* *** POSTMORTEM_2020-03-03 TXT - 12 Mar 2020 19:06:28 - JKNAUTH Postmortem Report for Precinct 19-19 for 3/3/2020 Election ---------- ------ --- -------- ----- --- -------- -------- [3/12/20: Corrected typo for date of next election: 11/5/20 -> 11/3/20] > SUMMARY < ======= The voter turnout was decent, but lighter than expected for this primary election. The weather probably was a big factor. It was gloomy most of the day and rained hard for several hours in the afternoon. The flow of voters was continuous thruout the day, e.g., with no big lines near poll opening or closing and no long periods of zero voters. This was very good from the election officials' point of view. Except for the rain, we had fewer problems in this election than in the 11/5/19 election. See the Progress section below. This was the fifth election at the Sanford Creek Elementary School (SCES) polling place. The SCES Media Center is a very good voting enclosure. Voters now seem to have few problems finding the school and its Media Center, as well as dealing with some idiosyncrasies for this polling place. The support by SCES personnel was again excellent. They provided a number of mats to help us deal with the rain. The 19-19 precinct officials gave me many good suggestions. I have tried to include them in the sections below. > STATISTICS < ========== The calculations below use the number of voters registered as of 3/4/20. The turnout for this primary election was about 17.5% at the polling place and 12.6% via absentee voting (mail-in or one-stop) for a total of about 30.0% of registered voters. Tabulator vs. ATV counts: 1167 vs. 1167 Provisional ballots: 21 Spoiled ballots: 4 Emergency bin ballots: 0 Challenged ballots: 0 Curbside voters: 21 AutoMARK voters: 1 Observers: 1 (an At-Large Observer) Registered voters: 6666 Monday-list absentees: 834 Last-minute absentees: 4 ---- Total absentees: 838 Polling booths: 21 (includes 2 provisional and 1 ADA) Total chairs at tables: 11 --- Total "booths" 32 There was also one defective booth we chose not to use. Ballot Count Reconciliation web page: http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Ballot_Count_Reconciliation_2020-03-03.htm > PROGRESS < ======== First, here is some feedback to the WCBOE on problems we had in the 11/5/19 election which were fixed (or at least did not happen again) in the 3/3/20 election. * Tabulator: The tabulator screen locked properly at poll closing. * AutoMARK: There was no test ballot in the AutoMARK. * Help Line: We had no problems with the Help Line, even late in the evening when we had to say we could not finish packup in time to get to the remote dropoff site by the deadline. * Spoiled Ballots: We had only four spoiled ballots. There did not seem to be any systematic problems as had been the case in the 11/5/19 election. * Mobile Phone: We did not have the phone downloading problem. * Inventory Sheets: The separate inventory sheets put in each kit bag were a big improvement over having just the one big gray supply bin list in the last election. * Reconciliation Form: The redesigned form worked -- yellow borders around white writable fields instead solid yellow unwritable fields. > STAFFING < ======== We had fourteen officials. Five had never worked as a precinct official before. We were able to rotate people around to different areas for training as well as to rest them during the long day. Everyone worked very well and I have asked all of them to be back in November. For poll closing I assigned one person to coordinate the packing up. I assigned another person to prepare the input for the Reconciliation Form. The intent for both of these was to have organized work being done while the three judges were tied up doing all their poll-closing items and were less available to direct the other officials. > POLLING PLACE SETUP AND PRE-ELECTION PREPARATIONS < ======= ===== ===== === ============ ============ 1) Expecting a larger number of voters than actually appeared, we had set up a number of tables and chairs as voting "booths", as we did in 2018. In 2018 often all the voting booths were occupied and the overflow "booths" proved very valuable. For the 3/3/2020 election the tables and chairs were used as a convenience by some voters rather than having to stand at a normal booth. For the 11/3/20 election we will undoubtedly have a much larger number of voters and will set up the table/chairs again. The SCES has a lot of big furniture (heavy bookcases on wheels, multiple sizes of tables, chairs, etc.), which we can move around and use very well for the voting enclosure. After poll closing we have to restore all this the way SCES wants it. I met with the director of the Media Center to prepare a diagram so we could restore the desired arrangement. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Sanford_Creek_Elementary_Furniture.pdf. 2) Well before the election I posted an information article on NextDoor to warn people about some SCES idiosyncrasies and other things. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Nextdoor_Posts_for_2020-03-03.txt. I also updated my "Information Mainly for Precinct 19-19 Voters" page, now archived for this election as http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/19-19_2020-03-03.htm. > TABULATOR < ========= 1) The DS200 Tabulator worked very well. We had attached some signs to help voters see the right ballot slot to use and to warn them to wait to see their ballot status before they left. Also the WCBOE had colored one of the arrows in the plastic to show which slot to use. The voters seemed to have few problems entering their ballots this time. We had only one runaway voter we had to catch to correct a ballot acceptance problem. Although we had a few curbside ballots with wet spots, which we dried as much as we could, the DS200 had no problems reading them. We did not have enough ballots cast to require emptying the blue bin during the day. At closing we found the 1167 ballots had all stacked neatly in the blue bin. 2) A voter said she had mistakenly marked multiple items on her ballot and then "scratched out one". Yet her ballot was accepted. I didn't see this and don't know the details. On the other hand I know another voter did make multiple marks -- a completely filled out oval and another oval with just a small dot in it. The DS200 rejected that one. The voter showed it to me when she asked why her ballot had been rejected. From past tests I have seen, the DS200 seems somewhat arbitrary in this area. > POLLBOOKS AND REGISTRATION TABLE LINES < ========= === ============ ===== ===== 1) The WCBOE has now switched the pollbook configuration from bound books to looseleaf binders. This nicely cures the letter splitting problem and in general makes it much easier for Registration Table Officials to rearrange letters as desired. Our normal RT setup is two long tables with two officials at each table. The new pollbooks are larger than the old ones and somewhat heavier. To provide extra working space, we put a small table between the two large ones. That let the RT Officials put there the miscellaneous material (several types of forms, stationery supplies, etc.) and thus provide extra room for their binders on the long tables. I did not hear any complaints from the Officials about the new pollbooks. We had eight binders, which we set up as two per Official. We could have used one extra binder (shipped empty) to which we could temporarily have shifted some letters when a "Smith problem" occurred. During such a time if all four Officials were too busy to handle the extra book, we could have had one of the VA people act as a fifth RT Official. The binder solution neatly allows such flexibility. 2) Given our required voting enclosure configuration, we have to set up the blue "Wait Here" line pretty far from the Registration Tables. That distance can make the normal letter signs hard to read. Last year we solved this by putting file jackets on the signs and attaching sheets of paper on which much larger letters could be written. We did that again in this election and also again used masking tape on the floor to designate the side borders of the voter wait lines. 3) We also used masking tape to make floor arrows to direct voters along the long trip down the room and around a bend from the voting booths to the Tabulator and exit. This together with some more signs seemed to solve the "lost voter" problem we have seen in past elections. > CURBSIDE PARKING < ======== ======= 1) A problem we have had in previous elections was how to clearly designate the entry to the curbside parking area and how to show which direction cars must face. Getting to curbside parking can be pretty complicated, given the SCES lane configuration for carpools. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Sanford_Creek_Elementary_Parking_Area_Traffic_Flow.pdf. This election we again used masking tape arrows on the asphalt to show the entry and exit paths from the curbside area. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Sanford_Creek_Elementary_Curbside_Parking.pdf That seems to work well. Chalk washes away; orange surveyor tape does not stick at all; blue painters tape does not stick well and is not too visible against the black asphalt. I buy and supply the masking tape. 2) We try to warn people before each election to avoid the carpool times; they are particularly a problem for someone trying to reach the curbside area. I asked our Curbside Officials to give a handout slip to any curbside voter. It references the latest "Information Mainly for Precinct 19-19 Voters" web page, http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/19-19.htm. > CURBSIDE PROCESSING < ======== ========== 1) We had a larger than normal number of curbside voters this election (21). Many showed up when it was raining. Our Curbside Officials did a wonderful job thru all this. Even when the voters themselves did not protect their ballots adequately from the rain, the ballots had few water spots and the DS200 handled them all. 2) Last election our Ballot Table Officials had pointed out that it would be helpful to have the BT documentation explicitly note the special things they must do for curbside processing. Currently most of the curbside ATV processing is described only in the curbside documents. The BT Officials must depend on the Curbside Official to tell them what to do, which might be a problem when inexperienced people are involved. Because the WCBOE had not handled that comment in the latest BT documentation, I marked up the BT Quick Guide to remind the BT Officials what to do in case the curbside people didn't tell them not to number the ATV until later. > AUDITS OF ATVS AND PROVISIONAL ENVELOPES < ====== == ==== === =========== ========= 1) On the whole our RT Officials did a very good job. We had many people working in that area during the day. The main problems were caused by the poor ATV format, which causes some confusion about what the voters should mark and what the RT Official should mark. In my audits I noted and tagged the critical errors. More on this in the ATV Form section below. 2) I was able to check many of the provisional envelopes, but not those at the end of the day. I did not see any serious problems. I had strongly emphasized the need to follow the flowcharts and all the HT Officials seemed to be doing that. > ATV FORM < === ==== Part of the ATV form text seems to be misplaced and is a human factors problem. (I had originally pointed this out in the 5/8/18 election postmortem, http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Postmortem_2018-05-08.txt.) The last part of the "I certify that:" section, i.e., the seven gray boxes and associated text, is a mix of things. The Registration Table Official, not the voter, is responsible for checking one of the party boxes if the voter is Unaffiliated. On the other hand, every voter is responsible for checking the box by "For partisan primary elections ONLY: I am registered as noted above". As pointed out in the previous postmortem, partisan voters often misread this and check a party box, which does not apply since they are not Unaffiliated. Previously, we Officials had been told to just ignore such extraneous checks. That's what we did and did it *MANY* times. On the other hand, *ALL* voters (both partisan and unaffiliated) are required to check the box by "For partisan primary elections ONLY:". *MANY* voters did not check that box. This error was then missed by the RT Officials and the BT Officials. In my ATV audit I flagged this over and over and told the Officials that they should not initial an ATV if that box was unchecked. It was still often unchecked. This form is badly designed because it encourages this error. We then waste a lot of time trying to catch it and avoid it from reoccurring. We were specifically told in class to make sure the box was checked. The form should be rearranged to move the part that RT Officials handle (the party boxes) up to near the label. That would also remind the RT Official that they should check the appropriate party box when they cross out the other parties' barcodes on the label. It's all part of the same logical process, right?. The text beside the moved boxes should just say something like (probably well shortened): "For partisan primary elections ONLY, for an unaffiliated voter, check the party the voter specifies:". In the "I certify that:" section, which the voter handles, just leave a checkbox and text saying: "For partisan primary elections ONLY: I am registered as noted above." By the time the voter does this certification, all the "above" that the voter should verify has been completed -- party or UNA on the label and (for unaffiliated voters) the edited barcodes and checked party box. In fact, why not pre-print a check in the "For partisan primary elections ONLY" box as all the other boxes are prechecked? Why force the voter to check only that one and require the RT and BT Officials and CJ to ensure it was checked? It is no more important than the other five certification boxes. Although not strictly accurate, having it prechecked in non-partisan-primary elections seems less confusing than the current form arrangement. Finally, why are the Green and Constitution party boxes included as Unaffiliated choices? Since those two parties have closed primaries, their boxes cannot be validly checked. Is this just to handle the case that in some future election they might have an open primary and you might have a warehouse full of old ATVs that could still be used? I am directing the above comment to the WCBOE. If the WCBOE says, "This is an NC State form and we cannot correct it.", make sure this comment gets to the NCBOE or tell me how to do it. > INCIDENT FORM < ======== ==== The WCBOE requested me to file a report about an accident at the polling place. They said I should use the Incident Report form in the Chief Judge binder. However there was no such form in the binder. I recall there had been something like that in some past years. However there was none this year, nor is it listed in the CJ supply checklist, nor is it listed in the documents on the Precinct Officials website. I called back to the WCBOE and was told that they would have my coordinator bring one. My coordinator was tied up with some emergencies and was not able to visit my polling place again that day. When she called me at the end of the day, she said she had not been able to find the form either. The WCBOE said if I did not get the form I should just write the report on a sheet of paper and put it in the blue bag. I didn't have time to do that during the normal end-of-day chaos. I subsequently emailed an "Incident Report" form I made up, which I hope contains all the information the real form requires. > RECONCILIATION PROCESS < ============== ======= 1) Again it took longer than necessary to complete the Reconciliation Form. The ATV vs. Tabulator counts matched right away -- the important check. The Ballot Table Officials had done a great job all day making sure those numbers stayed in sync, religiously checking every half hour. I found several numbering errors during my ATV reviews, which I did each time they completed a set of 100. The BT Officials then knew how to get things back on track and quickly did so. Toward the end of the day we increased the ATV vs Tabulator checking frequency to lessen the chance of a poll closing surprise. All went very well in this area. 2) However the ballot inventory check did not work. The total unused ballots had not been calculated correctly. We finally ended off by 30 ballots. We strongly suspect it was just a miscount. The BT Officials found some of the ballots were tending to stick together. Over the next few weeks some of us are going to work together to see how to make this go more smoothly. Of course the next election will have only one ballot style for our precinct. That will make it MUCH simpler with only one set of loose ballots to count and only one box at a time to deal with. > CAMPAIGNERS < =========== 1) The SCES Assistant Principal noticed that a couple of campaigners were on the walk near the school entrance, a possible problem during carpool time. This was way outside the 50-foot zone, so not an election violation, but definitely within the school's jurisdiction. The Assistant Principal asked me to have them move. I talked with the campaigners and showed where they could go further down the sidewalk just outside our "No Campaigning" sign. They gladly agreed. These same folks stayed on post all day, without umbrellas, thru all the heavy rain. They were VERY dedicated people. 2) We did not have any campaigners ask to use the restroom inside the voting enclosure. That was very good since we would have had to refuse. Also, the Rolesville Park's porta potty that used to be in the gravel lot near the school is no longer there. This will likely be a problem for the November election when there will probably be many more campaigners urgently looking for someplace to "go". > OBSERVERS < ========= We had one visit from an At-Large Observer; he came in the afternoon. He properly introduced himself and asked me several questions about possible problems we might have had during the day. None had happened at our precinct. He then left. So observation was not a problem in this election at this polling place. > VOTER COMPLAINTS/DIFFICULTIES < ===== ======================= 1) I didn't hear any complaints myself. All the voters seemed to be pretty happy, despite the bad weather. 2) We learned of a registration database problem for one voter and his relatives. His last name is in two parts, let's say it's "xxx yyy". The RT Officials could not find his name. I then went thru the pollbook, page by page, and found it and that of (some of?) his many relatives. The way the WCBOE spelled their names and then sorted them gave a pretty arbitrary placement in the pollbook. There were many "xxx-yyy"s and some "xxx yyy"s and one "xxxyyy". There may have been even more variations. I stopped looking when I found his entry. He said his family had been here a long time. As they registered at various times, they got the "spelling preference of the day". I wrote up the details of the problem and also pointed out that the family preferred the blank version, "xxx yyy". He requested that all the names be changed to that spelling so they would all be grouped together and made easier to find. 3) I had one voter who explicitly expressed confusion about his ballot, given the new Congressional District. I explained the recent redistricting and offered to show him the maps. However he had already marked his ballot, was in a hurry to leave, and said he would research it later on the internet. 4) I don't believe there were many redirects to other polling places. Voters must be getting familiar with all the new polling places that have been put in place around Wake Forest and Rolesville over the last three years. As in the last election, the number of "V" voters has been amazingly small. There were zero in the last election and in this election I recall seeing only one "V" in my RT ATV audit; the Help Table Officials said they saw only a few more. Also there were only a few unreported changes of address back to within this precinct. Could it be that voters are finally taking to heart that they must notify the WCBOE when they move? That sure makes things better for everyone on election day. > AUTOMARK < ======== We had one AutoMARK user. That voter had been unaware that something like the AutoMARK existed. The official who assisted the voter has suggested that the WCBOE might provide some signage to let people know about its availability, clearly stating who it was intended for. We would still keep the AutoMARK in an out-of-the-way place to avoid having voters confuse it with the Tabulator. > SUPPLIES < ======== 1) One polling booth had a bad leg-to-booth connection, making the whole thing wobbly. We red-tagged it and did not set it up for use during the day. 2) The initial (Saturday pickup) ballot box seals still pop off easily, e.g., when the boxes are being removed to or from a car trunk. Not very secure. Both the "Not Voted" and "Voted" stickers did work well this time. 3) For this election they gave us some H-frame, corrugated plastic "Curbside Voting" with an arrow signs. Something like that was what we had requested a long time ago. I'll work with the supply director to get more of those signs and eliminate all the many other signs we have had to use to achieve sort of the same effect. 4) We requested and got two extra sign stands this election for a total of eight. Seven worked fine, but one had the usual problem that the stand base was defective, causing the sign to wobble. The screw in the base could not be tightened. We red-tagged it and didn't use it. 5) The collapsible cones worked very well for our curbside parking area. One of the two boxes was coming apart. I duct-taped it together. 6) We were happy to see two rolls of blue tape, which we use a great deal. However this time the blue tape did not stick as well as in previous elections. Many of our signs kept falling down. Different brand? Humidity? 7) We could use some masking tape rolls for the uses described above. Probably other polling places could also for similar reasons. In the meantime I'll keep buying the tape. 8) The door to our voting enclosure has a bar lock, which automatically locks the door when it shuts so people outside the building cannot get in. On election day the school custodian puts a zip tie around the bar to keep the door unlocked. Sometime during the day that zip tie broke. Fortunately I had brought some spares. I'll continue to do that. This is a very polling-place-specific item that I'll provide, not something that the WCBOE should supply. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/BOE_Supplies.txt for some other supplies comments from past elections that still apply. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/BOE_Wish_List.txt for my current general wish list. > DOCUMENTATION < ============= 1) There should be a change date by any added/changed FAQ. There were few FAQs this election. I was surprised that there were no more after 1/17/20, per the date on the whole file. They did not cover some items I had raised in class or via emails. 2) There should be an errata file on the Precinct Officials website for key errors/omissions. Since there was no errata file, I marked up Quick Guides and put those in folders with other information I wanted to pass on to the relevant Officials. 3) In past elections I had made a number of specific documentation comments. They still exist. I won't repeat them here. > BALLOT TABLE < ====== ===== 1) We had to use a Ballot Management System box this year because of the numerous ballot styles. In the past the BMS caused some problems because the ballot packs would tend to flop over. Long before election day, Helen Toward, our main Ballot Table Official, suggested that she bring a smaller box as a "bookend" in the BMS to hold the ballots upright. She did that and we put a brick in it to give it some weight. It worked very well. 2) Because of the additional complexity of BT procedures in a primary election, it takes more time to process an ATV and give out a ballot. At one point in the day the Ballot Table line grew very long, probably around 20 to 30 people, and was interfering with the poll booths. We rearranged some furniture so the line could wrap around into a better area. We also had our BT Official stop giving all the voting instructions to the voter, e.g., about two-sided ballots, and instead had one of our Voting Assistants give the instructions and manage the long line. That let the BT operation go a little faster. After 20 or 30 minutes we caught up and the long-line handling was no longer needed. After the election Clif Wiggins and I have come up with a better solution than the ad hoc line wrapping we did in this election. For the 11/3/20 election we will set up a specific BT waiting area across from the BT. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Sanford_Creek_Elementary_Layout.pdf Also, if the BT starts to back up significantly, we will temporarily halt processing at the RT. Then the queued voters will be in the RT lines, where we have much more room, instead of being around the BT. 3) The Ballot Table Officials noticed that the ballots tended to stick together, even after fanfolding. Sandra Watson has proposed using Sortkwik finger moisteners to help the Officials deal with this problem if it occurs again. > HELP TABLE < ==== ===== 1) When trying to find a street in VAST, our Ballot Table Officials noted a deficiency. In contrast to what Voter Search does, Street Search does not provide a suggested list of names as you type in the initial letters. They wished it would. A voter wrote the street name as Grand Rockway when it really is Grand Rock Way. It took a while for them to figure out the problem (with the help of Google). 2) We received two laptops this time, which was very helpful. We often had two Officials working with two voters in parallel and had made two provisional booths available. Fortunately we never had a large queue of voters waiting for help. > PICKUP/DELIVERY < =============== 1) Saturday pickup took longer than usual. This was probably because of the many ballot styles and the large number of ballots and ATV boxes. 2) Monday pickup at Knightdale was very good. Everything was well organized and the people knew what they were doing. The main problem with going to that site is that sometimes I end up on a two-lane road behind a school bus or mail truck (or both, as happened this time). But that blockage eventually clears. It usually happens on my route *TO* the site, so I know I must leave home early enough to handle a possible slowdown. Leaving early also makes it more likely I will get back to my polling place by setup time in case I hit any blockages when coming *FROM* the Knightdale site. 3) As usual I was not able to make the Tuesday night delivery deadline to deliver to Knightdale, but instead had to go to WCBOE's Operations Center on New Hope Rd. The distance and drive time is about the same, so going to New Hope is fine with me. Given the work required to restore our large and complex polling place to pre-election status, I don't think I will ever be able to meet the specified deadline to reach the Knightdale dropoff site. 4) The checkered flags worked well for Saturday pickup (daytime). However I had some trouble seeing them at Tuesday dropoff (night). Also the flashing lights were further back from the street for dropoff and not too visible from the northern approach. 5) My car (a Toyota Camry Hybrid) is absolutely full when I take things to the dropoff site Tuesday night. The contents are WCBOE items (ballots, Tabulator, pollbooks, ATVs, etc.), my stuff (Keurig coffee machine, K-cups, mugs, and other such supplies, tools and stationery items, notebooks, etc,), and me (to drive). All the WCBOE items fit in the trunk except the ATVs (four big boxes) and one of the two pollbook boxes (very big); they had to go in front. All my stuff goes in front. Why must I cart the unused ATVs to the dropoff sites? They contain no secure data. Why can't those boxes be left at the polling place for the movers? > PICTURES < ======== For some pictures and explanatory text about the voting enclosure, voting equipment, and the parking area, see https://photos.app.goo.gl/KDNma9CFkTicfNh39. If you are unfamiliar with viewing Google Photo albums, http://jgkhome.name/Misc/Google_Photos.htm gives some hints. In particular, note how to view the full text beside each picture. > SIGNS < ===== I had created a set of proposed signs to use in place of the handwritten signs we used in the 11/5/19 election. We used them for this election. See the http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/WakeBOE_TOC.htm#proposed-signs section of my website. Report written by Jeff Knauth, Chief Judge for 19-19 with input from the other officials for this precinct