A.P. offers this troubling report, which begins: “The city clerk defended his decision to have election workers use blue highlighter pens to re-ink thousands of ballots cast in Tuesday’s mayoral election after the action drew criticism from elections experts and some of the candidates.” I have previously expressed concern about the Inkavote system used in the election, and worry that such corrections may put too much discretion into the hands of election officials.
I should note that optical scan ballots were “corrected” in a similar manner in the controversial San Diego mayor’s race. If someone put an x rather than completely filled in the bubble next to a candidate’s name, the registrar filled in the bubble. This was said to fulfill the voter’s intent. However, if someone wrote in the name “Frye” on the write-in line but failed to fill in the bubble next to the write in line, the registrar did not count that ballot even during a hand recount, despite the fact that the voter’s intent there was clear. This raises serious equal protection issues that will soon be addressed by a Court of Appeal in California.