* *** POSTMORTEM_2022-07-26 TXT - 1 Aug 2022 19:06:56 - JGKNAUTH Postmortem Report for Precinct 19-19 for 7/26/2022 Election ---------- ------ --- -------- ----- --- --------- -------- > SUMMARY < ======= The voter turnout at Precinct 19-19 was very light, but a little higher than expected. The weather was not good. It was hot and humid between a number of short, intense rain and wind storms. It was a very wet day, at least for multiple 15-minute periods. We were lucky that none of the storms hit while we were doing outside setup and takedown. We had no significant election problems. Some minor ones are described below. COVID was not a big issue. Few voters wore masks. Only one voter requested a mask from us. No one asked for a separate pen. > STATISTICS < ========== The calculations below use the number of registered voters who were eligible to vote in the July election, i.e., registered Democrats and Unaffiliated voters who had not voted Republican in the May election. This was approximately 5000 in our precinct; I don't currently have the exact count. The 5000 estimate is based on the calculated number of labels in our pollbooks (slightly high) plus 32 absentee/early voters (see below). The turnout for this election was about 2.4% at the polling place and 0.8% via absentee voting (mail-in or one-stop) for a total of about 3.2% of the eligible voters. Tabulator vs. ATV counts: 121 vs. 121 Provisional ballots: 0 Spoiled ballots: 0 Emergency bin ballots: 0 Challenged ballots: 0 Curbside voters: 0 AutoMARK voters: 0 Observers: 0 (0 Precinct-Specific Observers) (0 At-Large Observers) Registered voters: 7854 (of which about 5000 were eligible for this election) (as of 7/1/22) Monday-list absentees: 32 (the long list in pollbook box #1) Last-minute absentees: 6 (the short list gotten from the PO website) ---- Total absentees: 38 Voting booths: 13 (including 1 provisional and 1 accessible) Total chairs at tables: 0 (at 0 square 42" tables) -- Total "booths" 13 Ballot Count Reconciliation web page: http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Ballot_Count_Reconciliation_2022-07-26.htm > STAFFING AND EMAIL CONSIDERATIONS < ======== === ===== ============== By Election Day we ended up with twelve Officials after several dropouts and replacements. That was our normal number and was really more than needed for this light election. However many of these Officials had little previous election experience, so this was a good opportunity for them to participate and see how things worked at our polling place. Unfortunately, with so few voters, the Officials got less experience than I wanted them to have, e.g., we had no curbside voters and almost no Help Table work. The Officials got along well with each other and seemed to enjoy the assignments. There were many no-voters-present periods, which the Officials occupied by talking with each other or by reading either material they had brought or books in the well-stocked Media Center library. They all did very good work and we want them back for future elections. As usual, there were some email spam filter problems with several Officials prior to the election. Followup phone calls were required to reach them. > CJ PORTAL AIRTABLE REPORTS < == ====== ======== ======= The CJ portal was again very helpful for getting up-to-date information about assigned Officials. > POLLING PLACE SETUP < ======= ===== ===== 1) We knew this would be a light election and set up the polling place accordingly. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Sanford_Creek_Elementary_Layout_3RT_SMALL.pdf 2) We eliminated our normal Disney line, but basically kept everything else in place. To divide the election work among the provided Officials, we had three at the RT, two at the BT, two at the HT, and four doing various VA work -- Curbside Official, Tabulator Monitor, Line/Door Monitor, and Voting Booth Monitor. 3) We provided many signs and floor arrows to guide people from the voting booths to the Tabulator, which can be hidden by RT waiting lines in a busy election. We used masking tape marked with a red marker to create the floor arrows; I had tested to make sure the red ink would not bleed thru the masking tape to the carpet. Wide blue tape with a narrow masking tape stripe down the middle marked the front of the RT waiting area -- a blue-tan-blue "wait here" line. Narrow masking tape stripes marked the sides. > POLLBOOKS < ========= There were no problems this year with polling book binder rings that did not close properly. That was fortunate because we did not receive any spare binders. We got seven binders and used them all, holding just under 1000 pages (996 pages, so nearly 5000 labels/voters). > REGISTRATION TABLE AND LINES < ============ ===== === ===== The longest line I saw had only two voters, so we had no flow control problems. We used the same file jacket technique in this election as in previous elections to allow larger letters on the RT signs. > BALLOT TABLE AND VOTING BOOTHS < ====== ===== === ====== ====== Although we had no scanner and did not require two Officials at the BT, we had two there. That helped with checking each ATV for errors and also with filling out a worksheet for the end-of-day ballot inventory and with creating a draft Reconciliation Form. During the day I was able to audit all the ATVs from the Ballot Table. There were no "V"s, "ID"s, or curbside ATVs. I found very few errors. The main problems were caused by the basic ATV form; it has a big human factors problem, discussed below. There were no voting booth area problems. > HELP TABLE < ==== ===== 1) We had two Officials at the HT all day, but had only one laptop this election. This was the first HT experience for one of the Officials. Because there were few problems and no Provisional envelopes, she did not get to see much of what the HT usually does. 2) There were three or four cases in which an ineligible person wanted to vote. They were either a registered Republican or an Unaffiliated voter who had voted Republican in May. Once that status was determined, most of these voters immediately understood why they were not in the pollbooks and laughed, realizing their mistake. The RT Officials quickly learned to ask about party registration or Unaffiliated voting information when they could not find a voter's name in the pollbooks. In those cases the Help Table did not have to get involved, although we did send one of these voters to the HT, just to give the HT Officials something to do. 3) However several voters did not understand how primaries and second primaries worked for Unaffiliated voters. They were very appreciative when it was explained that their vote in such an election was not permanently registering them in the party they were voting for this time; everything would be reset after this primary election cycle completed and they could vote in any party in the next primary, probably in 2024. 4) There was one voter who was not in the pollbooks, but said she had been registered and voted here before. It turned out she had then moved to another NC county and may have done something (she didn't remember) to register in the other NC county, thus causing her Wake County registration to be terminated. She then moved back to Wake County, not realizing she needed to register here again; the HT gave her the form to do that. The Help Line was used to develop this theory. > CURBSIDE < ======== 1) We had some new signs for curbside. We also had a new handout to give each curbside voter to warn them about carpool times and to illustrate the proper way to enter the curbside area. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Curbside_Considerations.htm Unfortunately we did not have a single curbside voter in this election. However, we were able to experiment with several different curbside arrangements. What was learned by doing that will help with future elections. See the updated curbside diagram: http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Sanford_Creek_Elementary_Curbside_Parking.pdf 2) The frequent heavy rain and wind storms caused some problems. One of the new light-weight A-frame signs blew over twice. So did the curbside doorbell stand, twice. When I set the curbside stand back upright each time, I should have tested the doorbell again to make sure the faceplant had not broken it; I think I did a re-test only the first time. The faceplant on the wet asphalt did damage the attached paper sign. In fact the heavy rain found its way into many of the sheet protectors, no matter how they were oriented, even some that were supposedly sealed with tape. I am reworking the sign attached to the curbside stand to make it smaller (so less of a sail) and more rain resistant. I don't know how to make the stand better able to stay upright when the wind is very strong; hopefully this was a one-off. As for the light-weight A-frame, some bricks on the bottom bar should do the job. 3) Masking tape applied on dry asphalt works well, even staying in place during multiple storms. However we found that if you try to apply masking tape to a wet surface, it does not stick at all. That made it impossible to put down new arrows for some of the curbside experiments after removing a previous arrow that had been applied before the rain. Chalk marks washed away almost immediately in these storms. Blue tape would not stick even on dry pavement. Duct tape would not have been too visible on asphalt even if it had stuck. The answer is to use masking tape and get it right the first time, in case there might be a storm. Hopefully it won't have been been raining before Monday Setup. > TABULATOR AND BLACK TABULATOR BASE < ========= === ===== ========= ==== 1) We had no Tabulator problems caused by user errors; however there were other errors. 2) There was a Tabulator jam early in the afternoon. The Tabulator declared the error, but said the vote had been counted. We followed the documented procedure and easily cleared the jam by pushing the ballot thru after making it visible by moving the Tabulator. This was the first jam I had seen since we started using DS200s five elections ago. 3) Hours after the jam and after many voters had cast their ballots with no problems, a new anomaly started happening. Our Tabulator Monitor was sitting beside the Tabulator so he could see the window in the rear as well as detect if a problem, e.g., an overvote, occurred. He saw in the window that a ballot had not dropped all the way into the bin, yet the Tabulator said on the screen that the ballot had been accepted. He had worked with the Tabulator many times at Early Voting sites and had seen such a thing before. He called me over and explained the situation. I opened the Counted Ballots Bin and easily pulled the hanging ballot down into the blue bin. A short while later, the same thing happened again. And then again. I called the Help Line. The technicians there led me thru some things to check, but none solved the problem. We just continued using the workaround of manually pulling the ballots down for about a dozen voters. By now the problem occurred for every voter. It was nearly 7:30 and the voter flow was very low, so no big lines developed; using the manual procedure wasn't much of burden. A few minutes before 7:30 a technician appeared at our polling place. By this time there were no voters left and we had no emergency bin ballots to recreate the problem. He opened up things and took a look around in various areas, but saw nothing wrong. We did not want to enter a blank ballot for a test, not knowing what sort of problems that might create, e.g., creating a Tabulator count that no longer matched the ATV count, and who knows what else. We said we just wanted to do a poll close and have the machine tested back at the Operations Center, i.e., after we were no longer responsible. We then did a poll close, which went normally. Fortunately this happened during a light election at almost the end of the day. Had this been a normal election or even earlier in the day for this light election, we would have had to start using the emergency bin with all the complications that causes. 4) It was sometimes very difficult to re-lock the Counted Ballots Bin. The latch seemed to catch so the key would not turn all the way, but it wasn't securing the door. I found I had to push hard on one side of the bin wall in several places near where the latch bar was trying to move to and had to retry the turn until it worked. This made it harder to do the procedure described above. I saw the technician had the same problem closing the bin. I forgot to red tag this. > AUTOMARK < ======== There were no AutoMARK incursion problems this time. We had it well hidden and fenced off, making it hard for a voter to a mistakenly try to use it as the Tabulator. > SCANNER < ======= We had just one ballot style and no scanner. > RECONCILIATION PROCESS < ============== ======= There were no reconciliation problems. Everything checked out exactly using the numbers provided by the Ballot Table Officials. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Ballot_Count_Reconciliation_2022-07-26.htm > CAMPAIGNERS/OTHERS < ================== Either because of the bad weather or the light election or both, there were no campaigners at all and very few campaign signs. 1) Therefore there were no campaigners asking/demanding to use the school restroom, which is only accessible thru the voting enclosure. In previous elections we had put up a sign on the door to document the BOE restriction. This time we also posted a map to a porta potty which the Town of Rolesville Parks and Recreation Department sets up for part of the year. It is fairly close to the school. I have asked the BOE to work with Rolesville to get the porta potty kept available during the November elections; currently it is removed in October. 2) Wednesday morning I saw there were still four campaign signs on the school property. I put them in a pile at the end of the school's driveway, down by Granite Falls Blvd. > OBSERVERS < ========= There were no Observers of any type. > VOTER COMPLAINTS/DIFFICULTIES/BEHAVIOR < ===== ================================ One woman wanted us to take an absentee ballot. I explained that was not allowed and told her she should take it inside the nearby Rolesville post office to be mailed; there were hours left to do that. She said she knew where the post office was and then departed, cussing in a very unlady-like manner. > HARDWARE AND SUPPLIES < ======== === ======== 1) We red-tagged two broken 30" H-frames and a voting booth with a bad leg hole. 2) We still got non-BOE calls and texts on the BOE cell phone, even though the phone is on the "Do Not Call" registry. 3) One of the Quick-Stik signs by Granite Falls Blvd. was vandalized. It was pulled up and replanted to now point to the Granite Falls Swim & Athletic Club entrance as a polling place. 4) A Quick-Stik sign got ripped at the top so the crossbar poked thru. I can fix that and will do so. 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. > HELP LINE < ==== ==== There were no problems getting thru on the Help Line. > DOCUMENTATION < ============= 1) I won't repeat here my previous comments on BOE documents or any links to the comments. 2) I have a new proposal for the Chief Judge Pocket Guide to clarify and simplify the page 29 "Bags and Reconciliation Form" section. I gave copies to my Judges to review and am sending the proposal to the BOE. 3) Some of the other key web pages created or updated for this election: "Information Mainly for Precinct 19-19 Voters" http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/19-19.htm "Monday Setup Tasks" http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Monday_Setup_Tasks.pdf "Packing Up after the Election" http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Packing_Up_after_Election.htm "Portfolio of My Signs" http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/My_Signs.pdf "Activities before and after an Election" http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Activities_before_after_Election.htm "Some Suggested 'Best Practices'" http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Best_Practices_Suggestions.htm > FORMS < ===== 1) The Chief Judge Pocket Guide, page 9 under "Monday Meeting", says the CJ should mark attendance on the paysheet. The current paysheet does not have a specific place to do that for each Official. I think the old paysheet had checkboxes for both Monday and Tuesday, which seemed proper. I didn't bother trying to put checkmarks this time. The Officials just signed. All our Officials were present on both days. 2) Some of the ATVs we got were tagged as 2019; some as 2020, with various version numbers; all appear essentially the same. No matter the year/version, all the ATV forms have a really bad human factors problem. For UNA voters the RT Official must check the box of the party chosen by the voter (toward the bottom of the form) as well as marking out extraneous ballot style barcodes (on the label at the top of the form). Then every voter must check the bottom, far-left gray box to agree to the one ballot style still shown above and agreeing (for UNA voters) to the party box checked on the right by the RT Official. This bottom, far-left gray box checking is often not done by the voter. The box has some complicated text, which doesn't help. Finally the voter signs the ATV to certify everything. Most voters don't really read what they are certifying. Does anyone really disagree with that? They just check the gray box as they are told to do by the RT Official and sign the ATV. Many (far more than 10%, I'll bet) of the *non-UNA voters* also check their registered party box in the area that is meant just for the RT Officials to check for UNA voters. Of course we later ignore the extraneous marks in the party boxes. However we have to spend a lot of time reminding the RT Officials to require the voters to check the bottom, far-left gray box. I think that at least the bottom, far-left box should be prechecked, just like all the boxes above it. Why force the Officials to require that box to be marked by voters? Voters really ignore the text by all the boxes, so why is that one not prechecked; it is going to be ignored as well. I think the troublesome checkbox could at least be split into two prechecked boxes to separate the UNA-related stuff with its boxes from the non-UNA part. "For partisan primary elections ONLY: I am registered as noted above." "For partisan primary elections ONLY: *If I am registered Unaffiliated,* I will receive the following ballot:" (followed by the party boxes) In fact it would be MUCH better to have the UNA-party-selection stuff (no checkbox required) be moved to the top of the ATV, between the label area and the ID/HT box areas, i.e., well away from where voters do any marking. The top area is where the Official writes things, not the voter. The moved text could just say: "For partisan primary elections ONLY, if the voter is registered Unaffiliated, the voter has selected this party:" followed by the party boxes. That Official-marked party box (if any) and marked-out extraneous ballot styles (leaving only one style) would then be covered by the much lower *prechecked* box saying "For partisan primary elections ONLY, I am registered and will receive the ballot as noted above." Finally, the voter signs in the existing Voter Signature box to certify all the prechecked checkboxes and text above. There may be several million unused 2019/2020/2021/... ATVs in warehouse boxes that you want to use up before creating a new form. When you finally do get around to creating a new form, please consider the above suggestion. Although the form explicitly says it is for Wake County, I don't know if the NCSBE somehow may be preventing this problem from being fixed. Please pass this proposal on to them if that is the case. I have made this proposal several times before in various forms, but never gotten any feedback on it. > PICKUP/DROPOFF < =============== 1) Saturday pickup at the Operations Center and Monday pickup at New Bethel Baptist Church in Rolesville worked well. 2) Tuesday dropoff was confusing. We were ahead of schedule to do the delivery at New Bethel well before 9:30. Late during our pack-up I got calls telling me to instead deliver to the BOE Operations Center on New Hope if I could, even though I said there would be no problem meeting the New Bethel deadline. When I delivered at New Hope, they did not know why I had been asked to deliver there instead of to New Bethel. Although my car was packed very full and things were somewhat intermixed, we were able to sort it out pretty easily at the delivery site. All the expected standard and precinct-specific BOE items were accounted for. Nothing of mine was accidentally left at the site. > PICTURES < ======== For some pictures and explanatory text about the 19-19 voting enclosure, voting equipment, etc., see https://photos.app.goo.gl/wuReuq5XoyXEzC717 If you are unfamiliar with viewing Google Photo albums, http://jgkhome.name/Misc/Google_Photos.htm gives some hints. In particular, note how to use the "circle i" to view the full text beside each picture. Report written by Jeff Knauth, Chief Judge for 19-19 with input from the other Officials for this precinct