* *** BALLOT_COUNT_HISTORY TXT - 22 Mar 2024  01:31:19 - JGKNAUTH


For many elections we had counted the number of ballots in each pack as
soon as it was opened.  Often we found that there were either more or
fewer than 100 ballots in a "100" pack as shown below.  That problem has
considerably lessened over the years, presumably because the printer
began doing a more careful packing job.  The WCBOE no longer considers
any small discrepancy from 100 to be a serious problem, although it will
be recorded on the Reconciliation Form during end-of-day processing of
the ballot inventory.

Given all that, for the 5/8/18 election we will not do any counting and
see how end-of-day ballot reconciliation goes.  If significant problems
are found, we will have to resume counting in future elections.

I didn't start closely monitoring and reporting the counts until late in
2008.  We had been warned in a class that year that the packs might not
have exactly 100 ballots.  Then after the especially bad differences
from 100 were found in the 2011 elections, I began to record even more
details.  The following table is a summary of what I had noted in
postmortem reports and later in Ballot Count Reconciliation web pages.

For an example of how to read the table, in the 5/4/10 election, five
packs were opened and three were found to be bad.  Two had only 99
ballots (100 - 1) and one had 101 ballots (100 + 1).  Starting in 2012 I
also began to record the number of unopened packs.  Of course any
unopened packs were assumed to contain exactly 100 ballots.

                                                                                      Number
                                     "100" Packs     "100" Packs     ExpressVote     of Normal
       Election     Discrepancies       Opened         Unopened    Opened/Unopened    Styles
       --------   -----------------   -----------    ------------  ---------------  -----------

     * 11/04/08   -1,-1,-1                9          (Unrecorded)        -          (Unrecorded)

       10/06/09    0                      2          (Unrecorded)        -          (Unrecorded)

     *  5/04/10   -1,+1,-1                5          (Unrecorded)        -          (Unrecorded)

       11/02/10    0                      5          (Unrecorded)        -          (Unrecorded)

     * 10/11/11   -2,-2,-2,-1,-1,-1       6          (Unrecorded)        -          (Unrecorded)

     * 11/08/11   +1,+2,+1,+1,+1          5          (Unrecorded)        -          (Unrecorded)

     *  5/08/12   +2,+1                   9 (See note)   13              -               8

     *  7/17/12   -1                      2              12              -               2

     * 11/06/12   +1                      9              11              -               2    01-43
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
       10/08/13    0                      6              21              -               1    19-09

       11/05/13    0                      1              12              -               1

     *  5/06/14   +3                      8              24              -               4

        7/15/14    0                      1               5              -               1

     * 11/04/14   -2,-1                  16              16              -               1

       10/06/15    0                      4              22              -               1

     * 11/03/15   +1                      5               9              -               1

     *  3/15/16   +1,-1                  20              16              -               7

        6/07/16    0                      6              29              -               3

       11/08/16    0                     10              21              -               1    19-09
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
       11/07/17    0                     10              27              -               2    19-19

     X  5/08/18   -5 (counting not done)  6              36              -               2

     * 11/06/18   -1, -1                 17              43              -               1

     X 11/05/19    0 (counting not done)  9              32              -               2

     X  3/03/20   30 (counting not done) 16              42              -               5

     X 11/03/20    0 (counting not done)  7              28              -               1

     X 11/02/21    0 (counting not done) 13              36              -               2

     X  5/17/22    0 (counting not done) 10              61              -               2

        7/26/22    0                      2              18              -               1

     X 11/08/22    0 (counting not done) 21              35              -               3

     X 11/07/23    0 (counting not done) 12              41             0/4              2

     X  3/05/24    2 (counting not done) 15              53             1/3              3


Note:  In the 5/8/12 election there were also 5 small packs of 20 each.
       They each had the right count of 20.


Jeff Knauth