CONFUSION REIGNED AT N.O. POLLS
by Michelle Krupa - Times-Picayune (excerpt)

Hundreds of New Orleanians showed up Saturday at their usual polling sites, only to be told they were at the wrong precinct.

The mix-up was apparently the result of a recent state-level overhaul of voter rolls that reassigned polling places based on forwarding addresses provided by residents since 2005 to the U.S. Postal Service.

The issue appeared to be a major problem only in New Orleans, where thousands of flood victims have had to forward their mail from uninhabitable homes to temporary residences, offices, relatives' houses and other locations.

Orleans Parish Registrar of Voters Sandra Wilson said her office received more than 400 calls Saturday about the polling place changes.

Damon Hewitt, a volunteer with the Louisiana Voting Rights Network, which operated a toll-free hotline Saturday to field voter complaints, said the reassigned precincts were the day's major issue, in part because voters who had followed state House and Senate races in their pre-Katrina neighborhoods suddenly found themselves voting in different districts.

"We think that this is a very confusing process for voters," Hewitt said. "It's not simply that you have to go to a different location to vote. In some cases, you're voting in entirely different races."

While Wilson said the glitch did not prohibit any registered voter from casting a ballot, it likely forced hundreds to scurry across town to perform their civic duty.

Facing the hassle, a few simply gave up, Hewitt said.

The confusion resulted from a state law that requires the secretary of state and local registrars to canvass voter rolls annually, a process that includes verifying registered voters' addresses with the Postal Service, state Election Commissioner Angie LaPlace said.