Washblog || King County Abandons Poll Voters

King County Abandons Poll Voters

By m3047
Wed Nov 08, 2006 at 12:27:46 PM PST
Section: Diary Topic: Election Integrity

[Front paged, NM. Good front-line report from a polling Inspector.]

Zappini has previously stated that it feels to him like King County Elections (along with our political Parties) have abandoned the polling sites. While I concur that the Parties do not live up to their moral obligations to support the conduct of elections, I wasn't ready to pull the trigger on King County Elections quite yet. Our inspector training refresher was conducted well, and hope springs eternal.... then you wake up from the dream.

My polling place on election day, November 7:

10 precincts.
Over 800 paper ballots processed.
Over 300 absentee ballots received.
Over 50 votes on the (single) AVU.
Over 40 provisional ballots issued.

Staffing? I was short staffed in the primary. I thought we'd taken the steps we could to attempt to correct that. At least it wouldn't get any worse.

Two people (one whom I specifically recruited from my precinct because I'd been short in the primary) who were on my roster were reassigned. King County never informed me about this.
One person who had worked the primary was never assigned by King County. I called them to thank them for working the primary and let them know I'd miss them which is how I found that out. I called King County, and they said the reason the person hadn't been assigned was because they hadn't taken the class (which was incorrect). The person then called King County themselves; on election day they showed up and I called King County and they confirmed that the person had indeed taken the class and was o.k. to work.
During the primary, our pollworkers actively recruited pollworkers from the voters; my recollection is that they collected at least 20 names. 2 people who had signed up volunteered to the pollworkers at this election that they had never been contacted by King County.
Half way through the day, they transferred one of my pollworkers to another polling site.
I started the day one pollworker short.

The bottom line:

Two precincts ran out of ballots. I called the help desk, with our troubleshooter Ian there, when the remaining ballots dropped below 20. Basically I was told we'll get back to you; they never did.
People who neither speak nor read or write Chinese voted Chinese ballots at my polling place. I called again when we ran out of ballots. I was told by Spider to have them vote Chinese ballots. Somebody remind me again: why is it that we have Chinese ballots in the first place? I also borrowed some ballots from the two precincts which could afford to give up at least 10. I was also told to have people use the AVU. The practicality of this suggestion is disputed by the number of AVU strikers with paper ballots issued instead (not to mention over 50 votes on the AVU).

In spite of the vogonic absurdity of the "help" provided by the help desk, I don't blame the elections workers for any of this.

After two whitewash^H^H^H^Hpaper commissions on voting reform in King County, the blame lies squarely at the feet of King County Executive Ron Sims and Council Chair Larry Phillips.

< Send $20.06 to the DNC on 11/17 | Telling story line for Republicans >

King County Abandons Poll Voters | 3 comments (3 topical)

another report

I was a judge rather than inspector, at a 12-precinct polling place. We had one switch in staffing from the primary, adding a first-timer. (heh, who am I to say that? this was just my second time as a pollworker).

The missing guy had done provisionals in September, and I was drafted to replace him on that table, perhaps because I'm, ummm, a bit sharper than most of my colleagues at that site.

Anyway, our stats were not-dissimilar from m3047's:

over 1000 paper ballots
nearly 300 absentee ballots dropped off
I didn't hear the AVU count, but some people used it at busy times because the line was shorter than the wait for one of the 16 booths
almost 90 provisional ballots

Man, am I exhausted and sore after all that provo work... Luckily, no paper cuts from either handling the ballots or (what would have been even worse) licking all those outer envelopes for provisionaly ballots.

We knew we might run out of provisional-ballot envelopes (both kinds) by noon. A call to the helpdesk quickly doubled our original allocation of 50. I managed the set of provo ballots pretty well, and had at least one remaining from each precinct at the end. One of the provisionals went to a fellow from Duvall, whose polling place was flooded. Not knowing how things are handled in such situations, I suggested that he write in his choices for US House and for the state legislature ... I figured that, at worst, they'd be ignored, but they might be counted. [Note: I was careful to never discuss which WA-08 candidate he might be writing in.]

No precincts ran out of ballots. No Chinese ballots were used at all. At times, the line for booths got so long that people went to side tables, and even sat on the floor, to work on making their selections. If the blind guy who actually needed the AVU during the primary came in this time, it must have been during my lunch break.

The AVU had to be serviced in mid-morning when it kept on reporting a low paper supply ... turns out that the spring on its weight/size sensor was worn out. During close-out at the end of the day, the Accuvote ran out of paper sometime during its second printing of its counts ... that's how many different races and so many different precincts we had.

You're only young once, but you can be immature forever -- Larry Andersen
Blogging at Peace Tree Farm

by N in Seattle on Wed Nov 08, 2006 at 08:30:32 PM PST

* 2 5.00 4 *

AVU paper feed problem by m3047, 11/09/2006 09:51:15 AM PST (none / 0)

The polls are an anachronism

They'll be dead in 5 years, God willing.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

by Belltowner on Wed Nov 08, 2006 at 01:31:50 PM PST

* 1 3.00 1 *

King County Abandons Poll Voters | 3 comments (3 topical)

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