Actions for Remaining Proposals and Comments

Last Updated:   11/15/24  15:29

History of Document Reviews for 11/5/24 Election

I received an early draft of most of the BOE documents on 6/14/24 and then a CJPG draft on 7/8/24. I sent extensive comments within a few days of each receipt, but did not get any further drafts. The final documents were published on the PO website on 8/2/24 for everything except the CJPG; the final CJPG was published on 8/7/24. I immediately sent comments on all the final documents as soon as I had access to them on the PO website.

In mid-July and earlier I received several Staff emails with some feedback on my prior comments and indications of planned directions. The ANSWER dates below are the dates of the Staff emails. In those ANSWER sections I have tried to summarize the Staff statements and give my responses to them. I'm also using this flag for answers to problem reports made to the NC State BOE.

Main Areas in Which I Still Have Some Concerns

1. Registration Table processing

   The following four files provide a detailed description of my view of Registration Table processing. Each file has links to the other three files to ease navigating among them. See the Change Log file for a history of updates.

   • (11/15/24) "Registration Table Flow Chart"
   • (11/15/24) "Registration Table Procedure" card
   • (10/18/24) "Processing ATVs and Pollbook Labels" -- the "Hints" file
   • (11/15/24) "Change Log for Proposed RT Documents"

   7/15/24 ANSWER and 7/24/24 ANSWER:  The Staff has always indicated they like my RT processing documents, especially the card, which they have said they want to use as a model to create their own version in 2025. They are now updating the 2024 BOE documents to correct the address/photo ID order problem and will instead use the order of [name, address, photo ID] as is used in my flowchart. Where we still differ somewhat is in these two areas:

   • Handling a "forgetful voter"  (one who needs to go back outside the voting enclosure to get an ID)
   • Order of label attachment vs photo ID processing

   For a detailed comparison see (updated 8/19/24) '"Forgetful Voters" and Label Attachment Order'.

   The Staff has said I can use my RT processing documents to help educate my Precinct Officials, but must have only the BOE documents on the table at the RT. This is what we did in the last election and it worked well. At Monday Setup I gave each Official a hardcopy of my flowchart, which I had also previously made available to them on my website. I then went over the key points, emphasizing some of the areas I had seen Officials tend to miss in prior elections. I also gave each of them a copy of the card to use as personal notes on Election Day. That proved very helpful because on Election Day I was able have them reference that card when I found they were misinterpreting some ambiguous ATV text about "ID" processing.

   8/2/24 Manual:  Basically unchanged in the relevant areas. I then sent comments for this update on 8/2/24.

   ===> BOE Staff:  Don't forget the voter-processing-order yellow sign that was posted at the RT in past elections. It specifies the incorrect order of [name, photo ID, address].

2. Orange box labeling

   2/20/24 ANSWER:  Fill in the orange box label as "Box 1 of 1".  Do not include this box in the count of the other boxes. I replied that the CJPG needs to be updated for this.

   7/15/24 ANSWER:  The Staff now says there is no need to update the CJPG for this since "Most all CJs have been able to complete the label correctly without additional instruction." I think adding about a dozen words to the CJPG in the "Unvoted Ballots" section would help get more CJs to do it as required. This is especially true since the draft CJPG has now added an item for how to label Unvoted Ballots boxes, but does not make clear that wording is just for the brown (regular ballot) boxes. Nothing is said about the orange box of unvoted ballots. So the item can be easily read to include the orange box, the exact opposite of what I have been told is wanted.

   The objective that CJs should do "Box 1 of 1" labeling for the orange box was definitely missed in the November 2023 election. No instructions had been given to do any special labeling for the orange box of unvoted ballots, so at our polling place we labeled it and counted it as just one of all the boxes of unvoted ballots. In that election I turned in my supplies at the Op Center. The person apparently in charge of such things took the orange box. She seemed to think the "Box 1 of 1" labeling for the orange box was important and that everyone was supposed to have known that was required. I don't know how people were supposed to know this undocumented requirement. That's why I immediately started making it known to the Staff that documentation was needed. The feedback I got for months was that this special labeling was now agreed to; presumably it would be documented, which seemed to be a pretty easy thing to do. So I was surprised with the 7/15/24 answer. I'm curious what percentage of CJs actually do the required "Box 1 of 1" labeling.

   8/7/24 CJPG:  Unchanged in this area.

   (updated 9/08/24) Here is a proposed errata page for the CJPG. See the "Labeling the ExpressVote Box" section.

3. "Photo ID Check" reminder checkbox on Provisional Envelope for voters without an ATV

   2/20/24 ANSWER:  Do the photo ID check immediately after the voter has filled in the yellow fields.

   7/15/24 ANSWER:  The Staff says no "Photo ID Check" reminder checkbox will be provided on the Provisional Envelope, at least not for this election. I think doing a photo ID check at the HT for this special (ATV-less) group of provisional voters can easily be overlooked. This is because a photo ID check is not required for most other provisional voters, their photo ID check having already been done at the RT. I still think there should be a reminder checkbox on the Provisional Envelope to avoid missing that required check for the ATV-less voters.

   8/7/24 Manual and (undated) Provisional Envelope:  Unchanged in this area.

   (added 9/01/24) When going over HTQG Flowchart #2 in our 8/30/24 HT class, the instructor multiple times reminded the students that photo ID checking was required when a Provisional Envelope is used for a Flowchart #2 (ATV-less) voter. I suggested to her that she should tell the HT Officials to highlight the three nearly invisible callouts to footnote 1 in the flowchart. (They're even less visible for us old folks.) Of course my suggested "Photo ID Check" reminder checkbox on the Provisional Envelope would be much more foolproof.

4. Suggested replacement for CJPG pages 28-29    (2/26/24) "Overlapped Tape Processing"

   For the 3/5/24 election, we were given permission to test this procedure at the Precinct 19-19 polling place. We did and had no problems. The BOE is updating the CJPG to use the main text restructuring from this proposal, but to leave the actual overlapped printing as an option for the Chief Judge. The draft I have seen looks good; I had some minor comments.

   8/7/24 CJPG:  Some of my 8/2/24 comments were not addressed, i.e., do record the ExpressVote count and do not select "Report Options" for tapes #3 thru #5.

   (updated 9/08/24) Here is a proposed errata page for the CJPG. See the "Printing Tabulator Tapes" section. I had asked the Staff to verify this; I'm assuming it's accurate.

5. Suggested replacement for CJPG page 33    (11/17/23) "Bags and Reconciliation Form"

   The CJPG for 11/5/24 is being updated to reflect this proposal. The draft I have seen looks good; I had some minor comments.

   8/7/24 CJPG:  The text in the lower left cell still needs to be fixed.

6. Documentation needed for how to find the count of ExpressVote ballots

   Officials need to know the count of cast ExpressVote ballots at two times: 1) when the bin is unloaded after about 1500 ballots are in it and 2) when the bin is unloaded at poll closing. Determining the ExpressVote count differs at these two times. It is found by using the "magic" button for the 1500-ballots-unload case and by a line on any of the five printed Tabulator tapes in the poll closing case. These two procedures need to be documented in the CJPG.

   7/15/24 ANSWER:  The Staff said this will be documented, but did not say where. The need seemed to be downplayed as not being relevant to many polling places, given the expected low use of the ExpressVote.

   8/7/24 CJPG and 8/2/24 Manual:  Neither the CJPG nor the Manual properly say how to find the ExpressVote count at the two different times it is needed. More details on this are in the 8/7/24 CJPG comments now added to the end of my "Comments on 8-02-2024 Documents" file (CJPG pages 21, 28, and 32).

   (updated 9/08/24) Here is a proposed errata page for the CJPG. See the Handling ExpressVote Ballots" section. I'm particularly concerned because what the Staff finally did document in the CJPG covers only one of the two cases. The procedure it does specify could cause the Tabulator to shut down, possibly leaving a line of voters having to wait a very long time for normal operations to resume. Details are in my CJPG page 21 comments.

7. "Chief Judge will contact you" reminder needed in Precinct Official assignment emails

   (added 8/23/24) The assignment emails sent to Precinct Officials should remind them that their assigned Chief Judge will contact them shortly. The assignees need to be sure that communication is received and not lost in spam folders, unchecked voicemail messages, etc. For details and some suggested text, see "Reminder Needed in Precinct Official Assignment Emails".

   8/29/24 ANSWER:  The Staff has now responded that they don't want to include the proposed warning because some Chief Judges (many?) do not do what they are told to do, i.e., contact their assigned Precinct Officials immediately after the POs have been assigned. Currently the initial assignments are done weeks before POs are first warned to watch out for CJ communications. The Staff warns the POs around the time classes begin, long after PO assignments were made. Apparently some CJs don't even try to contact their assigned POs until just before Election Day. That understandably causes the affected POs to complain to the Staffing Team that they have not heard from their CJ. The Staff feels that putting my proposed warning in the PO assignment letter would result in many more calls/emails to the Staffing Team from anxious POs because of their delinquent CJs.

   However not having the warning means that many POs will miss spam-filtered emails from CJs who ARE trying to contact their assigned Officials. The CJs then have to keep trying again and again via emails and phone calls. This can happen particularly with first-time POs who don't know that such an early contact from their CJ is a required part of the process and may not check their spam folders frequently if at all. Details on this were previously provided to the Staff.

   The Staff's procedure seems to be rewarding (or at least accepting) bad CJs and punishing good ones. How many of the bad ones are there? Can this be measured by using the "Precinct Official Contacted" field in the CJ portal to get a feel for whether the associated CJ is even trying to contact their Officials on time? I thought communicating with their POs was one of the most important parts of a CJ's job, first to get confirmation that the prospective Official was still going to work in this election (this is often the first time we learn that some are dropping out) and then to make sure the Official has the necessary information/training/physical capacity/etc. to do the job. If a CJ isn't doing that communication, there will likely be problems at the election.

   Maybe there could be a time limit in the warning, saying don't bug the Staffing Team with a "My CJ hasn't contacted me." until two weeks after the assignment (or some such delay). That would give slow CJs some leeway if they had a good excuse, but it would also let the Staffing Team know in a timely manner if they have a CJ problem. Meanwhile it would tell POs to watch out for contacts (maybe spam-filtered) from CJs who are trying to immediately contact their POs, as required.

Assumed Now Resolved

1. Document that a copy of a HAVA ID is valid

   2/20/24 ANSWER:  The NCSBE has created a replacement HAVA sheet to address the expiration date questions. The sheet still needs to again state that an electronic copy of an original ID is acceptable. (Such wording was accidentally deleted in the last NCSBE update.)

   7/15/24 ANSWER:  Over five months later the Staff has still received no NCSBE answer about the deleted text.

   7/31/24 ANSWER:  The Staff says NCSBE has now responded and the HAVA sheet is being corrected for the November election.

   8/7/24 status:  The corrected sheet has now been put on the PO website.

2. Document the packing of the Tabulator tape roll

   2/20/24 ANSWER:  The tape roll will be delivered in and should be returned in the CJ Supply bag. I replied that the CJPG needs to be updated for this.

   7/15/24 ANSWER:  The Staff said the CJPG will not be updated to include the tape roll in the list of items to return in the CJ Supply Bag, although they said it must be returned in that bag. Their rationale was that it probably never gets out of the bag. That assumption may be somewhat shaky given the amount of material that must be stuffed in that bag in a large election and the rearrangement of items done to try to get everything to fit.

   For our polling place, to make sure we handle it per the Staff's emails, I have updated (7/09/24) "Packing Up after the Election" to explicitly list the tape roll in the CJ Supply Bag items.

3. Allow Judges to sign some box labels before poll closing starts

   Our polling place gets many ballot boxes, most of which get an "Unvoted Ballots" label at poll closing. It takes a lot of time for the Judges to sign all the labels. The proposal is to shift some of the signing time out of the hectic poll closing period, but still have the three Judges attach the labels to the boxes during poll closing. We started doing this in the 3/5/24 election. It does save time. We had no problems.

   7/15/24 ANSWER:  The Staff says they do not want labels signed before poll closing. I believe that's to ensure all the Judges participate in verifying the proper sealing of each box. However I don't see any security problems with having the labels signed tens of minutes before the Judges all participate in sticking them on the boxes after the polls close.

   8/7/24 status:  This really needs some further discussion, but per the above 7/15/24 direction from the Staff, we'll now not sign any labels until just before they are stuck on the boxes during poll closing.

4. Stop requiring the return of signed AOQGs and VAQGs

   7/15/24 ANSWER:  The Staff replied that all the signed QGs must be returned to show all the items are being done. For the AOQG, I'll just continue to write "Everybody" on the signature line (since everybody always participates in the All Officials QG work, one way or another) and I will now sign it myself, rather than trying to get a dozen Officials to sign it. In fact we use a more detailed superset of this checklist to cover everything that must be done at our polling place.

   For the VAQG, I'll continue to have just the Tabulator Monitor and Curbside Officials sign it, since they are the Officials involved in the most complicated work listed in the VAQG. Of course, many others do some sort of VA work during the day as Door Monitor, Line Monitor, Voting Booth Official, etc. Trying to have them all sign would seem to lead to another meaningless "Everybody" case.

5. Stop doing a ballot inventory for the Reconciliation Form

   6/17/24 ANSWER and 7/15/24 ANSWER:  The Staff replied that this is still needed to account for every ballot. It is known that print packaging problems can result in accounting discrepancies. The Precinct Officials report them, but can only guess at the cause if everything checks out locally, using the hints provided on the Reconciliation Form.

6. Provide better terms for "required-for-HAVA" photo IDs and "required-for-everybody" photo IDs

   The recent change to use "HAVA" as a qualifier in many places has helped a lot.

7. Provide a video of RT processing to show the [name, address, photo ID] processing order

   7/15/24 ANSWER:  The Staff says a new video is being produced.

8. Update the Tabulator video

   The Tabulator video does not show some important things, e.g., thumb drive and purple envelope handling.
   At least just mention them in the video if not providing the details.

   7/15/24 ANSWER:  The Staff says the video is being updated.

9. Understand that blank ballot detection by the Tabulator can conflict with curbside processing

   See item 3 in the "CURBSIDE" section of the 11/7/23 election postmortem.

   7/15/24 ANSWER:  The Staff just said we should do what we in fact did. The problem was that this infuriated the curbside voter, as reported in the postmortem report. I don't know any solution to this problem. If the voter doesn't like knowing the Tabulator rejected the ballot and that the Officials were told the reason -- blank ballot, so be it.

   Maybe in the case of a curbside blank ballot the CJ should accompany the Curbside Official to help explain things to the voter. When it happened at our polling place, it did not occur to me that there would be a problem, but it turned out that voter was not easy to deal with and seemed to be looking for any excuse to get angry. I suspect there are others like her.

10. Provide access to the online Basic class

    Ability for CJs to view the Basic online class. WeLearn does not allow CJs to sign up for such a class. Can it be provided without going thru WeLearn?

    (added 9/02/24) The Staff can provide access to the Basic module, but only if a specific request is made to the Staff. The access is not provided thru WeLearn. I sent some comments on the module to the Staff.

11. Provide online Provisional Envelope exercises

    Ability to view an online version of the VAST module used in the HT class.

    (added 9/02/24) The Staff provided five online Provisional Envelope exercises, including a VAST mockup to use in the exercises. I gave some comments on the exercises to the Staff.

Low Priority or Future Items

1. Need to update some PO website videos

   (added 9/23/24) In Comments on PO Website 2024-09-23 I provided comments on some PO website files, mainly the videos.

2. Suggested replacement for the Ballot Style Packing List

   This proposal could make it easier for a CJ to check delivered ballots at Weekend Supply Pickup, particularly if a precinct has many ballot styles, e.g., in a primary election. See (3/28/24) "Ballot Style Packing Checklist"

   7/15/24 ANSWER:  The Staff says they don't plan to provide anything like this. I'll continue to print one for my own use, as I have done the last two elections, vs handwriting something like this on the fly at Supply Pickup.

3. Suggested reminder sheet for early pack up

   I had proposed this only because the BOE Staff had requested me to provide any suggestions I could think of that might speed up the poll closing process. See (1/16/24) "Early Pack-Up Items When Only Provisional Voters Are Left"

   7/15/24 ANSWER:  The Staff says it looks like a good list. However they emphasized that any packing up after poll closing must be limited when there are still voters left, even if those are only provisional voters (no voter lines left). Then it's OK to do any of the outside work and also a small amount of the inside work that does not disturb the provisional voting process.

4. Suggestion to use a white on black ID "image" in the ATV text and documentation text

   This is just a smaller version of what is on the pollbook label. In fact it would be most helpful to use the characters "H-ID" everywhere (label and documents) where just "ID" is now used for HAVA ID. See the postmortem for the 5/14/24 election, items 2 and 3 in the "Photo ID, HAVA ID, and ATV Form" section.

   7/15/24 ANSWER:  The Staff says they don't plan to use the reverse image in their documents. They also say there is probably not enough room on labels for H-ID for primary elections.

5. Need technique to provide a concise summary of currently elected officials

   Current version	Airtable format	Not concise and cannot be printed properly anyway.
   2018 version	PDF format	Prints well, but this pdf format is no longer available.

   In the future, can a second file be created with most of the AirTable data, but using the old pdf format?

   7/15/24 ANSWER:  The Staff says there are no plans to again provide a simple, pdf summary file.

ES&S Limitations and/or NC Certification Requirements Prevent Timely Fixes

Have these comments ever been passed up the chain to see if the problems can eventually be fixed?

7/15/24 ANSWER:  The answer for the following list was essentially that it is hard to get changes done by the NCSBE, which must handle 100 counties, and it's hard to get any coding changes certified. However my question at the top was not addressed: Has this list of problems ever been formally sent to the proper people to get investigations underway? How will these problems ever be fixed if this is not done?

(updated 9/25/24)  (I reworded the items in this section and provided some more information on them.)

1. Keep the Tabulator and ExpressVote "Election Code" fully visible until Accept is pressed

   It is very easy to mistype these passwords and not see the error because the typed character is quickly hidden. There also seems to be a timing problem; if you type too fast, something seems to get lost. Until Accept is pressed, the display should keep visible and correctable everything that is typed.

   What is the purpose of hiding the typed characters? Saying "security" seems dubious. Who is in the area to see what was typed other than the three Judges?

2. Provide signature lines on all the Tabulator tapes

   Only tape 1 has signature lines. Tapes 2 and 3 do not, but should. It would not be a problem if tapes 4 and 5 also had the lines (even though they would not be used) if that would make it easier to create/format tapes 2-5.

3. (updated 9/07/24)  Improve some terms used on the Tabulator tapes and displays

   Replace these Tabulator terms. They also appear elsewhere, e.g., on the Reconciliation Form.

   "DS200 ballots"	which means	"regular ballots"
   "ExpressVote cards"	which means	"ExpressVote ballots"
   "paper sheets"	which means	"regular ballots + ExpressVote ballots"

4. Have the Tabulator detect and reject a provisional ballot

   There should be a way for an HT Official to mark a provisional ballot so the Tabulator will reject it. See the first item under "Hardware" in my "BOE Wish List".

   I had originally documented this proposal in 2008 (if not earlier); see item 3d in the 2008 postmortem. I then documented the proposal again in 2009 in a "BOE Suggestions" file. (Interesting reading! It shows where some current processes came from.) Later versions of the "BOE Suggestions" file were renamed as my "BOE Wish List" file, which I keep updated and have referenced in every postmortem since then. I have never gotten any feedback on the Tabulator proposal.

NC BOE Problems

1. (added 9/10/24)  Fix the "Voter Search" display for sample ballots that are "not yet available"

   When sample ballots are not available although the associated ballot style is displayed, the NC BOE "Voter Search" display should be more informative. It should not just display a non-hyperlink ballot style with misleading words implying a voter can click on the displayed style to see the associated sample ballot. Instead it should explicitly say the sample ballot for the displayed ballot style is temporarily unavailable. Ideally there should be an indication of when the sample ballot will be available.

   (updated 9/19/24)  On 9/10/24 I sent an email about this problem to the NC BOE, i.e., to the Technical Support listed on their North Carolina Absentee Ballot Portal. Later that day I got a response, which said in total: "Thank you for reaching out(.) North Carolina does not have any active elections or sample ballots at this time. Please reach out to your County for more information on when the system may be available for the upcoming election." That looks like a boilerplate response. In my problem report to them it was clear that I knew the sample ballots were not available now and why, but instead I was reporting a problem with their website. (I assume the WCBOE will "appreciate" that the NC BOE is telling voters that the county is responsible for answering any sample ballot availability questions.)

   But more importantly, they did not address the website problem I had documented. It is something they should be able to fix on their website -- if not now, then in the future, i.e., don't mislead voters to think a sample ballot is available (ballot style shown), but the ballot is not currently available (ballot style is not a hyperlink). It makes the website look broken (which, in fact, it is). There is no explanatory text about this discrepancy in the "Your Sample Ballot" section of "Voter Search". For such explanatory text I had suggested: "The sample ballot for the displayed ballot style is temporarily unavailable." In response to their "boilerplate" email, on 9/10/24 I essentially repeated my original problem report and pointed to the text in that report.

   The sample ballots finally became available again on 9/19/24, almost two weeks after they had been withdrawn. This was nine days after my original report to the NC BOE pointing out the website problem described above. However there has still been no response on that website issue.

Needed Items

1. Display change dates on items in the Precinct Officials website lists, e.g., on video links

   7/15/24 ANSWER:  The Staff says individual change dates will not be provided. The only change date will be the single one on each of the resources pages that says one or more things somewhere on that page have changed. (And even those catchall dates are sometimes not properly updated.)

2. Provide version numbers on all documents

   For example, the Provisional Envelope, the Media Guide, the Photo ID Quick Guide, and the PO website FAQs items.

   7/15/24 ANSWER:  The Staff says some of this will be fixed, but did not say which. Some of the documents are not under their control, e.g., those issued by the NCSBE.

   8/7/24 status:  The Photo ID Quick Guide now has a version ID.

Miscellaneous Notes

1. For additional suggestions that might apply to other polling places, see
   • (9/05/24) 'Some Suggested "Best Practices"'
   • (6/26/24) "Activities before and after an Election"
   • Photo albums and postmortems in the election archives
2. The BOE Staff is welcome to come, observe, and time 19-19's Setup and Election Day procedures.
3. I often provide suggestions to the Staff in the form of HTML/CSS pages. In case the Staff wanted to modify my pages or create their own from scratch, I have offered to work with anyone unfamiliar with HTML/CSS to help them learn the basics. It's something I have taught to others years ago. I have provided some HTML/CSS Tutorials as a starting point for anyone interested. (added on 7/26/24)
4. This has links to some archived files.