The issue wasn't addressed

"The Democratic and American Independent party ballots given to independent voters who request them include an extra bubble specifying that the ballot is for that party's primary. The bubble appears before the list of presidential candidates.

If voters fail to mark that spot, the county's scanning machines will not read the selection for president.

Lawyers for the Los Angeles-based Courage Campaign said that violates California election law. The group sent a letter to Los Angeles County officials threatening legal action if the issue isn't addressed before Tuesday's election. "

I noticed this on my morning ballot.... basically, it is a totally needless box on the ballot where as an independent, you specify which party you are voting for in the primary. The reason it is needless is because you MUST request which party's ballot you want (you can't get the Republican one though) before you go into the voting box, so it is clear which party you want to vote for.

It is clear what happens if you don't mark the ballot at all, but what I want to know is what happens if you mark "American Independent" and then vote for Barack Obama? Who gets that vote, or does it get tossed out on account of your idiocy (or the idiocy of the county registrar)?

This ballots looks to me to be essentially the equivalent of ordering pizza online, and before selecting what toppings and size you want, being forced to answer a check box on top of the page that says: "I want to order pizza."

Next election they'll probably switch ballots and make us all bring our #2 pencils and write ONLY inside the circle or risk having our votes not count.