Election official says voting problems are not "widespread"
One repeated complaint at the polls in Philadelphia today is coming from first-time voters who say that when they showed up to vote they weren’t listed in the polling books or on the supplemental sheets that include late registration.
Election official says voting problems are not "widespread"
Catherine Lucey
One repeated complaint at the polls in Philadelphia today is coming from first-time voters who say that when they showed up to vote they weren’t listed in the polling books or on the supplemental sheets that include late registration.
We hear that many voters are having to cast provisional ballots as a result.
But City Commissioner Stephanie Singer said she and Commissioner Al Schmidt have been checking the complaints and that the problem is not widespread and is largely due to mistakes made by polling place workers who weren’t checking the supplemental sheets.
“We haven’t seen any evidence here that it’s a widespread problem,” Singer said.
UPDATE: 5:13 p.m.
City election officials continue to say that reports of people being denied access to vote or that polling places are running out of provisional ballots are overstated.
“I’m in an echo chamber of chasing false reports,” said City Commissioner Al Schmidt.
Schmidt said that his office has been inundated with complaints, but that after checking with 20 polling places, only five were low on provisional ballots and in some polling places, poll workers hadn’t found the supplemental books with information on late registrants.
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David Gambacorta spent a small eternity writing about cops, drug dealers and serial killers. Now he’s writing about power and politics – which sometimes reminds him of the old crime beat. He joined the Daily News in 2005. And yes, he knows you’re not quite sure how to pronounce his last name. E-mail tips to gambacd@phillynews.com
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Jan Ransom, a native New Yorker, joined the Daily News in 2010 after graduating from Howard University. She has since written about the difficulty of filing police complaints, tax deadbeats and life after violent home invasions. She joined the Daily News City Hall Bureau in 2011 and has plunged headfirst into reporting on administration budget battles and City Council shenanigans. E-mail tips to ransomj@phillynews.com
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Sean Collins Walsh is from Bucks County and went to Northwestern University. He joined the Daily News copy desk in 2012 and now covers the Nutter administration. Before that, he interned at papers including The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News and The Seattle Times. E-mail tips to walshSE@phillynews.com
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