Wednesday, November 15, 2000
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Wednesday, November 15, 2000 |
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Voter glitches surface here in Fayette
By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE
Rashmikant Patel of Peachtree City had every reason to believe he was going to vote in Tuesday's election when he walked into his precinct's polling place at the library. But a search through the lists of voters published by Fayette County found him not listed as a registered voter anywhere in the county. The Shakerag West poll manager telephoned the county elections office where an elections officer checked the paper files as well as a list from the Georgia Department of Motor Vehicles, to no avail. When the Patels moved here from California three years ago, both Patel and his wife, Kalavati, indicated they wanted to register to vote as they applied for Georgia drivers' licenses. Kalavati Patel's name made it to the list of voters; Rashmikant Patel's did not. This scene was repeated nearly a dozen times at Shakerag West and many more times throughout the county and, presumably, the state. Would-be voters were effectively disenfranchised by an inexplicable glitch in the "motor voter" process. Like the Patels, in many cases, two or more members of a family filled out the same form at the same time, giving it to the same official at the same DMV site yet one found that he or she was not registered to vote on Election Day. County elections manager Carolyn Combs said motor voter glitches accounted for about half the delays or rejections countywide. The majority of those affected reported that they had tried to register at the DMV counter at the Braelinn Kroger in Peachtree City. A sign there says that, effective in September 2000, licensing officials would no longer process out-of-state changeovers. Chief Ronald Johnson, chief of the state's license renewal department, said he received "hundreds" of calls on Election Day and during the ensuing days, and patiently told each caller the same thing: "We are not registrars. That's the biggest misconception. This is not a registration process. We're simply information collectors. If you indicate to us that you'd like to register to vote, we process that request when we're processing the rest of the information. It goes in duplicate to the secretary of state's office one way is electronically filed at the end of the day, and the other way is through a vender who processes motor voter forms. "People are under the assumption that because they got a driver's license, they're registered to vote," Johnson said. I talked to maybe a hundred people myself, and their [license application] was clearly marked that they were not interested in registering to vote. The way the process works, once we send files to the secretary of state, they send them to the local registrar, and they send out a registration card. "If the person didn't receive that card," he said, "why did they just magically show up to vote? "I canít prove what the person said, and it's possibly an error on the part of the clerk. We process over two million people a year do the math on 99 percent accuracy on that. In gross numbers, that's a lot," Johnson said. A sign at Braelinn Kroger says that since September, 2000, licensing officials would no longer process out-of-state changeovers. "Anyone who had a problem can call in," Johnson asserted, "and we can look at the transaction. We made every effort to make sure everybody who expressed a desire to vote in this process was registered. I want the facts to fall where they may." Johnson may be reached at 404-624-7450. Other registration failures apparently resulted when persons who had filled out registration forms did not mail them to the elections office in time for the Nov. 7 balloting. A number of young people especially, eager to vote in their first election, thought they had registered at their high schools, but were turned away when their names could not be found on the list. A spokesperson at McIntosh High School stated that the school does not register students, but makes available registration forms which the student is then responsible for mailing. Jill Kuhns, a member of the library staff in Peachtree City, agreed that it is a misconception that people actually register at the library. Libraries, like many other public agencies, make registration forms available, but it is the would-be voter's obligation to mail them in. "We usually advise them to drop the application in the mailbox when they leave the building," Kuhns said. An Election Day phone call from Shakerag West to the county office authenticated only one motor voter whose name was not on the electors' list Tuesday. Patel was not that lucky voter. The mild-mannered native of India, an American citizen for seven years, accepted rejection phlegmatically: "It's all right," he said. "But you only get this chance every four years, to vote for president."
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