmed, it caused major backups in the lines.

There was also confusion about whether those who had filled out interactive online ballots ahead of time could join a separate, shorter line. There were also reports of voting machines malfunctioning.

For weeks, state and county officials have been warning of long lines on Election Day, in part because of the new system and also because voters could register in person on Tuesday.

There were reports of two hour waits at several polling places throughout Los Angeles County, with poll workers directing voters to other sites that had equally long waits. Several machines reportedly failed, leaving many voting booths sitting empty and leading to even longer waits. At one polling place, a poll worker handed out candy to weary voters, and campaigns sent pizza to several voting sites at the University of California campuses

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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