|
by BRITTANY PENLAND
News Reporter
During the presidential election Nov. 4, Avery County polling precincts posted inaccurate Spanish instructions in voting booths regarding how to mark a ballot.
Lees-McRae College Spanish Instructor Rachel Chrane noticed the mistake when she was voting in Banner Elk.
“I was very
calm with it, I wasn’t going in to cause a ruckus or anything,” Chrane
said. “But I told them that there was this problem and I was pointing
out, these are the ones that are right, these are the ones that aren’t
right.”
The Spanish
instructions said, “Para votar un candidate marque con una equis en el
cuadro a la izquierda del nombre del candidate,” Chrane said.
The
English translation of the statement is, “To vote for a candidate, mark
with an ‘X’ in the square to the left of the name of the candidate.”
The English instructions told voters to fill in the oval completely in order to have their vote counted.
Chrane filed a formal complaint with the Avery County Board of Elections around noon Nov. 4 after voting.
“As long
as you can determine who the voter voted for, you have to count the
ballot, even though there was some technical error,” Director of the
American Civil
Liberties
Union voting rights project Laughlin McDonald said. “If the machine
somehow couldn’t count it, then it has to be counted by hand.”
After
having the complaint notarized, Chrane said the Director of the Avery
County Board of Elections, Sheila Ollis, assured her she already sent
the correct Spanish instructions to each precinct in Avery County.
As of press time, the Avery County Board of Elections was unable to comment.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections told Chrane the correct instructions were sent to precincts Sept. 15.
Chrane
then went to two other precincts in Avery County to “see if changes had
truly been made, and found the Spanish instructions from the state were
posted over the inaccurate instructions in three out of four voting
booths in the Newland Public Library,” she said.
“It made me wonder where they would direct the Hispanic voters, to which voting booth,” Chrane said.
In the Elk Park precinct, Chrane said only inaccurate instructions were posted.
She said
when she mentioned the errors in the Spanish instructions, a poll
worker allegedly made the comment, “they probably do that to keep the
‘illegals’ from voting.”
The Chief Judge in Elk Park told Chrane this was not the case and removed all inaccurate instructions from the precinct.
McDonald said under state law, voting precincts are required to count every ballot.
Chrane
was contacted by the local Board of Elections, who told her to not
return to any of the precincts because it was a “violation of general
statute.”
He also assured her all inaccurate instructions were removed from the polls.
“If they
didn’t disfranchise anybody and they really made a mistake, as long as
they count all of the ballots, I don’t think anybody’s harmed,”
McDonald said.
The ACLU and the State Board of Elections were also contacted by Chrane and are investigating the problem.
“When
things like this happen, I think it is really important for people to
go and make formal complaints and register their complaints and let the
word out,” Chrane said. “I think everyone has to just really, really
care about democracy and about letting every vote count.”
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Show/Hide comments
This story has no campus tie-in. It has a tie-in to Lees-McRae, but not to Appalachian. Not one student was interviewed for this. An easy way to attempt to tie this back to campus would be to talk to the head of the ACLU on campus.
I think this story was a stretch to be able to tie it back to the campus community.