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11.20.2008 4:40 pm

Report: Long lines led to lost jobs on Election Day

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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Long lines marred Election Day in Velda City

More than a dozen St. Louis County polling sites had waits of five hours or more on Nov. 4, the St. Louis Voter Protection Coalition said today in a report to the county’s election board.

As reporter Phil Sutin writes today, veteran civil liberties advocate Denise Lieberman presented county election officials with a report that said five people either lost their jobs or were disciplined because they were gone too long on Election Day.

Others, Lieberman said, had to leave the line to take care of their children.

“This amounted to disenfranchisement of the voters,” Lieberman said.

The best known and longest wait was at the Velda City City Hall where the delay reached seven hours. Some people caught in that situation were expected to talk to the election board this afternoon.

7 comments

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What was the cause for the delay?

What can be done to to prevent it in the future?

“five people either lost their jobs or were disciplined”

Decrypted: One person lost their job (because they went to the bar after voting) and 4 others were told that voting shouldn’t take so long. (they call that disciplined.)

Gotta love ambiguous statements.

— hyper-vigilant
5:46 pm November 20th, 2008

I don’t share hyper-vigilant’s uncaring attitude.

If Ms Lieberman’s report is accurate according to the generally accepted meaning of the words, she should publicize the insensitive employers. If the voters can back up the length of their wait, public pressure should be placed upon the employers to rescind their actions. The employers may have even violated a state law with criminal penalties. No one should face repercussions for good-faith exercise of the right of suffrage.

— St Louis Oracle
9:59 pm November 20th, 2008

Oracle, you’ve got me wrong.

The only things I don’t care about are; complaints without proposed remedy and ambiguous statements.

During Ms. Lieberman’s tenure at the ACLU, their focus seemed to become more partisan, and they refused service to those that are not minorities.

Voting delays are caused by something; aren’t they? -What was the reason?

Getting fired, because you were waiting in line to vote, is serious. Did that happen to one person, or five? Did they all work at the same place?

What was the extent of being “disciplined”?

The purpose of Ms. Lieberman’s report was to cause outrage. Outrage is easy.

When Ms. Lieberman decides to focus on remedy, she will have my full support.

— hyper-vigilant
8:44 am November 21st, 2008

Perhaps the truth will hurt. There were strong turnouts everywhere and very few problems with long waits. Perhaps the longer lines were due to voters that were uneducated in the process of voting. It appears that there were a lot of first time voters who probably didn’t know what they were doing and each voter had a lot of questions.

— Logicprevails
9:54 am November 21st, 2008

Further:

Disenfranchisement of the voters: Not acceptable
Lines like the ones seen in Velda City Hill: Not acceptable
half-baked reports like Denise Lieberman’s Not acceptable

Bad reporting like that in this story: Not acceptable

Jake: where is the report? The who, the what, the where?

— tsquare
10:06 am November 21st, 2008

I hate to be picky (not always, but now), but when I click on link to above story about lines to file for office (not that I necessarily intent to) it takes me here, not to that full story; what’s up?

— bill haas
2:30 pm November 21st, 2008

well not anymore; tho happened a couple times; probably just me; almost everything else is.

— bill haas
2:33 pm November 21st, 2008