* *** POSTMORTEM_2022-11-08 TXT - 14 Nov 2022 18:07:01 - JGKNAUTH Postmortem Report for Precinct 19-19 for 11/8/2022 Election ---------- ------ --- -------- ----- --- --------- -------- > SUMMARY < ======= The voter turnout at Precinct 19-19 was *VERY* heavy; however our Precinct Officials readily handled the seemingly never-ending lines of people and cars. The weather was generally good, although it was often extremely windy. We had no significant election problems; some minor ones are described below. There were NO security problems, e.g., with disruptive voters, campaigners, or onlookers. > STATISTICS < ========== The calculations below use the number of voters eligible to vote in Precinct 19-19 as of 11/6/22. The turnout for this election was about 25.7% at the polling place and 33.7% via absentee voting (mail-in or one-stop) for a total of about 59.4% of the eligible 19-19 people who could have voted in this election. It was a very good turnout for a mid-term election and easily beat the predicted numbers. Tabulator vs. ATV counts: 2042 vs. 2042 Provisional ballots: 16 Spoiled ballots: 9 Emergency bin ballots: 0 Challenged ballots: 0 Curbside voters: 91 <=== !!! AutoMARK voters: 0 Observers: 1 (1 Precinct-Specific Observer) (0 At-Large Observers) Registered voters: 7931 (as of 11/6/22) Monday-list absentees: 2647 (the long list in pollbook box #1) Last-minute absentees: 28 (the short list gotten from the PO website) ---- Total absentees: 2675 Voting booths set up: 21 (includes 2 provisional and 1 accessible) Total chairs at tables: 8 (at 5 square 42" tables and 3 long 72" tables) -- Total "booths" 29 Ballot Count Reconciliation web page: http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Ballot_Count_Reconciliation_2022-11-08.htm > STAFFING AND EMAIL CONSIDERATIONS < ======== === ===== ============== We were initially staffed with 16 Officials. After the normal dropouts and reassignments we ended up with 15 on Election Day. In theory we were overstaffed. However given the huge turnout, we could have used several more Officials. Our Officials had to work very hard to handle the load; there was little time for anyone to take a break. I assume other precincts faced the same problem. There were no significant email contact problems this time in contrast to previous elections. > CJ PORTAL AIRTABLE REPORTS < == ====== ======== ======= 1) The CJ portal was again very helpful for accessing up-to-date information about assigned Officials. 2) Although the portal's new format displays some useful information that the old format does not, the new format does not easily (or at all) display some other information I needed to see, e.g., class attendance status or the time of the last update for each Official's information. The old format lets me see all that data for the whole roster in a single display. Fortunately I found I was still able to access the data in the old format by going to a different URL. Although that old format was now essentially read-only, using both the new and old formats together worked fine for what I needed. I certainly hope this capability is not lost. 3) In the new format the Precinct-Specific Supplies section has some errors for Precinct 19-19. On 9/8/22 I had sent Elections an email with corrections and pictures. The subject line was: Comments on CJ Portal "Precinct-Specific Supplies" Some of the entries have not been corrected. Let me know if you need a resend. > POLLING PLACE SETUP < ======= ===== ===== 1) We used our normal, large-election setup for the polling place. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Sanford_Creek_Elementary_Layout_3RT.pdf The Disney line shown is accurate. The diagram does not try to show accurately the setup for polling booths or tables used as polling booths. For this election we were able to put 21 booths and 8 tables used as booths in the polling booth area. Given the huge turnout, the Disney line and 29 "booths" were needed and well used all day. 2) Although only three Registration Table (RT) stations are shown in the diagram, we often used four Officials to handle various situations. 3) Signs, floor arrows, and directions from our Voting Booth (VB) Officials guided voters from the polling booth area to the Tabulator, which is hidden around a bend. There did not seem to be any voter difficulties with finding the Tabulator. Our polling place has only one door for entry/exit. Because of that and some other constraints, the voters on the way to the Tabulator must pass in front of the BT and RT waiting areas and then around a bend, thus the need for the signs, floor arrows, etc. 4) We had a small Ballot Table waiting area. Sometimes the RT would send more people to the Ballot Table (BT) than the BT Officials could quickly process. We then had to stack people in the BT waiting area so they would not be standing where Tabulator-bound voters needed to walk. When the BT waiting area started to fill, the RT was told to slow down temporarily. 5) Given the length and complexity of the ballots in this election, I had been concerned that booth availability would be a big problem since it would take each voter a long time to mark their ballot. However because we had set up many "booths" and were careful to slow things down at the RT when required (as noted above), there was always a booth of some type for every voter entering the booth area. Our Voting Booth (VB) Official managed all this very well. In addition the VB Official worked with the BT Officials and Tabulator Monitor to ensure the ATV count and Tabulator count were kept in sync. This important job is much harder to do in a busy election when there are many ballots floating somewhere between the Ballot Table and the Tabulator. 6) The RT slowdowns never had to last for more than a few minutes. This was fortunate because the voters filled up the RT wait lines, and the Disney line, then out the door, and down the sidewalk for a long way. There were always 100-200 people in line right up to near the end of the day. Around 7:00 PM the line rapidly shortened. By closing time we had only a few voters in the enclosure, including one voting provisionally. 7) Our Door Monitor (DM) did a good job ensuring the voting enclosure was not overrun by the long line of voters waiting outside. The long line existed continuously from poll opening until around 7:00 PM. Our Line Monitor (LM) directed people thru the Disney line and then eventually to the correct Registration Table waiting lane. See the "REGISTRATION TABLE" section below for other things done by the DM and LM. > REGISTRATION TABLE < ============ ===== 1) We often used a fourth Official to help when many voters all at once needed the same set of books. The fourth Official could then take one of the books from the overloaded Official. 2) Also, our Line Monitor (LM) and Door Monitor (DM) would go back thru the line asking for people whose names started with letters for which the associated Officials had few or no current customers at the moment. The result was that all RT Officials were handling voters almost all the time and the total set of voters was handled faster. One voter complained about this process because he had been waiting in line for a long time, hearing other people (with a different name letter) being called to essentially jump in front of him. It took a while, and talking to several people, before he finally understood what was going on. If your name starts with "M" (as his did) and you are in line with a bunch of other "M"s in front of you, all handled by the one Official with the "M" book, it is reasonable to allow us to search back thru the line for non-"M"s whose books/Officials are available. Once he understood all this, he stopped by to see me and apologize for being a little heated before. Very nice of him. Our LM Official had also suggested he might want to become a Precinct Official and make suggestions for how to do things differently. A positive outcome once the rationale was understood. Such groups of like-named people often happen. It is more common among the "B"s, "M"s, and "S"s since more names start with those letters, but it could happen with others. I think in this election at one time we had a big group of "H"s. You just have to be patient. 3) We had several cases in which the wrong label was accidentally stuck to an ATV. The Official followed the spoiling procedure and also handled the case when the "spoiled" voter later came in to vote. All went well. 4) We used the same "file jacket over RT sign post" technique in this election as in previous elections to allow much larger letters on the RT signs. This is needed because the back of our RT wait lines are far from the RT signs, but it is at the back of the RT lines that you most need the letters to be readable. > POLLBOOKS < ========= There were no problems this time with pollbook binder rings that did not close properly. We got eight binders and among them distributed 1069 pages containing well over 5000 labels. > BALLOT TABLE < ====== ===== 1) We had two ballot styles, so two BT Officials and a scanner. See the "SCANNER" section below for a scanner problem. 2) During the day I was able to audit almost all the ATVs from the Ballot Table except for the last pack or two. I found few errors; none were very significant. I visited the "offending" Official(s) to point out the problems. 3) We had a formatted worksheet to help do the unvoted-ballots inventory at the end of the day. Also we had made a copy of the Reconciliation Form so the BT Official could fill out a draft after poll closing. (Lots of arithmetic required for all this.) This process worked very well. The BT Official could uncover and resolve problems before the Judges had to fill out the official Reconciliation Form for the blue bag, so that part of blue bag processing went very easily and quickly. > SCANNER < ======= The scanner worked initially, but part way thru the day it did not seem to produce the "happy beep" reliably. We tried the reset procedure in the Manual; but that did not solve the problem completely. When our Coordinator visited, she swapped out the scanner. The replaced scanner worked fine the rest of the day. > HELP TABLE < ==== ===== 1) We had two Officials and two laptops. They got a lot of business in this election vs the past two. Much of it was standard HT scenarios involving precinct transfers (out and in) and other address-related situations. 2) The HT handled several cases in which an Official in another precinct had not done things properly, thus causing problems for the voter and our HT Officials. Our Officials dealt with these for the voter and also reported the cases via the Help Line so the other precincts could be told to do things correctly next time. 3) A lady said someone had knocked on her door at home and told her that her absentee ballot had been spoiled and that she must go and vote in person. The HT Officials looked her up on the laptop and verified that she had in fact voted successfully -- nothing was spoiled. There was no need for her to try to vote again and she should not. This was apparently some sort of scam to clog up the election process. One of our HT Officials said she had been warned in church that some scamming like this was taking place in her neighborhood. The HT Officials also reported this weird situation on the Help Line. An hour or so later a Rolesville policeman stopped by and asked to talk to me about this. I don't know how he had learned about it. He wanted to know if there was anyone in the area, e.g., one of the campaigners, spreading such a lie about spoiled absentee ballots. I told him I had not seen or heard that anyone nearby was doing this. I then took him over to the HT Official, who in fact had information on her cell phone, I guess about the warning she had gotten in church. The policeman talked to her a long time, then came back to see me. I mentioned that I have long tried, e.g., via https://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/19-19_2022-11-08.htm, to get people to know about Voter Lookup so they could check such things as registration information and even voting status via BallotTrax. He did not know about these facilities and thought that some easily available public information might be what the scammers were using to find prospective victims. 4) I was able to check only the initial provisional envelope. However our Coordinator checked most of the rest late in the day. No serious problems were found. > VOTING BOOTHS < ====== ====== There were no voting booth area procedural problems. There were some equipment problems, noted in the "HARDWARE AND SUPPLIES" section below. > CURBSIDE < ======== 1) We had *MANY* curbside voters. Our previous high mark for elections at this polling place was 26 curbside voters; this time we had *91*. Once it started an hour or two after the polls opened, almost until the end of the day, there was always at least one car in line. The line sometimes had as many as ten cars and usually had at least three or four. We had two Curbside Officials, both of whom were almost always running back and forth, only occasionally being spelled by someone else. 2) We had good signs for curbside this time, but it turned out they weren't needed as much because with the long curbside line, people could figure out the proper route -- just loop around and get in the back of that long line. 3) Fortunately it was a school holiday and thus there was no carpool line. Otherwise it would have been a disaster because the curbside line would have blocked the carpool line's exit. Board of Elections and Board of Education, please take note. 4) We had a handout to give each curbside voter to warn them for future elections about carpool times and to illustrate the proper way to enter the curbside area. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Curbside_Considerations.htm I had printed only a few dozen of those, so we quickly ran out. 5) The very strong wind frequently blew over the curbside stand. Eventually we jury-rigged some anchors for it using a couple of heavy stools from the school and some material one of the Curbside Officials had in his truck. Also, the light-weight A-frames kept blowing over; they gave us only light-weight A-frames for this election. We tried taping some down with masking tape, particularly those that were most vulnerable because of their positions, but the tape was not strong enough. For the future I'm going to look into solving this problem, at least for the most important A-frames. This will probably involve some sort of weights as well as some bracing to keep the A-frames open in a stable triangular shape instead of collapsing when pushed by the wind. 6) In the last election, the paper signs we used outside were damaged by the heavy rain, even though they were in sheet protectors. One of our Officials used her laminator to protect our reprinted signs. Those laminated signs are excellent -- very heavy duty. We didn't have any rain to deal with this time, but that particular sign problem has now been solved. > AUTOMARK < ======== 1) There were no AutoMARK incursion problems this time. We had the AutoMARK well hidden and fenced off, making it hard for a voter to a mistakenly try to use it as the Tabulator. 2) We had one voter who needed to recharge his motorized wheelchair. I let him use the outlet in the area where we have hidden the AutoMARK. Once the charging had completed, he got in line for the RT and went on to vote using the wheelchair-accessible booth. > TABULATOR AND BLACK TABULATOR BASE < ========= === ===== ========= ==== 1) Given the length and complexity of the ballot styles in this election, I was expecting many more over-votes than we encountered. We had only a few, including some from curbside. The voters almost always chose to say use the ballot as is instead of marking a new one, which would be a lengthy job. 2) In this election vs the one in July we had no Tabulator jams or Tabulator base hangs. I had theorized that the July hangs had been caused by a bad ballot pack. The BOE IT Team was later able to recreate the hangs by using a ballot that was a little too long. The Tabulator would say all was good, but the ballot would not drop all the way into the blue bin. 3) Our Tabulator Monitor was able to keep most voters by the Tabulator until the Tabulator said yea or nay on the inserted ballot. We had only a couple of runaways who left before the Tabulator said nay. Those runaway voters were caught and brought back to push the appropriate Tabulator button. > DOOR SIGNS < ==== ===== In this election because of the long outside lines of voters (and the good weather) our glass entry door was open for much of the day. That meant the signs were on the side of the door not easily seen. If the door signs had been printed on both sides, they could have been seen whether the door was open or closed. Another solution would be to have enough copies of those signs so two of each type could be taped together, back-to-back, then taped to the glass door. > 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_2022-11-08.htm As noted above, this process went quickly and smoothly because of the preparation already done by the BT. > CAMPAIGNERS/OTHERS < ================== 1) There were no serious problems with campaigners or anyone else, despite prior concerns expressed (nationwide) that there might be some sort of disruptions. None of the campaigners asked to use the restroom this time. Maybe the word has spread. We did have the "Not allowed" page from the Manual posted on the Media Center door. Unfortunately the Rolesville porta potty was not available as a backup. It had been removed just a couple of days before the election. 2) Many voters did ask to use the restroom, either for themselves or their children -- a fallout of the long lines. Unfortunately some of our Officials did not understand that we allowed this for voters (vs non-voters) and incorrectly told one voter he could not use the restroom. However it turned out this man was also mad because we did not supply water to the voters waiting in line. That's definitely something we don't do; voters can bring their own water if they think they might be in line for a long time. Anyone listening to the news should have known that long lines would be a good possibility on this Election Day. 3) Another man expressed his displeasure about communications with the BOE. He said he had submitted some form to the BOE about becoming an Observer and had gotten no reply at all. I told him I thought such a request was handled by the political parties, who then submitted lists to the BOE. However he insisted it was the BOE to which he had submitted the form. He said he was going to drive to the BOE to complain. I suggested he instead contact the BOE by phone or email to save a trip, then drive if he was unsatisfied with the answer. He said that sounded like a good idea. I suspect it was some non-BOE group to which he had submitted the form. What is the correct procedure for applying to be an Observer? There is nothing on the public BOE website on this. All the Observer documentation I have seen implies that you would make a request to your party to be an Observer for them. Then the party might choose you and include your name in a list submitted to the BOE. So the party, not the BOE, would be the initial point of contact for a prospective Observer. 4) A lady had driven a relative so that person could vote curbside. She wasn't a voter herself but insisted that she wanted to come inside to watch the ballot being inserted into the Tabulator. The Curbside Official then asked me to talk to her. I told her what she wanted wasn't permitted; only voters could come inside. She then started saying how insecure elections are and that her husband had told her all about the many people voting illegally because photo IDs were not required, etc., etc. I pointed out the certification they needed to sign and what would happen if someone misrepresented themselves. That of course did not satisfy her. I told her that I, the Chief Judge, was the one who would insert the ballot into the Tabulator and asked how all that photo ID stuff applied to my inserting the ballot. She said she wasn't impugning my integrity, but still wanted to view me doing the ballot insertion. We left it as a polite, "That's not permitted." The curbside processing then was done normally; fortunately the ballot read in with no problems. 5) We often had to remind voters not to use their cell phones after they got inside the enclosure. It was a great temptation for them to use their phones while they waited in the long lines -- not calling, but just reading emails, or whatever. Since even that meant they might be taking pictures, we had to tell them to put their phones away. They could later use them in the voting booths to look at notes or do research. Of course we had posted the standard BOE signs about this phone restriction, both inside the enclosure and on the entry door. Our Door Monitor also reminded people of the restriction if they came thru the door with a phone in hand. Our Line Monitor had to again remind people who later forgot. 6) And then there was the snake. Late Monday night when I opened the door to do some final checking outside, a small snake tried to enter the voting enclosure. It was probably a Dekay's brown snake. I redirected it away from the voting enclosure: "You're not a voter and the polls aren't even open yet." It then went down a crack between the building's wall and the sidewalk. I have warned the school personnel they might have a future visitor. > OBSERVERS < ========= 1) We had one Observer. She was present from mid-afternoon until the polls closed. She just observed and seemed happy with what she saw. When I asked if she might consider being a Precinct Official, she said she was very interested in that. She would like to do what she saw us doing and wanted to work in this polling place, although she lives in an adjacent precinct. I'm very familiar with her home polling place and its Chief Judge; I told her that was also a good place to work. I pointed her to where she could get information about the requirements and how to apply. She appeared to be a good candidate. 2) See the section above about someone having a problem volunteering to be an Observer. > HARDWARE AND SUPPLIES < ======== === ======== 1) We red-tagged a voting booth with a broken leg. 2) It appeared that the elastic in the legs on many booths has gotten tired, so the leg parts don't stay together firmly. 3) The heavy wind caused the side to split open on one of the "Vote Here" vinyl signs. It's one of those I store in my garage between elections. I have returned it to the Op Center. 4) See above for a scanner problem. Our Coordinator took the defective one, so we didn't red tag it. 5) One orange cone was apparently run over (again) and some more pieces broke off. It's the same one damaged in a prior election. It still seems to work OK. I re-red-tagged it and have returned the cones to the Op Center. 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. > BOE PHONE < === ===== There were no problems getting thru on the Help Line. We had fewer status calls from the BOE than normal ("What is your Tabulator count?"), but did get a lot of robocalls late Monday night and on Election Day, e.g., for sales or political messages. > DOCUMENTATION < ============= 1) I marked up the Chief Judge Pocket Guide that I returned in the CJ Supply Bag. 2) In July I had made a proposal for the Chief Judge Pocket Guide to clarify and simplify the page 29 "Bags and Reconciliation Form" section. They said it was too late to address anything for the November 2022 CJPG. I'm now hoping for November 2023. > PICKUP/DROPOFF < =============== 1) At Tuesday dropoff they didn't retrieve the two cone boxes when they removed the pollbook boxes from my car's back seat. I didn't notice this until I got home. I have delivered the cones to the Op Center. > PICTURES < ======== For some pictures and explanatory text about the 19-19 voting enclosure, voting equipment, etc., see https://photos.app.goo.gl/vxcHDuDGFeaVbHH2A 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. When viewing the information, be sure to scroll to the top; sometimes Google Photos starts the information display partway down. > SUGGESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE < =========== === === ====== 1) I had prepared some directions, "Packing Up after the Election", to help with the complicated packing-up process and pointed it out in my introductory email to all the Officials. See https://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Packing_Up_after_Election.htm However apparently many of the Assistants had not looked at it closely or forgotten about it since reading it, so the process did not go as smoothly as I had hoped. Because everyone had been so busy all day, I did not have a chance to remind them about it and have them look at it carefully before closing. Next time I will stress before Election Day that they should all be very familiar with the document before Monday Setup so they can ask questions then if something is unclear. Because they had not read the directions, some of my color-printed signs were thrown away, including some that designated which table was which for the packing-up process. 2) In all elections so far, usually the Assistants finish their work well before the Judges do. In part this is because we have to take time to give them directions; that would not be needed if the Assistants were familiar with the document noted above. In part this is because the Judges are still doing some other work after poll closing and not starting Tabulator closeout immediately. The Judges should try to start Tabulator closeout sooner and assume the Assistants won't need guidance from the Judges. 3) We have previously combined two important jobs: Doing the end-of-day ballot accounting (see the "BALLOT TABLE AND VOTING BOOTHS" section above) and acting as the Packing-up Coordinator, who makes sure everything is being done per the "Packing Up after Election" document. Since both jobs must be done at the same time, at least right after poll closing, we should probably have two people for these jobs instead of one. 4) We should better describe how a fourth RT Official can help as a floater to assist the three Officials at the standard 3RT stations. This time it was done on the fly. 5) I have now created a better sign for the BT waiting area. It warns people to stand behind the blue line if they need to wait. Ideally we will put this on a sign stand on the right side of the area. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Sign_BT_Waiting_Area.htm 6) All the Judges liked the change to have us now sign on the bag labels instead of over the bag seals. The bag labels text needs to be updated to remove the "sign across the seal" instruction. Perhaps three lines could be added to the bottom of the labels for the Judges' signatures, similar to the lines on the Tabulator tapes. Report written by Jeff Knauth, Chief Judge for 19-19 with input from the other Officials for this precinct