* *** POSTMORTEM_2010-11-02 TXT - 4 Nov 2010 12:28:53 - JKNAUTH Postmortem on 11/2/10 Election at Precinct 01-43 ========== == ======= ======== == ======== ===== 1) The M100 jammed after only a little over 200 ballots had been processed. (We had been warned that this might occur after 600-700 ballots, or earlier.) The long ballots did not fall properly. When we cleared the jam and opened the bin to remove the ballots, we found they were all the way to the top of the bin, some falling on end, bending but not lying flat, and holding up following ballots to make the bin appear full. For the rest of the day we shook the bin (back and forth and side to side) after every 50-100 ballots. When we opened the bin again after the next 200 ballots, they were all properly stacked at the bottom of the bin. We didn't have any jams the rest of the day and finished with 792 ballots cast. We removed ballots three times -- once after the first 200+, then after the second 200+, and finally during end-of-day processing. We were concerned that there were not enough empty "Voted Ballots" boxes to securely store the ballots removed during the day. We ended up reusing the same box and just resealing/relabeling it each time. 2) One voter bragged to the Chief Judge that he had been able to vote twice -- once at an early voting site on Friday and then a second time at our precinct before the pink sheets had been delivered. (The pink sheets list the people who did early voting after the poll books and initial absentee list have been printed.) This voter said he had marked the front of the ballot one time and the back the second time, presumably to imply he hadn't really done anything wrong. We strongly feel the BOE should take legal action against this person who intentionally tried to break the system. (There are plenty of ways to game the system if someone wants to break the law. Procedures, within reason, are in place to catch the offenders.) Our Chief Judge phoned the BOE to report the situation when it became known. Presumably it will also be found as part of the normal process when the BOE enters the data from the ATVs we turned in and someone sees this person had already voted days before. Isn't this a felony? 3) As has been reported often before, the M100 error sound (e.g., for an overvote) is much too soft. In a busy precinct room, the sound can easily be missed unless an official is standing right beside the M100. The voter frequently starts to walk away well before the M100 beeps, so the voter may not realize there was a problem. Because of illness we had one too few precinct officials for this election and did not have enough people to put one full-time beside the M100. The nearest person was often the one at the Help Table and was occupied working with voters, unable to hear the M100. The next version of the scanner must address this problem. 4) The most frequent error seemed to be an overvote for the Wynn race, the IRV race. Some people did not seem to understand the rules of "one mark in each of the three columns of candidates" and "three separate candidates must be selected -- no duplicates allowed". It was not made clear in our classes what would happen if the same candidate was selected in multiple columns, other than that candidate would not get multiple votes. If the M100 detected that error and the voter chose to press the Accept button (as many did), then presumably the race would be ignored. That would mean the voter who ignored the rules would have 0 votes (not even 1 vote) recorded for his selection instead of multiple votes. If that is so, it is probably just. Is that the way it works? 5) The BOE called the Chief Judge and said a voter had registered a complaint. The voter claimed someone at the Registration Table had requested an ID be shown even though "ID Required" was not on the poll book for that voter. When the Chief Judge checked the poll book, she found that the voter's label was still in the book. It seems likely that the voter had gone to the wrong precinct, i.e., not ours where the voter was registered; of course in the other precinct the name would not be found in their poll books. Possibly the Registration Table person at that precinct may have mistakenly asked for some sort of identification instead of sending the person to their Help Table where the problem would have been easily handled. 6) All five ballot packages we opened contained exactly 100 ballots. This was in contrast to the May 2010 primary election where we found three of the five opened ballot packages had more or fewer than 100 ballots. We had seen similar bad packages in previous elections. 7) When we tried to close the polls, we had a problem with the M100. It printed the tallies on the first tape correctly, but didn't show the final (required) "Modem Operation Completed" message. The M100 display showed the "Results Report" "Send Results" "Audit-Log Report" "More" screen and did nothing further. If the normal transmission progress screens had been displayed, we didn't see them, maybe because we were dealing with the long tape being spooled out. We waited, as the manual required. Finally we called the BOE. They said our results had already been received. They said we should go ahead and print the next results tape. We tore off the first tape to place in the blue plastic bag and then pressed the "Results Report" button to print the second report. When the tape started to come up, there was the "Modem Operation Completed" message. That part of the tape had stayed below the cover. It hadn't been solidly jammed because the tape for the second report came out with no problem. We tore off the "Modem Operation Complete" message and taped it to the end of the first report. 8) The glue on the purple envelope was poor. The envelope came open after it was sealed (and resealed). Finally we taped it shut. 9) For most of the day, the traffic was very good -- not too heavy and not too light. However there was a problem toward the end of the day. Then many people showed up who required Help Table processing. The Help Table line became very long. Most people required some sort of address change processing: yellow ATV, transfer out, transfer in, or lookup to answer "Where should I vote?". We handled over 80 of those during the day, including about three dozen yellow ATVs, but a large part were at the end of the day. Also, the bulk of our provisional ballots (7 of 9) had to be processed during that crunch period. The Chief Judge had to be enlisted to do those while the main Help Table official handled the other people in line. An apparent bad situation was noted. A number of people arrived from other precincts with no paperwork in hand, saying they had been told by officials there to come to our precinct to have a yellow ATV created. Instead the other precinct should have created a white ATV, with the voter's label from that precinct's poll books, and done Transfer Out processing. They would have then sent the voter to our precinct where we would then have done the Transfer In processing. Transfer Out/Transfer In processing would have more fairly split the work load across the two precincts instead of throwing it all onto our precinct to do it by Unreported Move processing. Does the yellow ATV also require more work at the BOE for post-election processing than a Transfer Out/Transfer In? Help Table classes should emphasize the proper procedure. Written by Jeff Knauth, Judge Reviewed by Elaine Williams, Chief Judge Peter Corcoran, Judge