CRISIS OF CONFUSION AT POLLS.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

Normal election-day foul-ups mushroomed into a ``new level of crisis'' in Los Angeles County on Tuesday as unprecedented numbers of polling-place workers went AWOL, election officials said.

By 11 p.m., only absentee ballots had been counted in local races and only a tiny percentage of precincts in local ballot measures.

Emergency election workers escorted by sheriff's deputies delivered ballots and election supplies to at least 150 polling places where election workers simply didn't show up to open the polls, Registrar-Recorder Conny McCormack said.

Adding to the confusion, McCormack said, was she needed to have 3,184 different ballots printed this election, up from 182 in the previous election.

``This has obviously catapulted itself into a new level of crisis,'' McCormack said. ``We knew problems were escalating to an unprecedented level when over the weekend we had more than 150 cancellations. That is triple the normal number. It's just a number that is astounding to us.''

Some angry voters found their polling places closed, and officials urged them to go to nearby precincts and cast provisional ballots there.

Compounding the confusion, more than one in five polling places in the county isn't where it was last time.

As a result of redistricting, which altered electoral boundaries to reflect the 2000 U.S. Census, many voters were shifted to different congressional, state legislative and county supervisorial districts. About 1 million county voters were assigned to new polling locations.

Also, unlike previous ``blanket'' primaries in which voters could cast ballots for candidates in other parties, Tuesday's election limited crossover voting to independent voters, based on a U.S. Supreme Court decision that killed the state's blanket primary.

``Voters are angry and they have every right to be,'' McCormack said. ``The changes have created a tremendous amount of confusion. You have modified closed primaries, which nobody understands who gets to vote for which party, and then you have redistricting and changing polling places and 15-day voter registration deadlines instead of 29 days.''

County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich said his office got so many calls from angry and confused voters that he asked McCormack to personally report to the Board of Supervisors next week about what went wrong and how to prevent similar problems in future elections.

``It's shocking that we have an election process where people are going to the polls and not able to cast their votes,'' Antonovich said. ``For many who are told to come back at another time, it means they won't be able to vote because of their jobs.

``They don't have the ability to get back in time. I asked the registrar to report personally before the board with recommendations on how to eliminate all of the system failures that took place.''

Van Nuys resident Gloria Tilajes said she went to four different polling places before she found the right one, a house in Van Nuys where the sole poll worker was so overwhelmed that a voter had to help her set up the polling booths.

``This is pathetic,'' Tilajes said. ``My husband and I are diligent voters. We always vote. But here it was like everything was in our way preventing us from voting. Are they going to say this was a fair election? It doesn't matter what party you vote for, it wasn't fair to anybody.''

Tilajes said the sample ballot she received in the mail didn't indicate her polling place, but said she would be sent a postcard informing her of the new polling location. As of Tuesday morning, it had still not arrived so she went to her usual polling place, Van Nuys High School.

At the school, a note told her to go to the Church of the Valley in Van Nuys. When she got there, poll workers told her she was not on their list and to go to the Salvation Army in Van Nuys. When she arrived, another notice on the door told her to go to a house in Van Nuys where she was finally able to vote.

``I was so hysterical. It was totally ridiculous. I was laughing so much. I had to keep calling my husband on my cell phone to tell him not to come to this place.''

Winnetka resident Bill Rice said he went to his polling place at the Winnetka Recreation Center where two precincts vote, but that one was missing.

``So hundreds of voters were told to fill out a pink envelope for a provisional vote,'' he said. ``There was no book to sign and who knows what happened to our vote. I asked the person in charge to call someone and he said: 'There is no one to call.'

``The Registrar-Recorder should be replaced for this kind of bureaucratic bungling.''

Several voters in the San Fernando Valley said candidate numbers on their sample ballots didn't match the numbers on ballots at their polling places and that they almost voted for the wrong candidates before catching the discrepancy.

``The whole election should be thrown out,'' said Van Nuys resident John Martin, 78. ``This is a major problem.''

``I don't know who screwed up,'' said Reseda resident Ralph Benavidez, 77. ``I hope this is not happening in other places.''

The sheer number of different ballots was a major problem.

``It's that many more opportunities for the printer to stitch the wrong cover on the sample ballot,'' McCormack said. ``We also have some examples of sample ballots mailed out with different pages in the interior than the cover.''

Another point of confusion involves new laws allowing voters who are registered with a political party to cast a ballot only for the candidate in the party with which they are registered.

The only people who are allowed to do crossover voting now are the 16 percent of the county's 4.1 million registered voters who registered as nonpartisan or ``decline to state'' a party affiliation.

And they are only allowed to do crossover voting for the four parties - Democrat, Republican, American Independent or Natural Law - that have agreed to let nonpartisan voters participate in their primaries.

The U.S. Supreme Court declared California's open primary unconstitutional in July 2000.

McCormack said she hopes the problems won't affect the election results.

``Clearly, a lot of people are upset and angry and they have every right to be,'' McCormack said. ``We'll do a complete analysis to determine the factors so this won't occur again. My colleagues around the state said they are having similar problems.

``I don't know if it's the same dimension as here. I think we need to do a post-mortem, not just in our office, but statewide, to determine what some of the issues are.''

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Photo:

Allison Stevens, with son Ryan in her arms, surmounted Tuesday's confusion to cast her ballot in Woodland Hills.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer