* *** POSTMORTEM_2018-11-06 TXT - 14 Nov 2018 00:24:54 - JKNAUTH Postmortem Report for Precinct 19-19 for 11/6/18 Election ---------- ------ --- -------- ----- --- ------- -------- We had a high turnout in precinct 19-19 for the 11/6/18 general election -- about 26.1% at the polling place and 36.7% via absentee voting (mail-in or one-stop) for a total of 62.8% of registered voters. For the most part the weather was good. There was one short heavy downpour. The wind was strong a few times during the day, knocking down some signs and making curbside work more difficult. Our curbside bell stand blew over once and one of our "No Campaigning Zone" signs blew over, even though it had been properly weighted down. We did not have any wet ballots or humidity problems inside our voting enclosure. Statistics (voters registered by 11/5/18; voting numbers for 11/6/18) ========== Registered voters: 6221 Tabulator vs. ATV counts: 1626 vs. 1627 Provisional ballots: 27 Spoiled ballots: 6 Emergency bin ballots: 0 Challenged ballots: 0 Monday-list absentees: 2256 Last-minute absentees: 24 ---- Total absentees: 2280 Write-in ballots: 14 Curbside voters: at least 15 (possibly more in the last ATV pack) AutoMARK voters: 0 Observers: 0 Polling booths: 22 (includes 2 provisional and 2 ADA) Total chairs at tables: 17 (at 13 tables of various sizes) --- Total available "booths" 39 Ballot Count Reconciliation web page: http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Ballot_Count_Reconciliation_2018-11-06.htm Sanford Creek Elementary School Polling Place ======= ===== ========== ====== ======= ===== This was only the third time Sanford Creek Elementary School (SCES) was used as a polling place and this was the first large election there, twice as large as the next largest. The support by SCES personnel was again excellent. The SCES Media Center is a very good voting enclosure. Anticipating a heavy voter turnout, we set up many SCES chairs and tables to supplement the large number of voting booths supplied by the BOE. At some points all the booths and about half those chairs were in use. Given this, we should be able to handle possibly larger turnouts in 2020 by using the same configuration. In the May 2018 election we had a problem restoring the Media Center furniture on Tuesday night. Prior to this election, with the help of SCES personnel, we created a diagram of how things should be left. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Sanford_Creek_Elementary_Furniture.pdf That worked well. The school is not on a main street and is up on a hill, where it is not too visible. Monday morning I put out signs starting a long distance away to lead to the correct school driveway. As in previous years I had posted articles on Nextdoor to include maps as well as "car pool" times to avoid. Hopefully many voters are now becoming familiar with this new polling place. However we still had some 19-18 voters coming to 19-19 and vice versa. Staffing ======== This was a difficult year for staffing, particularly over the last two weeks before the election when a number of our officials had to drop out for medical and other reasons. We started Monday and Tuesday one official short -- 10 instead of 11. That presented a real problem given the long voter line Tuesday morning. About 50 people were in line when the doors opened; that grew during the early morning to around 200 waiting to get in. Then curbside cars started to arrive. Since we were short one official, we had to scramble. Later in the day the BOE supplied us with an additional official; then a few hours after that they provided another one. That was a great help, but even with 12 officials everyone was kept very busy most of the day. Campaigners =========== I was told that one campaigner sneaked in to get the Tabulator count. He was gone by the time I heard of it. Other than that there were no campaigner problems. SCES is a good place for them since they can set up on the hill between the parking lot and the school. There they can catch voters on the way down. There is no need for the campaigners to be anywhere close to the voting enclosure. We had no problems this time with non-voters asking to use the restroom. Voter Complaints ===== ========== I personally heard no voter complaints other than about long lines, but people seemed to understand the reasons. Fortunately the weather was pretty good for those in line outside. There was often confusion about what Registration Table line to use (see below) and we heard some remarks about that. However people really seemed to be happy to be voting and were doing it well. There were very few processing problems despite the heavy load. Even though the ballot was long and possibly confusing, there were surprisingly few cases of overvotes and requests for a new ballot because the original had to be spoiled. Pollbooks and Registration Table Lines ========= === ============ ===== ===== Unfortunately the pollbooks still had the letter splitting problem that election officials have often complained about. As always we had pollbooks starting and ending at weird spots, e.g., between voters with the same last name. This makes it difficult to put readable information on the small RT signs. This was worse for us this year because we had set up the RT waiting position further from the RT to give a larger avenue for exiting voters to use. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Sanford_Creek_Elementary_Layout.pdf That made it even harder for voters to read from a distance the small, confusing signs to learn which RT line to stand in. We had four RT positions this election and also made use of a Disney line thru much of the morning. Of course as usually happens we had times when there were many people stacked up with most of them needing to be serviced by only one pollbook. Other officials had no one needing their books, but could not help the overloaded official because all those waiting needed that one big book. Having more but smaller books would alleviate this. For the next election, we will experiment with creating our own much more readable signs to tape over the BOE signs. We also will put some tape markers on the floor to clearly show line boundaries and will create some easily visible Line #1, Line #2, etc. designators in the waiting area to match the larger signs mentioned above. We did some of this ad hoc this election after seeing the problems develop, but it would have been much better if we had it all set up to begin with. Also we will narrow the avenue again to put the RT lines a few feet closer to the RT. Fortunately we had an expert voter guide who was able to get voters into the right line when he wasn't handling Tabulator or curbside work. Curbside Parking and Vandalism ======== ======= === ========= We continued to have problems with people ignoring or not understanding signs and cones marking our curbside parking area. Some people validly needed to use the curbside process and just parked facing the wrong way. Hopefully that will happen less often as people learn how things work. Worse were those people who were not voting curbside, but just parked in the curbside area and parking in such a way that they blocked real curbside voters from exiting the area easily and safely. This was not visible from the voting enclosure; we saw the illegally parked cars only when we went to process a curbside voter or to check signs, etc.; the drivers were not in the car by then. It appears these parkers intentionally ignored the cones and signs, even running over one of the new collapsible cones, breaking its top. (That cone still worked; I forgot to red-tag it.) One of those ignoring the signs was an WCPSS employee; at least he was driving a WCPSS van. I called the school, but by the time one of the SCES employees arrived to address the issue, the man driving the van had come out of the voting enclosure. Presumably he had parked in the restricted area to go in to vote. I told him that such parking was not allowed and he drove off. There was another car that parked to block the curbside exit. It stayed there for over an hour. I finally left a large note on the windshield saying the driver should not have ignored all the cones and signs; this area was just for curbside voting; it was for people who could not walk inside to vote. Later I came out to find the car was now gone and my note was crumbled and stuffed in the top of a cone which was broken. There were bits of orange plastic strewn around it. I don't know if the cone was broken by that illegal parker or by someone else. Audits of ATVs and Provisional Envelopes ====== == ==== === =========== ========= In this election I had time to audit fifteen of the sixteen ATV packs; I wasn't able to go thru the last one. I also was able to audit most of the provisional envelopes. There were almost no errors in any of these; everyone was doing their job very well even though the load was extremely heavy, giving the officials almost no time to take a break. Because we were shorthanded, we often had to steal someone to work curbside, which made things harder for those remaining, yet they continued to do quality work. Reconciliation Form ============== ==== Our ATV number was one larger than the Tabulator count. Our last ATV/Tabulator match was at 7:00 PM and showed we were still in sync at that time. Several people checked the numbering of the last pack and did not find any errors. We spent a lot of time searching for the missing ballot, e.g., in all the places listed on the Reconciliation Form, but did not find it. Given all this, we suspect a voter may have walked out with a ballot shortly before the polls closed. Our calculation of used ballots was two smaller than the ATV number. That may have been just a miscount. However the two 99 packs were counted twice. The worksheet at the Ballot Table did not get filled out accurately before the judges needed to complete the Reconciliation Form; this caused a delay as we tried to figure out things. It may have just been an education problem and not maintaining sufficient continuity of people at the Ballot Table. We will work on improving that process before the next election. Documentation ============= General ------- See my pre-election comments and the BOE response for items to be fixed in next year's documents. All sounds good. http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Comments_2018-11-06_Election_Documents.txt http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/BOE_Response_to_Comments_on_2018-11-06_Documents.pdf Curbside Count Form -------- ----- ---- Currently the ATV/Tabulator Match and the Curbside Count are on one sheet, one on each side. Our Ballot Table officials usually tape the sheet to the table with the Curbside Count side hidden since the Match side is the more important. Late in the morning I found that the BT officials were not recording curbside activity. We subsequently went thru 15 of the 16 ATV packs and noted the number of curbside voters at the top of each one. There were 15 curbside voters in the first 15 packs. I wasn't able to review the last pack, which might have had a few more. I didn't have time to transfer the data to the Curbside Count sheet. I think it would help if the Curbside Count sheet were separate so both could be kept visible to the BT people. FAQs on the PO Website ---- -- --- -- ------- There should be a change date by any added/changed FAQ. This was done a couple of years ago. For this election there was not even a global change date for the whole file. Ballot Table Quick Guide ------ ----- ----- ----- The BT QG does not say for Tuesday morning that BT officials should verify that the box pack count matches the number on the box label. We had been told in class to do this check. We did do the check. Supplies ======== 1) Some of our officials had trouble turning thru ballots and pages, even using the rubber fingers. They said they would prefer using a compound like Sortkwik Fingertip Moisturizer, which is used in banks. For example, there is a three-pack on Amazon for $4.19. 2) The sign list said there should be a "No photo ID required" sign. No such sign was included. Our coordinator later found that was a typo. 3) "Late-Breaking News" said there would be three "You Certify" signs, two in English and one in Spanish. All of our three were in English. 4) It would help if the sign checklist sheet mentioned the two separate packages: - Signs warning about two-sided ballots - Sample ballots I think our people missed these because they weren't on the general checklist and treated them as if they were just part of the many extra (unused) paper signs we received. I caught this before I left Monday night and posted the signs. Having one consolidated checklist of required signs would make such an oversight less likely. 5) For our polling place, which has a hard-to-get-to curbside parking area, we would like some simple curbside signs with arrows. Currently we have to put three signs in a row to convey the same information and use four of those three-sign combinations. 6) One of our QuikStik signs had a broken horizontal rod. The hole in the plastic went all the way thru so the metal rod would not stop. I red-tagged it. However in general these signs have held up very well and are a big improvement over the previous type. The rubber mallet is definitely a good thing. 7) Our steel ballot bin was very rocky. One wheel did not reach the floor properly for some reason. We used a folded washcloth to hold up the short side. Since this is the end-of-life for these steel bins, I did not red-tag it. 8) As usual, some of the bases for the sign stands used at the RT, etc., were loose and could not be tightened; that makes the signs wobbly. The locknuts appear to be stripped, so turning the screw with a screwdriver while holding the nut does nothing. I have reported this often in prior elections and did not bother trying to red-tag any this time. 9) We could use a second roll of blue tape. Each election I have been bringing one from home. I also bring tan masking tape, which is more visible for floor marking on the SCES dark carpeting. 10) There was no velcro strip on our bell button; however there was a velcro strip on the stand. We bluetaped the bell to the stand. 11) The initial (Saturday pickup) ballot box seals still pop off easily, e.g., when being removed from a car trunk. Not very secure. 12) The collapsible cones worked very well for our curbside parking area and seemed to stand up well to the heavy wind. They do take up much less room for transportation. 13) I added an item to the BOE Supplies file (see link below) with some comments on the CJ lanyard and badge, mainly that the card should show the CJ name and precinct on both sides. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/BOE_Supplies.txt for some other supplies comments from past elections. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/BOE_Wish_List.txt for my current general wish list. Hardware ======== 1) On our first attempt to start the Tabulator, we got a "Diverter Not Found" error after a few minutes, even though we had really slammed in the Tabulator hard and the connection should have been good. However right below the error message was a "Continue" (no restart had been done). We pressed the Continue button and subsequently got a normal "Voters 0" after the tape printed, which we signed. To make sure all would be OK, I called the Help Line and told them what had happened. Just to be safe they had me do a restart. This time there was no "Diverter Not Found" message even though we had done nothing to change the physical configuration. We got a normal "Voters 0" and signed the second tape (we left all the tapes attached). We had no Tabulator problems at all the rest of the day. The machinery in the steel ballot box did seem to be making an unusual sound every time a ballot was cast -- not just the usual clunk. It sounded like metal rubbing on metal. It didn't get worse. Because this equipment is about to be retired and we got thru the day OK, I assume it is a non-problem. 2) We emptied the steel ballot bin every 300 ballots. We saw no bad stacking, but there was a lot of crumpling. None of the voters in line had any problems with the temporary halt. We just quickly emptied the box, locked it, and let the voters proceed right away. We then took the ballots off to the side to straighten and box them. This all worked well. The halt was only a couple of minutes each time; the boxing took a little longer. 3) The ground was pretty soggy Monday and signs went in well (hooray for rubber mallets). It sometimes got very windy on Tuesday. Our signs stayed up, but some of the campaigning signs blew over. We had one parking direction sign taped to hang from the school's parking lot barrier pole -- no frame used with that sign. I noticed it was gone after the heavy rain/wind we had in the afternoon, but that area was far away from the voter enclosure, so I didn't look for it then. We didn't find it during our Tuesday night packup, but I did find it the next day. It had blown about 100 feet down the parking lot lane and had gotten caught in some bushes. In the next election we will tape it more securely. Miscellaneous Items ============= ===== 1) A lady brought an absentee envelope (and enclosed ballot) into the voting enclosure and asked what to do with it. I gave her the options. She chose to take the material back to her car to discard it later, but then come back to vote in person. 2) A voter entered too many choices in one race, so the Tabulator rejected the ballot. However the weak alarm was not heard in time by the Tabulator monitor; the voter left and could not be caught. We pushed Accept on the voter's behalf. We certainly hope the new hardware has a much better alarm. 3) A voter left a driver license in a booth. We were unable to contact the owner and put the license in the blue plastic bag with a note. 4) A voter pointed out she had two entries in the pollbook with each using a different first name, but having the same residence address. Each entry had a different VRN. She said she had reported this multiple times. I called the Help Line and gave them the information. I also put all the details in a note in the blue plastic bag. 5) We did not have any line at the end of the day requiring filling out the "Voters in Line at 7:30 p.m." form. However there were a number of people still in the process of voting at 7:30, so we had to wait for them to finish before we could start packing up inside the voting enclosure. Report written by Jeff Knauth, Chief Judge for 19-19 with input from the other officials for this precinct