* *** POSTMORTEM_2024-03-05 TXT - 12 Mar 2024 00:17:35 - JGKNAUTH Postmortem Report for Precinct 19-19 for 3/5/2024 Election ---------- ------ --- -------- ----- --- -------- -------- > SUMMARY < ======= The voter turnout at Precinct 19-19 was fairly good for a primary election, with a steady flow almost all day. There were no major problems. The weather was good on Election Day, although things were still a little wet from the rain on Monday. > STATISTICS < ========== The calculations below use the number (as of 3/1/24) of Precinct 19-19 voters eligible to vote in this primary election. The turnout for this election was about 15.4% at the polling place and 10.3% via absentee voting (mail-in or one-stop) for a total of about 25.6% of the Precinct 19-19 people eligible to vote in this election. Tabulator vs ATV counts: 1289 vs. 1289 Provisional ballots: 7 Spoiled ballots: 17 Emergency bin ballots: 0 Challenged ballots: 0 Curbside voters: 29 ExpressVote voters: 1 Observers: 1 (1 Precinct-Specific Observer) (0 At-Large Observers) Registered voters: 8382 (eligible to vote in this primary election (as of 3/1/24) out of 8389 total registered voters) Monday-list absentees: 854 (the long list in pollbook box #1) Last-minute absentees: 6 (the short list gotten from the PO website) ---- Total absentees: 860 Voting booths set up: 18 (includes 2 provisional and 1 accessible) Total chairs at tables: 4 (at 4 square 42" tables) -- Total "booths" 22 Ballot Count Reconciliation web page: http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Ballot_Count_Reconciliation_2024-03-05.htm > STAFFING AND EMAIL CONSIDERATIONS < ======== === ===== ============== For a large election at our polling place, we need twelve Precinct Officials at a minimum. For this election we were assigned twelve, but one was a no-show at Monday Setup and Election Day. She had not notified either me or the BOE Staffing Team that she would not work. Fortunately the Staffing Team was able to assign a replacement, who came about an hour or so after we opened the polls. She was definitely needed and did all her jobs well. We had some email spam filtering problems in this election (as usual), which caused some Precinct Officials to miss emails. Follow-up phone calls uncovered what was happening. The BOE Staff needs to warn potential Precinct Officials to check their spam folders frequently. > POLLING PLACE SETUP < ======= ===== ===== 1) We used our normal, large-election layout for the polling place. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Sanford_Creek_Elementary_Layout_3RT.pdf With this configuration we set up some tables as extra voting booths, just in case, but for this election we never had a large enough voter surge to need them. 2) Signs, floor arrows, and verbal directions from our Voting Booth (VB) Officials guided voters from the polling booth area to the Tabulator, which is hidden around a bend. There were no voter difficulties with finding the Tabulator. > REGISTRATION TABLE < ============ ===== 1) 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. The RT Officials created some excellent signs (once they were spelled correctly), clearly visible from a distance. This is definitely 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 where you most need the letters to be readable. 2) We sometimes had long RT lines. We then needed to use the full Disney line path, which is created by closing the bookcase gap that otherwise shortens the path. However in contrast to some past elections, we never had a line of voters stretching out the door and around the building. 3) We had no pollbook binder problems this election vs in some past elections. We received 10 binders and used 8 to hold about 1500 pages. All the pollbook material was delivered in two boxes vs three in the last large election. 4) No one had to sign a Non-Voter Log as far as I know. At poll closing there was no mention of it in the Blue Bag checklist (there should have been a checkbox in the "Completed Forms from Registration Table" section), so I didn't think to ask about it. Side note: The hardcopy Manual (no version ID) and the flipbook Manual (no version ID) say different things, e.g., about the Non-Voter Log. See page 52. > PHOTO ID, HAVA ID, and ATV FORM < ===== === ==== === === === ==== 1) We had no significant photo ID problems. One 96-year-old woman had to use the Exception Form to say why she was unable to get a current ID. 2) The 2024 ATV nicely corrects some problems that were in the 2023 version. The old form did not distinguish between HAVA ID and NC Photo ID; the 2024 ATV has separate labeled checkboxes for the two. Also, by deleting some confusing text, the 2024 ATV handles unaffiliated voters much better that the old one did. 3) The new HAVA ID sheet now provides adequate "What is current?" information. However by deleting some text, it now leaves unclear whether an ID copy (paper or electronic) is acceptable. That question never had to be addressed at SCES in this election, so the Help Line was never called on it. I had asked about it before the election, but got no answer by Election Day. > REGISTRATION TABLE PROCESSING ORDER < ============ ===== ========== ===== 1) Most of the current BOE documentation still says or implies the proper order for RT processing is: Request name, find pollbook label, do photo ID check using the found label for the label-vs-ID name checking, request residential address, (request party affiliation), finally repeat the heard name and address (and party) to the voter for confirmation. The BOE Staff now agrees the proper order is: Request name, start search for pollbook label, request residential address to finalize the label search, (request party affiliation), repeat the *label's* name and address (and party) to the voter for confirmation, then do photo ID check using the found label for the label-vs-ID name checking. The [name, address, photo ID] order is what is shown in the public video on the NCSBE website. Also, that order is what I have seen used at my two visits to early voting sites after photo ID was started again in 2023. It seems to be the most natural order to use, reducing the possibility of leaving out steps. The BOE Staff has said their documentation will be updated accordingly in time for the November 2024 election. 2) I had put together a detailed page for the BOE Staff to describe the [name, address, photo ID] order. It shows how the RT process neatly breaks into three sections and also documents some gotchas to avoid. I went over this with my Precinct Officials at the Monday setup meeting. See https://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/RT_Photo_ID_PREFERRED.htm. However, as directed, we had only the current RTQG flowcharts taped to the Registration Table > BALLOT TABLE < ====== ===== 1) We had three ballot styles, so had two BT Officials and a scanner. There were no scanner or scanner test sheet problems vs what we had in a couple of other recent elections. 2) During the day I was able to audit almost all the ATVs from the Ballot Table. I found few errors. I pointed out each error to the Official(s) involved. Where possible the errors were corrected on the ATVs. I left some tagged for the BOE Staff to see, e.g., a missing voter signature. I try to audit all ATVs and Provisional Envelopes, but sometimes am not able to see the last few because of poll closing work I have to do. The BT scanner is very useful. Because of it we were sure of the ballot style issued even though the BT Official sometimes made a typo when recording the issued style on the ATV. The audit later caught if the bar code and handwritten ballot styles did not match. 3) I created a formatted worksheet to help the BT Officials do the unvoted-ballots inventory at the end of the day. This served as the "scratch pad" mentioned in the BTQG. Also I had made a copy of the Reconciliation Form so the BT Official could fill out a draft version after poll closing. (Lots of arithmetic required for all this.) This process worked very well. The BT Officials could uncover and resolve problems before the Judges had to fill out the official Reconciliation Form for the blue bag. See the "Reconciliation Process" section below. > HELP TABLE < ==== ===== 1) We had two Help Table Officials and two laptops. They had to process only seven provisionals. There were only a few transfer-ins and transfer-outs. Compared to past elections, there were few voters with "V" ATV markings or voter-noted changed addresses. Maybe voters are getting much better about notifying the BOE when something changes. 2) When handling three transfer-ins (two from one precinct and one from another), our Help Table Official found errors made by the transferring polling place. She called the Help Line to report the problem so the BOE Staff could call the offending polling place to have them start doing the correct things. Each time the person reached via the Help Line seemed uninterested and was not going to call the other precinct. In the words of our HT Official, "The Help Line doesn't care." > CURBSIDE < ======== 1) We had 29 curbside voters in this election, far short of our record 91 on 11/8/22, but still pretty large for this polling place. Fortunately it was a teacher workday, so there were no carpool lines to contend with; hopefully this will also be the case in November. The curbside voters often come in bunches, requiring two curbside Officials for long periods, but still long waits for people at the end of the line. In this election, some voters just gave up, got out of line and parked elsewhere, then came inside to vote (they weren't so disabled after all). We had 40 curbside voters at the last election. Curbside seems to be much more popular at SCES than it was years ago. I expect many people will want to vote curbside in November. We could probably use a third curbside kit and an extra Official to do curbside when needed. 2) Our worst curbside problem occurred when the driver of one car went in to vote while the passenger was voting curbside. The driver did not return for a long time. That left the car parked so that subsequently arriving cars had to line up behind, eventually sticking out into the main traffic lane. Before allowing the driver to go in to vote, we should have had them move the car well forward to give many more cars room to wait inside the curbside area. 3) The curbside part of the ATV could use some editorial work. In the gray box, voters would often leave the left side blank instead of writing their party affiliation there as required. They would instead check a party on the right side even if they were not Unaffiliated. Maybe some highlighting (underline, or bold text, etc.) could emphasize what is wanted by the BOE. > EXPRESSVOTE < =========== 1) During setup in this election we took care to enter the ExpressVote (and Tabulator) invisible passwords very slowly. That worked on the first try on both machines. I think entering the password too quickly, although correctly, might have been what caused the ExpressVote problem in 2023; then it took three tries. Of course the invisible password design is still terrible. 2) We had one ExpressVote user; he had a dexterity disability. He had brought his niece with him to assist. The BT Official wrote the precinct number and ballot style at the bottom of the ballot, as "Breaking News" directed, vs writing them in the box at the top. I had no problems activating the ExpressVote for this ballot. The man and his niece successfully completed and printed the ballot with no assistance from me. The man then entered the ExpressVote ballot into the Tabulator and it was accepted. Later I tried the magic button on the Tabulator. It correctly showed the ExpressVote ballot count as "1" as did the tapes at the end of the day. When we packed the voted ballots at the end of the day, this ExpressVote ballot was easy to find. It had been voted fairly late in the day and was sticking out to the side, not buried under very many normal ballots in the blue bin. However I could see that finding a bunch of ExpressVote ballots to sort out might take some time. No instructions had been given about in which "Voted Ballots" box to put any ExpressVote ballots. I think we put it on top of the normal ballots in box #2. > TABULATOR AND BLACK TABULATOR BASE < ========= === ===== ========= ==== 1) There were no runaway voters. Our Tabulator Monitor was very conscientious about telling voters to wait until the Tabulator accepted or rejected their ballot. He liked to tell the voters to listen for the click and explained to them why they should wait. My preference is to tell them to watch the display, which shows a clear indication of accept or reject, but the sound cue works as well. 2) There was a tape roll in the CJ Supply Bag, but no instructions for it. I assume "Tabulator is out of tape!" is something for which we would call the Help Line, but hope it never happens in the middle of a busy election. 3) There was nothing in the CJPG about this tape roll, e.g., how it should be returned. The CJPG carefully lists all the other CJ Supply Bag contents. Earlier when I asked the BOE Staff, I was told to return the roll in the CJ Supply Bag vs in the VA or AO kit. In this election we had a second ATV bag (13 ATV bundles in all) along with everything else to stuff in the CJ Supply Bag. The bag was then busting at the seams. For example, there was absolutely no way to cram in the CJ Binder, as the CJPG directs, so the CJ Binder had to be returned separately. The Tabulator tape roll ended up somewhere near the bottom of the bag. Sooner or later some roll will get squashed if this return procedure is kept. 4) As far as I know, we didn't have any "blank ballot" issues this time vs when a 2023 curbside voter put a blank ballot in the sleeve, then got upset when the Tabulator said "Are you sure?" (more or less) to the Judge, who then relayed that message to the Curbside Official, who then had to report the message to the curbside voter, who then accused the Curbside Official of peeking at her ballot. 5) Our Tabulator Monitor noted that several ballots were rejected by the Tabulator until they were turned around and the other end entered first, the normal recovery procedure per the Voter Assistance Quick Guide. I suspect this was just that the ballot got pulled in slightly skewed or that the registration marks were printed a little off, not that the ballots were bent or damaged in any way. 6) I got involved with one ballot that kept being rejected even though it looked good to the voter. (I forget whether the rejection reason was "unreadable marks" or "too many ovals marked"; I think it was the former.) The voter asked me to look at it; it appeared perfect with the ovals properly marked (black and not outside the lines) and no marks anywhere else that I could see. There were no multiple choices for any contest. We tried flipping it to all four orientations, some multiple times. All failed. She then spoiled her ballot and created a new one, which worked the first time. > RECONCILIATION PROCESS < ============== ======= There were no reconciliation problems. The ATV count matched the Tabulator count, the important test. As for the ballot inventory, per our counts it looked like the ballot packs (as a group) probably had two more ballots than the 6900 declared by the packing sheet. That would explain the 2-ballot discrepancy in the inventory calculations. See http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Ballot_Count_Reconciliation_2024-03-05.htm. > CAMPAIGNERS/OTHERS < ================== 1) There were no serious problems with campaigners or anyone else. We had a number of visits from BART (security) personnel and told them each time there were no problems. 2) One campaigner asked to use the school's restroom, which can be reached only by going thru the Voting Enclosure. That's explicitly not allowed for campaigners. Well before the election I had contacted the Town of Rolesville Parks and Recreation Director and asked if they would have the nearby park's porta potty in place in time for the election. He said it should be set up by 3/1/24. When I saw it still wasn't there by 3/2/24, I emailed him again. He replied he would have someone look into it. Mid-afternoon on Election Day we saw them setting up the porta potty. Fortunately is was only after then when the lady campaigner asked to use the restroom, so I was able direct her to the porta potty. Hopefully it will stay there thru the 11/5/24 election. I have emailed the Rolesville P&R Director to thank him for what he did for this election and asking if the porta potty will still be out on 11/5/24. > OBSERVERS < ========= 1) We had one precinct-specific Observer, a Democrat. She stayed thru the afternoon until poll closing. She just wanted to observe; she did not ask for any ATV bundles and seemed mainly interested in RT processing. She told both me and the Officials how impressed she was with their work and with the smooth way our polling place operated. 2) For our Observer list, we were told to print the part that was specific to our precinct and also the at-large section. But the county at-large, and state at-large, plus the 19-19-specific section caused all the data pages to be printed. Was that the intent? Hopefully in the future they can revert to the simpler way of doing this by adjusting the time when the parties make the names available to the BOE for printing in pollbook box #1, as they had done in past years. > COORDINATOR < =========== We had one visit from our Coordinator; it was in the afternoon. I told her we were not having any problems. The visit was very short because almost immediately she got an emergency call from another polling place and had to leave -- the typical life of a Coordinator. As she was leaving she said one recommendation was that we should have more signs leading to our polling place because there were so many ways to get here. I said that seemed strange since we had MANY signs that I personally put out on Granite Falls Blvd. on Monday. I gave her a card with my website address, hoping she would look at http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Sanford_Creek_Elementary_Signs.pdf in particular. Those signs cover the full length of Granite Falls Blvd. If she meant I should put out still more signs on other streets to show how to get to Granite Falls Blvd., I won't. That would be far more than I can do. Before each election I make two posts to Nextdoor to the 28 neighborhoods containing at least part of Precinct 19-19. In those I provide voters a link to http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/19-19.htm. Under "Maps and Pictures "that page has links to some good maps to find Granite Falls Blvd., e.g., http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/WCBOE_Map_Precinct_19-19_Streets.pdf and http://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/Sanford_Creek_Elementary_Map.pdf. Of course nowadays many people probably just use GPS to get to the Precinct 19-19 polling place address (701 Granite Falls Blvd.) listed on their voter card or found via Voter Lookup. I'll let the BOE Staff follow up with our Coordinator on this in case she really meant the BOE should create and plant more signs, or do something else. Related to this are the driving directions written at the top of the "Polling Place Report". This text is also included on the HT laptops to tell people how to get to the 19-19 polling place if they are currently at some other polling place. HEAD NE ON US-401 N/LOUISBURG RD TOWARD LELAND DR. KEEP RIGHT TO STAY ON US-401. TURN LEFT ONTO E YOUNG ST. TURN LEFT ONTO GRANITE FALLS BLVD. SCHOOL IS ON LEFT. I have commented before that these instructions really aren't very good since they assume you are coming from a particular direction (and it's questionable that this is the direction you are actually coming from). However I sympathize with whoever wrote this since trying to describe many possible "from" directions would be very unwieldy. Having a map at the Help Table would probably be helpful to interpret such instructions to a voter, or to show them how to get to the polling place from where they actually are. I bring a map as part of my box of CJ stuff. > HARDWARE AND SUPPLIES < ======== === ======== 1) We red-tagged two voting booths. The legs would not stay securely in their sockets. 2) We red-tagged one of the curbside privacy shields. It held the ballot too tightly, making it hard to put the ballot in the Tabulator. 3) The new LED lighting system worked very well to handle the dark entrance to our voter enclosure. Unfortunately the box is large and aggravates the car packing problem. 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 AND TRAINING < ============= === ======== 1) I marked up the Chief Judge Pocket Guide (CJPG). I missed putting it in the CJ Supply Bag where it is supposed to go for delivery, but it probably wouldn't have fit anyway without being damaged. I took it to the BOE Operations Center on 3/7/24. 2) The CJPG should document where to find the ExpressVote count, which is needed to know how many ExpressVote ballots to search for when packing up the ballots. The number is on the Tabulator tape and also is accessible by pushing the magic Tabulator screen button. The latter is particularly important since that is the only way to find the count when emptying the bin at 1500 ballots. 3) In the CJPG, further edit the "Bags and Reconciliation Form" section. I put a suggested replacement in the marked-up CJPG mentioned in item 1 above. 4) Allow CJs to view the Basic online course. 5) In training videos, don't use scotch tape to hang signs on glass doors. In previous emails I had pointed this out for several videos. > REDUCING THE TIME TO DO POLL CLOSING < ======== === ==== == == ==== ======= 1) We tested a way to overlap the printing of the five long Tabulator tapes with other processing. See https://jgkhome.name/WakeBOE/TEMPORARY/Overlapped_Tape_Processing_REFORMAT.htm. 2) We signed voted and non-voted labels before poll closing. We were issued many ballot boxes, so signing most labels before poll closing saved a good amount of poll closing time. 3) We recorded the times at some key points during poll closing to see how long various sections took. As mentioned in the two items above, we already tried overlapping for tape printing and label signing. I can now see where we might do some overlapping in other areas, e.g., during the "Bags and Reconciliation Form" processing, which takes a long time as currently done. Some of our recorded times aren't too meaningful since we didn't load my car with everything at the same time. That task can be better structured to overlap with other things more efficiently. When we were running late and waiting for some BT numbers to become available, we started loading my car with the "Jeff's" items. We later found that a box had been put on the wrong table ("Jeff's" instead of "WCBOE") and thus was loaded too soon. That box contained some information needed for the Blue Bag. I had to go retrieve it in the dark; I eventually found it was packed under other things. For the next election I will better emphasize the proper placement of that box. > BOX LABELING < === ======== As directed by the BOE Staff when I had asked before the election, we labeled the ExpressVote (orange) box as "1 of 1". We did not include that box in the count of boxes of normal ballots. > PICKUP/DROPOFF < =============== Closing the polls and packing up requires a lot of time at our complicated polling place. By pushing very hard and trying some time saving procedures, we were able to finish by 9:15. That allowed me to reach the dropoff site before the 9:30 deadline. It would have been impossible to meet a 9:00 deadline. My car was packed absolutely full with BOE things and my things. Not all the BOE items can fit in the trunk, so some of the big ones must be put up front. In fact there isn't room left for all of my items. I leave some in the Media Center and come back Wednesday morning to get them. Those are mainly some of the BOE signs that I store in my garage. > MISCELLANEOUS < ============= 1) One of our Officials found a woman's driver license. Fortunately she returned to claim it before we closed the polls. 2) Another woman reported she had lost her license somewhere between SCES, where she had used the license for photo ID, and her home. We were unable to find it in the Media Center. I also looked around the parking lot a little, but was unsuccessful. After poll closing I left a note at the SCES front desk, describing the problem and giving the woman's name and phone number. > PICTURES < ======== For some pictures and explanatory text about the 19-19 voting enclosure, voting equipment, etc., see https://photos.app.goo.gl/X9nG8UrCjXzVyw8q9 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) All of the Tabulator tapes (not just the first one) should have signature lines for the Judges. 2) There was a pad of Help Table Referral Forms in the CJ Supply Bag, but no instructions for their use -- not in the bag, nor in any of the BOE documentation, nor on the PO website, nor in any classes. The BOE Staff later emailed me an explanation. I suggest attaching a brief statement somewhere, saying the Help Line would tell us how to use this form if they were called about certain photo ID situations; otherwise ignore the forms. 3) Get ES&S to fix the invisible password problem. Encourage them to come up with better terminology than "paper sheets" and "ExpressVote cards" and "DS200 ballots" for the Tabulator tape and the magic button display. At least provide a translation section in the BOE documentation. 4) The big FAQ file on the PO website provides very useful information. However it should have a last-changed date for the file as a whole to note the last time anything in the file was changed. It should also have a last-changed date for any individual item that is added or changed. You should not expect people to reread the whole file every few days just in case something has changed, and even then not know where to look. Also, Officials should be reminded of the FAQ file's existence close to Election Day. One of my Officials said she had forgotten about this file. A relevant item for her was now in it and she did not remember to review the FAX right before Election Day. 5) Other comments had been emailed over the previous months. Report written by Jeff Knauth, Chief Judge for 19-19 with input from the other Officials for this precinct