* *** POSTMORTEM_2016-06-07 TXT - 12 Jun 2016 23:53:14 - JKNAUTH We had a moderate turnout in 19-09 for the 6/7/16 primary election, about 10% at the polling place and 2% via absentee (mail or early voting). This was a congressional representative and judicial primary. The weather was very good on election day, but it rained hard during Monday setup, limiting our outside work. This was the first election at our new polling place, New Bethel Baptist Church; the polling place was excellent. This was the second election with a photo ID requirement; there were no "reasonable resemblance" rejections or any other photo ID problems. I heard no questions from voters about this primary's ballot style ideosyncrasies, e.g., having no Libertarian ballot. However, since 19-09 is entirely in district 2, we had the simplest configuration -- both Republican and Democratic ballots available. Statistics ---------- Registered voters: 4312 (as of 6/1/16) M100 vs. ATV counts 410 vs. 410 Provisional ballots: 1 (plus several transfers-out) Emergency bin ballots: 0 Challenged ballots: 0 6/6/16 Absentee List: 57 Late mail-in absentees: 12 Write-in ballots: 0 Curbside voters: 8 AutoMARK voters: 0 Spoiled ballots: 7 "Reasonable Resemblance": 0 (requiring the three judges to decide) Observers: 0 Ballot Count Reconciliation web page: http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Ballot_Count_Reconciliation_2016-06-07.htm Staffing -------- We had a number of personnel changes in the last few days before the election, which caused some problems. We finally ended up with nine officials; most were experienced and they all did their jobs very well. Nine was adequate for this election, but in November we will need at least twelve to handle the expected MUCH larger turnout. Polling Place Change for 19-09 -- Move to New Bethel Baptist Church ------- ----- ------ --- ----- -- ---- -- --- ------ ------- ------ All the 19-09 officials were very happy with our new polling place and it seemed the voters had the same opinion. It is roomy, comfortable, quiet, and well-lit. It has good parking and is easy to find. It has a kitchen and provides good (long, sturdy) tables and many chairs. The support from the church personnel has been excellent. A minor problem was that blue painters tape did not stick well to the door glass for our signs. This did not happen at our old polling place; maybe a different type of glass cleaner was used there. Scotch tape is definitely not good for door glass because it may not remove properly. Several voters said they had not heard about the move of the polling place from Rolesville Elementary School. One said she had gone to the old place first when seeing many signs there. It turned out the signs were campaign signs. Another said he had gone to the school and ended up asking teachers where the new voting site was. When we asked if he had received his updated Voter Registration card, which has the new polling place location, and had looked at the new information, he didn't answer. Our officials who live in 19-09 said they had received their updated cards. I don't know if the BOE "change of polling place" sign at the school was seen by voters. I did see a good article in the 3/26/16 issue of "The Wake Forest Weekly, The Rolesville Weekly, The Franklin Weekly". I never saw anything in the "Rolesville Buzz". One of our Rolesville-resident judges called the Rolesville Town Manager well before the election to try to get the word spread. He said he would notify people thru the town's communication channels. I don't know how successful this was, e.g., if robocalls or mailing lists were used, if the town website made the notification, etc. I got the impression from the 19-09 officials that this information wasn't widely spread. Presumably by fall the old polling place will have been demolished; it already has orange construction fences around it. Voters who didn't know before may get the hint that "the Rolesville Elementary School gym is no longer the 19-09 polling place". Hopefully they will then try to find out the new polling place well before election day. One consideration for November will be parking. The church has two big lots. They are close together, but are not connected; if you drive into one, you cannot get to the other. The lot by the Fellowship Center, the building which contains the voting enclosure, is where we have curbside parking and accessible parking. If someone needing those facilities goes to the other lot, they are in trouble. However unrestricted voters would not have much of a problem parking in the other lot since the walk to the Fellowship Center is short. If the Fellowship lot fills up with the big November turnout, unrestricted voters can certainly use the other lot. They might even choose to do so at any time since the exit from that lot is slightly easier for a left turn. The net of all this is that we may need some special signs. "Curbside *ONLY*" and such (the existing signs) don't say the right thing. "*NO* Curbside" (or something along that line) conveys better the message we want near the entrance to the second lot. Also, "accessible" does not really seem to convey the intended "disabled" meaning to many people. Its use on our signs has not worked at all, although it is probably the legal "term-to-be-used" nowadays. It seems to be interpreted as *everyone* can "access". We no longer need the big foam sign about bus hours. (No more school buses to worry about -- hooray!) The sign was included in what they delivered to New Bethel for the June election. Below is a suggested replacement for the directions to New Bethel Baptist Church for the CJ yellow sheet and the laptop direction file. Here I am trying to indicate the location without being biased about which direction the voter might be coming from: N, E, S, or W. New Bethel Baptist Church is on the north side of E. Young Street. It is midway between the intersection of E. Young Street with S. Main Street and the intersection of E. Young Street with the Rolesville Bypass (US 401). Pollbooks --------- Unfortunately the pollbooks still had the letter splitting problem and were large. However our RT people worked out a technique which helped a good deal. In our new polling place we had access to some 8-foot tables. We put together two of these long tables as our RT. The three RT officials then spread the pollbooks in order in a line along the combined table. Voters still stood in three alphabetically split lines, but could be served by the next available official who was near the required book, assuming the book was not already in use. In this election we never had to contend with very long lines (vs. what happened in March and what is expected in November), but the above process worked well in this election and will probably be used in November when we will allocate four officials for the RT. Provisional Voter Processing ----------- ----- ---------- There was little HT activity for this election. We had only one completed provisional envelope, an unreported move, and several transfers to another precinct. We did have one unusual situation. A voter's name could not be found in the pollbook at the RT, or on the laptop at the HT, or even by the BOE when the Help Line was called. So the voter completed a provisional envelope/ballot. However just as the voter was leaving, one of our HT officials did a wildcard search. She found the voter's name. It was previously not found because of an embedded space. We called the Help Line again and were advised to put the still sealed (now marked spoiled) provisional envelope (containing a ballot) in the BT Spoiled Ballots bag, renumber the preprinted pink provisional poll list to ignore this spoiled provisional, and have the now-found voter vote normally with the now-found ATV. We put lots of notes on and with the spoiled provisional envelope, on the ATV that replaced it, and on the Provisional and Spoiled Ballot bags about their recorded counts. Putting the spoiled provisional envelope in the Spoiled Ballot bag did make end-of-day reconciliation easier -- the ballot in the spoiled envelope was considered spoiled, just like non-provisional spoiled ballots in that bag. Also the count of provisionals on the Provisional bag specified the true number of provisionals to be possibly eligible as valid ballots by the BOE. That's the background. What was confusing is the Provisional bag instruction to put spoiled provisional envelopes in that bag (vs. what the Help Line said). I had previously thought this meant envelopes that had started to be filled out, but not completed. Such envelopes probably had voter private data and needed to be properly disposed of. But it also could be interpreted to include spoiled provisional envelopes that contained ballots. Some documentation clarification seems needed. You could do the process either way and make the counts balance. Procedural Error at Poll Closing ---------- ----- -- ---- ------- We made a mistake in not labeling as "Unvoted" the *unopened* ballot boxes. We got from the BOE one empty box and six boxes of ballots, At poll closing we put our voted ballots in the empty box and labeled it as "Voted". We had opened three boxes of ballots during the day. At closing we put the loose ballots in the three opened boxes together with the remaining unopened packs originally in those boxes and labeled them as "Unvoted". We should also have labeled the three unopened (still sealed) boxes as "Unvoted", but didn't do so. We didn't realize the error until we had left the enclosure. We changed (in the dark) the "Unvoted" labels to "1 of 6", "2 of 6", and "3 of 6"; they were previously "1 of 3", "2 of 3", and "3 of 3". We did not try to put any additional labels on the three unopened boxes which still had their original labels. I pointed this out to the people at the Knightdale delivery site and they recorded six "Unvoted" and one "Voted" for boxes. I apologize for the error and the scrawled label changes. Documentation ------------- The June election precinct officials documentation was much improved over that provided for March. However a number of comments/questions I had sent to the BOE about the new documents were not answered. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Comments_2016-06-07_Election_Documents.txt, for example. Hopefully they will be addressed by November. I certainly would have liked some feedback on the open questions. Here are some other comments: 1) The white ATV bag still did not say that the bag should be sealed only by the CJ. In contrast the red and blue bags do have the warning. I had pointed out this problem in the last two elections. 2) The provisional envelope should have a note on the back by the photo ID checking step to remind officials to mark the checkboxes on the front of the envelope to say whether the voter had a valid photo ID. Also, those front-side checkboxes should be relabeled from "ID Provided" to "Valid Photo ID Provided". 3) In the June CJ binder, the driving instructions/map for how to get to and from the Knightdale pickup site were still for the old Rolesville Elementary School polling place, not the new one at New Bethel Baptist Church. Also, I usually use Forestville Rd. between Rolesville and Knightdale vs. the route shown. 4) On the HT "Voters with ID Printed on the ATV" handout (Page 1): How do the "Current Document" words relate to an NC driver license? Must it be unexpired, as was the case for ID checking last year. Ditto for the other documents in the top section. The "Current Document" words "most recent version" or "dated within two months" seem to apply better to the bottom set of documents, e.g., utility bills. 5) The HT "Alternate Voting Options" handout (Page 2) raised some of the same questions I asked about the 4/29 Primary Manual. a) Must the voter present some documentation to substantiate the birthdate and SSN? b) Probably it would be good to mention that "A list of of the acceptable types of photo ID is listed below" is incomplete, e.g., on expiration requirements, out of state ID requirements, etc. Maybe it would be better to just refer the voter to the push card for details. 6) The HT Quick Guide lists rubber bands as needed; the BT QG does not. The reverse is true; the BT needs them for bundling ATVs. On the other hand, the HT QG should list paper clips, which are needed for attaching HR forms to provisional envelopes. Finally, the RT QG should no longer list metal rings; they were needed last year for some forms which are no longer used. 7) On the "When an Expired ID Is Acceptable for a Voter Who Is 70 Years of age of Older" handout: The copies in my CJ Binder were not updated for the June election. The left column still has "1946 (Mar 16 - Dec 31)" and "1946 (Jan 1 - Mar 15)". For the June election, the dates should have been "Jun 8" and "Jun 7" respectively. At least I think that's the case since the June election has nothing to do with the March election. I still think this chart is confusing and much prefer something like http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Expiration_Date_Checking_June_2016.pdf Hardware -------- 1) We encountered and red-tagged several hardware problems: a) The steel ballot bin door to secure the M100 could not be latched. b) One polling booth had some broken leg holders. 2) The curbside speaker system kept making spurious chirps several times an hour. Sometimes there was actually a voter car there, but usually not. We had tested the system Monday and Tuesday; it had squawked "normally" then. We look forward to the doorbell system in November. Supplies -------- We could not find the Tabulator/ATV Match Sheet. It was not in the first box of ballots (vs. what the QG says), or in the CJ supply bag, or in the gray bin. It was not listed in the inventory list in the CJ binder or the one in the gray bin. Our coordinator brought us one. The location of this form seems to be changed a lot. Where is it supposed to be now? For some previous supplies comments, see http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/2016_BOE_Supplies.txt Suggestions ----------- 1) One of our officials suggested that a pad of Precinct Official Recruiting forms be placed on the M100. It is more likely to be seen there by voters than when placed at the RT. 2) In the "All Officials" Quick Guide put a clear reminder to use only blue tape to post interior signs. Some of our new officials did not remember this from wherever it had been documented/taught before (where is it now?) although they were using the QG to do their sign work. 3) Some of the officials said they were taught in a BOE class to put blue tape behind the signs so it would not be visible and things would look prettier. Fine, except the heavier stuff then falls down. I told them to tape around the edges. I did not care if it did not look pretty; just get the signs secured in the right places. Report written by Jeff Knauth, Chief Judge for 19-09 with input from the other officials for this precinct