Miscommunication leads to voters turned away in Maryland

Posted by Jeff Quinton on February 12, 2008

Maryland’s most important presidential primary in years went into overtime Tuesday, as freezing rain throughout the state forced elections officials to keep the polls open 90 minutes late so that traffic-bound citizens could cast their ballots.

Voters slid into polling places late into the evening, casting provisional paper ballots after the original closing time of 8 p.m. In some precincts, election officials didn’t get the word that an Anne Arundel County judge had ordered the polls open late and turned voters away.

Bob Baraczak said he was turned away from the polls at Riderwood Elementary School about 8:30 p.m. because election administrators at the school had not been notified that the polls were to remain open.

Baraczak heard the news on the radio but election officials did not believe him and did not call the state election board to check.

“They said they don’t have a number to call, and I can’t believe that, he said. “My rights are gone because they won’t pick up the phone and call.”

Patricia Firey was turned away along with Baraczak. A custodian told them they were not the first would-be voters to be sent home.

At the central branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library just before 9 p.m., there were five poll workers but no voters.

“We’re not happy campers,” said Keith Konajeski, the chief Republican judge. He estimated the extended hours would mean that he and his fellow poll workers would not get home until midnight. He had been up since 4 a.m. to ready the polling place.

The clearly tired workers predicted no one would show up. “On paper, it sounds nice,” said Carrie Daniels, the election technician. “But in reality, nobody comes, nobody hears about the lateness.”

But just as she was finishing her thought, a voter walked in from the cold, saying her boyfriend had just told her about the extended hours. Another late voter came right behind. They both began filling out provisional paper ballots — even though nine electronic voting machines sat ready and idle.

Konajeski, the Republican judge, said that under the rules, late ballots would be considered provisional and would be counted only if they would make a difference.

Alana Little, 35, of Mount Vernon, who works in Arlington as marketing manager, said she had to work late and was “very upset” at the prospect of not being able to cast her ballot for Barack Obama. When her boyfriend picked her up from the train at Penn Station, she said, she was happy to learn voting hours had been extended.

Kevin Sulin, 43, a computer support specialist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, said he had come to cast his ballot for Hillary Clinton.

Officials said a total of four voters cast ballots at the polling place between 8 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., when it closed. That brought the total number of voters at the Pratt to above the 500 mark — 503 to be exact — which workers described as an unusually high turnout.