Election judges at a predominantly black precinct in Annapolis mistakenly required voters to fill out personal information- including party identification and address - during the first several hours of primary voting Tuesday, Anne Arundel County's top election official said yesterday.
Joseph A. Torre III said that the chief judge at Mills-Parole Elementary School asked voters to fill out "contingency voter authority cards" between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. Those forms are supposed to be used only if the electronic poll books are unusable, Torre said.
Democratic officials, including representatives for presidential hopeful Barack Obama, arrived at the school at midday after getting complaints about the forms and long lines.
Torre said he had not heard reports that voters were disenfranchised or that the form requirement led to long lines. According to Board of Elections totals, 492 people voted at Mills-Parole, ranking it 13th among the county's 189 precincts for turnout.
Torre acknowledged that some voters might have been left with the impression that they were illegally asked to show identification.
"Who knows what the ramifications might have been? It's almost like asking for identification," Torre said. "That would raise eyebrows in any precinct."
About 80 percent of residents in that precinct are African-American, said Democratic officials and the city alderwoman representing the area. Democrats said they want the situation corrected for the general election.
Alderwoman Classie Gillis Hoyle, a Democrat, said she signed the card when she and her husband arrived at the polling place between 9:30 and 10 a.m. Tuesday.
The board overseeing the county elections operations has ordered that the name of the chief judge at Mills-Parole be kept confidential, Torre said.
phill.mcgowan@baltsun.com