* *** COMMENTS_ON_PKG1_JUNE_2015_TRAINING_DOCUMENTS TXT - 10 Jun 2015 15:31:49 - JKNAUTH Here are my comments on the documents in the first package. I'll mail those marked-up hardcopies along with the second package hardcopies when I have gotten and have finished with the second package (it wasn't in Wednesday PM mail). I have put more detail (e.g., rationale) below than I marked on the hardcopies, but it is easier to see where comments apply on the hardcopies. The cover pages have fields to fill in with a "PowerPoint Name" and an "Online Training Name". What is wanted for those? I didn't need any special name to view the online "Fundamentals of Elections" course; my comments on that course are included below. The Quick Guide documents no longer have the words "Quick Guide" anywhere on them. Over the years they have all evolved into "Checklists" instead of "Quick Guides" in their titles. It can be confusing to a newcomer, especially for such key documents. Chief Judge Pocket Guide (?/??/15) ----- ----- ------ ----- Page 1: No revision date!!! (Oh, the humanity!) Page 3: Monday, November 3 -> Monday, November 2 (Hmmm) Page 4: In middle block, add "Inventory gray supply bin" and "Test curbside alert system" Page 5: Boting -> Voting Page 6: Under Precinct Officials, add "I have marked attendance on the paysheet" Page 7: Under Interior, add "Review checklists ..." (list the five with checkboxes as is done elsewhere) Page 7: Under Exterior, wtihin -> within Page 7: Under Exterior, bell -> button (two places) Pages 8, 9, 10: I feel there is much overkill on the time checking for all these things; most items listed are checked more frequently, but not at such specific times (they're checked when voter flows are appropriate for the checking); I thought the old (much smaller) time charts were more reasonable for this logging. Page 9: STREEET -> STREET Page 11: Annouce -> Announce Page 14: Somewhere add "Review checklists ..." list the five with checkboxes as is done elsewhere; then say what to do with them now. Discard? Put in CJ binder? This is never documented. Page 15: Add a fourth check at the top: "Ensure keys are no longer required for the steel ballot bin, AutoMARK, and M100 Page 16: Extention -> Extension Mouse pad -> Mouse Pad Page 16: Under Chief Judge Binder, add sub-bullet: "Chief Judge Badge" (I wonder how many people have forgotten to remove their CJ badge until they got home; I have.) Chief Judge Training (6/5/15) ----- ----- -------- Page 7: The Wendell and Zebulon map colors are reversed from the color key list on the left. Page 23: Note that with all the paper checking a CJ must now do, you have to sit down out of the way to do a lot of it, especially to carefully check a pack of ATVs and not disrupt the flow at the Ballot Table in the process, and that is even without an observer taking up space by the Ballot Table Page 30: Registration Table official may have looked in the wrong place Page 32: Registration Table official may have looked in the wrong place Page 44: We keep our office supplies in the gray supply bin and it is often accessed during the day by all the officials, so it is not a good place for us to keep the ballots. We keep our ballots in closed boxes under the Ballot Table by the feet of the BT official. Woe betide anyone else who tries to get to those ballots. This certainly has not been a problem to date at this polling place; if the BOE believes it is, we can reorganize how we do things. Page 43, etc: On parts of many pages there was a text color change from black to faint light blue in the printout. I assume this was just a printer problem. The corresponding text in other documents was all black. Page 47: Note that the "V" (Verify Address) box was not checked, so this ATV is bad even if everything was filled in correctly on the reverse side. It's a minor problem that the CJ could correct in an ATV review, but still it's an error that should be brought to the attention of the Registration Table person who failed to check the box. Page 49: Add "Handling curbside" (Sometimes in these documents, curbside does not seem to be considered as part of Voter Assistance; other times it is.) Page 53: The YES part of this picture isn't very good. Where would the curbside stand go? It isn't shown at all. I wouldn't want to put it close to where an adjacent car might park. Note the car parked where the curbside stand would be; that slot should have been blocked off to make room for the stand. Page 53: bell -> button in two places (Bells/tones have been gone for about a decade; we have now just the impossible-to-understand speaker system.) Basic Training (?/??/15) ----- -------- Page 1: No revision date!!! Page 8: The Wendell and Zebulon map colors are reversed from the color key list on the left. Page 28: Registration Table official may have looked in the wrong place Page 30: Registration Table official may have looked in the wrong place Page 44: We cannot put the Ballot Table by a wall in our gym; the room structure puts a lot of constraints on where things can go Page 44: We keep our office supplies in the gray supply bin and it is often accessed during the day by all the officials, so it is not a good place for us to keep the ballots. We keep our ballots in closed boxes under the Ballot Table by the feet of the BT official. Woe betide anyone else who tries to get to those ballots. This certainly has not been a problem to date at this polling place; if the BOE believes it is, we can reorganize how we do things. Page 70: For light elections, we often have a number of never used booths. (There were only 53 voters all day in one election.) In that case we start to take down the unneeded booths before 7:30. After you have worked at a polling place for a number of elections to observe the patterns and have seen very few voters come in over the remaining few minutes of such a light election at that location, this is not a bad way to operate. For a heavy election, like last November, everything stays up until sometime after 7:30 (maybe well after). The CJ should use Judgement for what is appropriate when. Page 71: Second and third sub-bullets: These two bullets were unclear (I put a guess for bullet 2 on the marked-copy. We do assign end-of-day tasks to make sure all Judges are kept available for signings, etc.) Page 73: Preicnct -> Precinct Basic Training Workbook (?/?/15) ----- -------- -------- No revision date on cover!!! I gather this is still a work-in-progress since the Basic document (pages 34-39) seems to indicate that some things are in the workbook (or I misunderstood the in-progress notes), but they aren't there. Four Checklists aka Quick Guides (5/28/15 VA and 6/2/15 ALL, BT, RT) ---- ---------- --- ----- ------ No comments. Thanks for including my comments from last year. Fundamentals of Elections (6/5/15 hardcopy and online on 6/9/15) ------------ -- --------- All the audio, cursor highlighting, dragging/dropping, etc. worked fine. A nice to have: Some sort of progress indicator, page X of Y, etc. would make such a long course more pleasant to go thru. Page 1: "Test My Audio" vs. "Test My Speakers" (probably the latter is the wrong one; both should say "Test My Audio") Page 5: memeber -> member In the slide but not in the notes?! Any other places where slide and text don't match? I didn't check. This is a concern because I mainly looked at the text, since the slide printouts were sometimes difficult for me to read. I did my detail review using the hardcopy vs. the online course, assuming (looks like incorrectly) they were identical. For the course I was mainly testing if the mouse operations, etc. worked. Page 13: a Work -> Work recieve -> receive drop -> dropout Page 16 (and elsewhere): shaded in gray -> shaded in light green (at least on my display) Page 22: will assist voter -> will assist a voter Page 25: "... says'no' not presently..." sentence seems misworded Page 27: is illiterate. -> is illiterate or visually impaired. Page 28: Need to say something about the almost silent error beeps (As I have often noted, this is a big problem. The precinct officials need to be warned to listen for the beeps before it is too late, i.e., after the voter with the offending ballot has left.) Page 33: Add "Handle curbside" Page 34: Delete last sentence Page 41: Other CJ duties on the same level as those listed * Phones or emails polling place contact person * Picks up M100, ballots, etc. on Saturday before election * Delivers material on Tuesday after election Page 41: Bullet 4: Absentee list is also picked up on Monday Page 51: That really doesn't look like a grocery bag; delete "grocery" Page 67: Nice to have: Reduce the zoom to show a little more area, i.e. more of each town and its placement in the county Page 69: I don't recall if the same map color/key mismatch occurred for the online course as did in the color printout Basic Training and CJ Training noted above. It is less relevant here since clicking a button goes to the associated town no matter what the colors are. Page 89: Nice to have: Make the ATV appear on the Ballot Table after it disappears from the man's hand. As it is, you can feel something did not work. (Maybe the smiling BT official lost the ATV!) Pages 90 and 91: The scan order shown is backwards; it should be scan the ballot, then scan the ATV instead of the reverse. Easy to fix on page 90; probably hard to fix on page 91. The Basic Training document has it correct on page 47, which matches the 2014 manual. I assume the hardware has not changed. Page 99: setup -> set up Jeff Knauth