Voter voices: Robert Braun in Brentwood

Some voters encountered a snag at a polling place in a snazzy residential area in Brentwood.

When they arrived, they learned that voters in their precincts were supposed to cast ballots at Bel Air Presbyterian Church on Mulholland Drive, more than seven miles away via busy Sunset Boulevard and the 405 Freeway.

If they marked ballots at the Brentwood location, their votes would be “provisional,” meaning that the votes would not be counted Tuesday and would thus not figure in early election results.

“This is absolutely an outrage,” said Robert Braun, a doctor who lives in Sullivan Canyon who showed up at the Bristol Avenue polling place in Brentwood. He had received a notice saying that Bel Air Presbyterian was his polling place, but the notice said he could cast a provisional ballot at one of four other locations, including Brentwood.

“How do I know what that means?” Braun said. “It should say what a provisional ballot is.”

As for the Mulholland location, he said: “I’m not going to go up there in this traffic to vote in this stupid election. Who has 45 minutes to spend on that?”

An inspector at the Brentwood location said she and other volunteers were notified Tuesday that voters from at least two other precincts had been told to vote elsewhere.

“I could have handled three precincts,” said the inspector, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid upsetting county officials. “It’s wasting taxpayer money to use Bel Air Presbyterian.”

-- Martha Groves