Citing poorly trained poll workers, faulty technology, and lack of communication between state and local officials, a report commissioned by Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler deemed the 2006 primary election one of the state?s “most disastrous.”
The report, issued by a task force commissioned by Gansler, pulled nopunches in its assessment of the state?s primary election, which featured late-opening polling stations and long lines for some voters.
“It took me just three minutes to vote in Montgomery County in the primary,” Gansler said at a news conference Tuesday at the University of Maryland law school announcing the results of the study.
“But when I arrived in Prince George?s County, there was a three-hour line of black voters out the door,” he said.
“If it were white voters waiting in lines that long, it certainly would have been a national story.”
Indeed, the report cited discrepancies in the number of voting machines available in some precincts, citing poor planning and inadequate communications between state election and local elections boards.
The report also identified inconsistent rules for casting provisional ballots and false campaign materials targeted at confusing minority voters.
“There are real communication problems that have to be addressed on all levels,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, a civil rights lawyer and law professor at the University of Maryland who is a member of the Task Force on Voting Irregularities.
Among the task force?s recommendations for correcting some of the state?s most pressing electoral problems were: better training for polls workers; making public the number of voting machines recommended for each precinct prior to the election; and uniform statewide rules for voter eligibility for provisional ballots.
The task force also said the state needed to do a better job letting ex-felons know they can vote and recommended added privacy for the new electronic voting machines.
Gansler and task force members also held a news conference Tuesday at the Evangel Cathedral in Prince George?s County, the site of long lines in 2006.
