Palmer Twp. voter reports ballot confusion
Posted by Alyssa Young    Lehigh Valley Live    April 22, 2008

Palmer Township resident Ritann Tosto wants to warn voters to read the fine print beneath the delegate candidates' names. Tosto, 59, said she assumed the delegates listed beneath Sen. Barack Obama's name were his supporters, and the delegates beneath Sen. Hillary Clinton's name were hers.

That's not the case, she reports after voting at St. Andrew's Lutheran Church.

    "Fortunately, I put my rather thick reading glasses on," Tosto said. "In the lightest italic, smallest print under the delegates .... It states who they are committed to. And it is the tiniest print in the whole space, and they're mixed."

She admits she has trouble with her eyes, but believes the setup is "incredibly misleading."

    "Had I not read the sample ballot, I wouldn't have known. I would've voted for all the wrong people," Tosto said.

When she returned home she called the Northampton County election office to inquire about the reason for the setup, but got no answer.

    "I don't want to make a fuss over something that had a legal reason for being set up that way," she said.

Tosto told the poll workers the ballot is misleading, pointing out on a sample ballot why she was confused. She says they told her, "We didn't even notice that."

She said no one else who was voting while she was there seemed confused, so they either understood or made the same assumption she did at first, and voted for the wrong delegates.

    "I'm not a stupid person, and I was very distressed, because here we are; Pennsylvanians us, Pennsylvanians! could determine the next president of the United States, and this was not a reassuring experience for me."