In November, I posted the Other Voices from county Clerk-Recorder Greg Diaz that contained some disturbing information about our latest elections: “For the second election in a row, I received written accounts from our poll workers that there was intimidation and disruption caused by poll watchers at some of our polling locations. Voters complained to our inspectors that they felt intimidated by some of the poll watchers.”
I sought copies of the allegations with a Freedom of Information Act request. A copy of all of them (a matter of public record to anyone, including the local media) is publicrecordrequest. The county had redacted some of the information, including names.
Let’s be clear: The allegations were not severe enough to merit any further actions by the clerk-recorder’s office, and the poll watchers are perfectly within their legal rights. But it is a reminder about the importance of poll etiquette, at the very least. It’s also important to understand, for example, that poll watchers had not visited the precinct before, no doubt making for an uncomfortable situation on both sides.
Some highlights:
•The complaints centered on some poll watchers in Truckee, according to the documents. “Early in the morning on Election Day, one observer came into the polling place and introduced herself as a member of McClintock’s campaign,” said one document. “He explained the rules to her and laid out the guidelines for poll observers. She was asking a lot of questions about all parts of the process to the point that he felt she was being disruptive of the flow in the polling place and preventing him from doing his job as the inspector.” There are also handwritten notes discussing this.
•”During the time those observers were there, (name redacted) said he talked to ‘at least seven’ voters who expressed discomfort at the presence of the observers, and felt as if they were being intimidated by the observers from the McClintock campaign,” it alleged later.
•”This is the first election I am aware of a poll watcher visiting us,” one email said. “I will refer to the persons as she or the two men,” it alleged. “Later in the day, she returned with 2 additional men. One in a suit and tie, the other wearing a pilot’s flight jacket with military patches. They all had very imposing, militaristic, in-your-face attitude. Again, based upon body language.”
•”We both felt there was intimidation and disruption caused by the poll-watchers at our location,” another document alleged. “I have never had this problem develop in any previous election worked.”
•”The one poll observer was obnoxious and intimidating,” read a poll worker survey, included in the document. “I was told he was there because the Republican party felt their votes weren’t counted properly at the last election.”
•”We had an absolutely obnoxious poll worker hang around. We all understand she has every right to be there but she was rude, aggressive and very much out of line,” alleged one comment.
It is the clerk-recorder’s duty to investigate such complaints. It would seem that under the circumstances our county clerk-recorder acted appropriately.
Let’s hope the next election doesn’t involve such complaints. As the clerk-recorder stated, “This should not be happening in Nevada County.”
Filed under: Uncategorized
Maybe one of these people can become a US Supreme Court Justice some day. I stumbled across this article earlier in this decade and reading this post reminded me of it.
Just our Bill
Saturday, December 02, 2000
Lito Pena is sure of his memory. Thirty-six years ago he, then a Democratic Party poll watcher, got into a shoving match with a Republican who had spent the opening hours of the 1964 election doing his damnedest to keep people from voting in south Phoenix.
http://www.post-gazette.com/columnists/20001202roddy.asp
Don’t find this surprising at all. Given reports published and by word of mouth of behavior by some at pre-election events, I expect the same or worst in 2012 election. Inspectors need to be prepared to have such stopped and the offenders booted, by law enforcement, if need be. Sherriff should be briefed and work in conjunction with Elections staff to make certain this does not happen again or arrest and removal to take place after a single warning, if that.
But, Curtis, Jeff reports, “The allegations were not severe enough to merit any further actions by the clerk-recorder’s office, and the poll watchers are perfectly within their legal rights.” Given that, what is it that you expect the Sheriff to be certain does not happen again?
I was completely confused reading this post. At one point it is said there was “intimidation and disruption.” If so, kick them out or arrest them. This can not be allowed in polling places anywhere. Elsewhere i read “absolutely obnoxious.” If so, the poll worker had every right to call the cops and get them out of there.
But then I read: “allegations were not severe enough.”
So is this really much ado about nothing? Poll watching is certainly permissible. By the comments it sounds like some of the poll watchers are being judged by appearance and clothing. If so, that is just wrong, too. Gee, someone has a suit and tie on in Truckee. I know that is odd, but come on.
I’m glad Diaz won, but now I’m wondering if his poll workers need better training and could have handled this situation better. Maybe that is the real problem here.
Surprise, surprise. Michael Kesti and Chris Howard (two staunch conservatives) go to bat for the poll watchers’ behavior. Just because someone wasn’t arrested doesn’t mean the conduct was appropriate. Perhaps the county-clerk recorder did the right thing by generally calling out the behavior in an editorial, hoping there would be some “self policing” next time. Perhaps he took the high road by not “naming names.” You can be sure it will be on everybody’s radar the next time, however, now that we know more details. As he pointed out, “This should not be happening in Nevada County.”
Did you read my post? I went to bat for no one. You are twisting this to your point of view. I read the post and frankly I am wondering if the poll workers were just wimps. If the behavior was as stated, they should have called the cops. This is one-sided, anyway. Did Diaz talk to the “poll watchers?” Any good investigation would.
I went to bat for nobody, Jeff. You reported that the poll watchers are not just within their rights but that they are “perfectly” so. This indicates that no laws were broken but Curtis Walker said that the Sheriff should be certain that this should not again occur. This is an apparent contradiction that I hoped to resolve by asking Curtis what it is that he expects the Sheriff to prevent.
Might it be, Jeff, that your declaration of the poll watchers’ perfection was in error and the inconsistency is a simple matter of slipshod reporting? Either way, I renew my question with only the intent of resolving the discrepancy between your and Curtis’ judgments.
Michael,
Your “slipshod” thinking put words in both our mouths to satisfy your latest round of rock throwing.
Curtis qualified his statement with “if need be” and I wrote they were “perfectly within their legal rights” to observe the elections.
This still doesn’t excuse the alleged behavior.
You are an unabashed partisan, and it shows every time you come here to throw rocks.
Are you up for the Kesti challenge?
http://bit.ly/kestichallenge
http://tinyurl.com/KestiChallengeSilence
You’re splitting hairs in order to support a teapot tempest based only on vague accusations that are likely to never be further investigated. This, in my opinion, continues your ongoing campaign to discredit anybody and anything right-wing.
You are correct that I am partisan but not in the sense that I support a specific political party. I am registered as “decline to state” and have never supported any political party financially. I do, however, consider myself a conservative with libertarian tendencies and support those who agree. I am in no way ashamed of these.
With regard to the “Kesti challenge” I submit that I explained, in comments to your blog and in response to your question, the reasons I declined to call Michael Anderson at his request. The issue has, therefore, been asked and answered, and asked, and asked again. It might be fair of you to post a link to my answer. I’d do it myself but your blog’s search feature seems to not include comments and I suspect that you might agree that searching for it manually through nine months of comments is clearly impractical.
Chris,
Did you read my post or the documents on the PDF? It said it’s Diaz’ duty to talk to the poll workers and the documents show just that. And yes, you did go to bat for the poll watchers, assuming the poll workers were just “wimps” and downplaying the serious issues raised. It was a knee-jerk conservative response. Dig a little deeper yourself. That’s why I posted the documents. Thanks.
Yeah, I’m sorry but Michael and Chris are just completely off base here.
What Jeff is doing is making public notes regarding the incident that were submitted to the Clerk-Recorder. You are not making the ‘case’ . The comments above are from the actual participants. You have done nothing but bring the facts to light. Perfectly within your description of what you wish to do with this blog.
I understand that poll observers for a campaign have every right to be at the polling place, even though it has not been common practice to date. I wonder why Mr. McClintock’s campaign felt it was necessary in this case? It is not as though Nevada County, or Truckee, are exactly hotbeds of voter fraud. If there was some real problem in the last election they should have filed a complaint.
When observers are present they should observe, not interfere in any way, and not act in an intimidating manner in any way.
They should observe, and if there is a problem, file a complaint.
I have been a poll observer for a campaign in the past and after identifying myself to the poll workers and politely saying good morning, I never said another word. I stood back, shut my mouth and observed..
BTW, a good newspaper would have done exactly what I did: follow up with an FOI request from the original Other Voices by Greg Diaz and publish the findings. (Thanks to the web, you also can link to them). It’s what you’re supposed to do. Our community needs to demand more.
I’m not sure a “good” newspaper would follow-up on this one. Again, it does not sound like much of a story. Someone had a suit on in Truckee? I’m just stunned.
What a ridicuolous comment. Hope you were’t in newspapers. LOL!
November 22nd story: http://yubanet.com/regional/Reports-of-Poll-Worker-and-Voter-Intimidation-in-Truckee-by-McClintock-Campaign-Staffers.php
Thanks. I think I published a more complete list of documemts and responses – 18 pages, not just the six you linked to.
I suspect they picked on Truckee, because, like the bully at NU, it was far away from HQ, and any attempts to get observers out there would take at least 1 hour.
In future elections I will make myself available to go visit and video or at least photograph the intimidating behavior and clothing. This would of course have to be cleared through the county election’s office, I’m unsure as to the rules, I might have to be outside the structure, but at least we’d find out who these folks are.
I rather doubt The Union will make the effort.
Normally I work the polls, $80 or so for a 16 hour day.
Doug, as a citizen of Nevada County and beneficiary of your poll worker activities, thank you for your service.
The far reaching paranoia on the far right is turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy, no? They seem to know all their own past evil doings far too well…I’m sure it keeps em up at night. The wing-nut brigade resembles the party of watergate…and they all know what happened to those “tricky dicks”…Kate Hancock
I have done poll watching in past elections a couple of times. We always stayed so many feet away from the entrance, as instructed, so as not to interfere with or obstruct the voting process in any way, only going closer to check posted voter lists to see if those we hoped would vote for our side were showing up. I never saw any kind of problem as reported here. This must be due to poor selection, instruction of those causing problems and if found they have a common connection to a certain candidate or party, responsibility lies there and those officials should be contacted by the Elections Office or Sheriff.
This is interesting feedback from some poll watchers.
Boy, it’s awfully silent over there on the local “wingnut” blogs.
Barry Pruett jumped all over this issue before, writing “Greg Diaz Whining about Retired Ladies.”
http://barrypruett.blogspot.com/search?q=diaz&updated-max=2010-11-18T09%3A11%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=20
What retired ladies?
Russ Steele wrote “Oh my, feelings more important than the facts:”
http://ncwatch.typepad.com/media/2010/11/oh-my-feelings-more-important-than-the-facts.html
Why didn’t they file an FOI request to dig deeper? LOL.
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