No, it's not some whinny metrosexual elitist thing.
The logic is simple : The stat's voting commissioner is banning poll workers from distributing paper ballots unless ALL MACHINES in the polling station are broken.
Yup.
So, if there's 10 machines at a polling station and 9 of them are broken, Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Pedro A. Cortés wants people to wait in line and use the one machine that is still available.
John Bonifaz, in a press release issued by Voter Action, explains why this is beyond stupid and just veering into plain old dangerous :
“Voters should not be forced to wait hours in line in order to exercise their
fundamental right to vote,” says John Bonifaz, legal director for Voter Action
and co-counsel for the plaintiffs. “While the use of electronic voting
machines continues to pose a separate threat to the integrity of the vote-
counting process, federal court intervention is necessary to ensure that voters
will not be disenfranchised by long lines on Election Day in Pennsylvania,
when these machines become inoperable.”
“Pennsylvania’s Secretary of the Commonwealth has issued a directive to all
Pennsylvania counties requiring that emergency paper ballots be distributed
only when 100% of voting machines malfunction on Election Day,” says
Jonathan Abady, a partner at the New York-based law firm Emery Celli
Brinckerhoff & Abady, and co-counsel for the plaintiffs. “If left unchanged,
this standard will place an undue burden on voters across the Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania.”
Full press release after the jump.
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