‘LATE’ BALLOTING IS LIKELY TO BE REVIEWED
By Jason Wells
Glendale News Press
April 9 2009
CA
City Council candidates say influx of mail-in ballots shouldn’t have
been aided by local group. City clerk rebuffs claims.
GLENDALE — Radio transmissions between poll workers Tuesday belied the
usual election day stressors — coping with slim staffing, responding
to public complaints over electioneering, handling overzealous campaign
staff — but this year brought its own set of gripes.
They started March 31, when several City Council candidates complained
that the Armenian National Committee Glendale chapter representatives
were overstepping when they transported and then assisted seniors
with their vote-by-mail ballots in the lobby of City Hall.
March 31 was the deadline for obtaining an absentee ballot, but dozens
of seniors, nearly all of Armenian descent, continued to stream into
City Hall through Monday for late ballots that are typically reserved
for those who cannot meet the application deadline due to an illness
or disability.
Elections officials contend those provisions can be set aside if
the voter fills out the late-issued ballot and returns it within the
clerk’s office.
There were roughly 400 vote-by-mail ballots issued past the deadline.
As of Wednesday, they had yet to be counted with the 866 provisional
ballots dropped off at polling stations on election day, city
officials said.
"The council has to address it," Mayor John Drayman said. "City
Hall lobby should never become a rodeo, and it was, at a minimum,
that for several days."
Councilman Frank Quintero, who was reelected Tuesday with 14.7%
of the vote, agreed, saying he was "not comfortable" with political
action committees for groups like the Armenian National Committee
organizing a late voting process.
While acknowledging that the late vote-by-mail balloting at City Hall
was a "campaign tactic," Senior Assistant City Atty.
Lucy Varpetian said the clerk’s office handled the situation in
accordance with legal interpretations from state and county elections
officials.
"Our actions were consistent with the direction we received both from
the secretary of state and the county of Los Angeles," she said.
City Clerk Ardy Kassakhian rebuffed claims that the late balloting was
illegal or part of some sort of organized attempt to take advantage
of the elections code, attributing the criticisms to a "lack of
understanding, or fear based on a lack of understanding" of the law.
"It’s best that they leave this to the professionals, who have had
years of experience in conducting elections," he said.
Even if no rules were broken, Drayman and others said the issue
begged a public evaluation to erase any perception that anything
"untoward" happened.
Zanku Armenian, chairman of the Armenian National Committee
Glendale chapter political action committee, said Wednesday that his
organization "worked hard during this election to ensure that every
voter was able to exercise their right to vote. Late vote-by-mail
provisions in the election code give citizens unable to vote on
election day for last-minute reasons the ability to cast their ballot
and have their vote count."
Any move by certain council members to change the voting process
"smells of yet another attempt by certain council members to create
barriers to voting," he added.
Beyond the huffing over election code interpretations, elections
officials said the citywide process Tuesday went relatively smoothly.
Coordinating hundreds of volunteers and poll workers across 57
precincts and ensuring all the stations are adequately equipped and
prepared is never an easy feat, officials said.
Complaints over perceived violations of state election codes in
the field were addressed immediately to head off any flare-ups,
Varpetian said.
"We didn’t leave anything for tomorrow," she added.
Still, as in years past, dissent over the role of candidate campaign
election monitors at polling stations reemerged with a vengeance
Tuesday.
Accusations of unfair voter influence and coercion on the part of
campaign-supplied poll watchers and interpreters were especially
prevalent at polling stations in south Glendale.
At a polling station at 700 S. Adams St., elections officials had
to disperse dozens of poll watchers who at one point outnumbered a
handful of voters.
Some of the election monitors were registered with council candidate
Aram Kazazian’s campaign.
"I don’t think it’s appropriate that we have to provide safeguards
for other candidates to make sure they’re not degraded," Kazazian
said Wednesday.
The accusations were nothing new, and Kassakhian cautioned against
policy making in response to political complaints, especially when
Glendale administers its municipal elections in a way "that is
replicated in cities across the nation each year."
"People need to get over some of these fears that are peddled by some
of the candidates and council members," he said. "They have to see
beyond that."