ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 8, 1996 TAG: 9611080085
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: NEWARK, N. J.
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
``Motor voter'' legislation got millions of people registered around the country, but bureaucratic foul-ups and voter confusion kept some of them from the polls.
``If there isn't problems with that thing all over the country, I'd be shocked,'' said Morris County Clerk Alfonse Scerbo. ``I think it's the dumbest thing Congress ever came up with.''
Scerbo said more than 200 people who claimed they had filed their paperwork with the New Jersey Division of Motor Vehicles were not listed on voter rolls.
Brenna McCamey of Morris Plains had to appeal to a judge before she could cast her ballot Tuesday.
``It's frustrating because you hear a lot about getting young people active in voting and then this happens,'' the 22-year-old woman told The Star-Ledger of Newark. ``It's discouraging.''
When Graham and Andrew Hayward tried to vote, poll workers could not find their names anywhere. The brothers said they filled out voter registration papers when they moved from Florida last year. After being turned away at the polls, they appealed to a judge and were allowed to vote.
Complaints were filed elsewhere in New Jersey, while problems also were reported in California, Georgia, Maryland, New York and Virginia, said Jo-Anne Chasnow, associate director of Human Serve, a New York City-based voter registration group.
``I do not know to what extent the problems have volume attached to them, but I have heard enough to say there definitely is a pattern of problems in a number of states,'' Chasnow said.
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