Mar 22 2006
Election Day
Election day is over, but the election isn’t. We have two races, the Gifford School District and County Board District 9 where outstanding absentees, grace period voters, and provisional votes could change the outcome of the race.
I would like this post to serve as an opportunity for people to give suggestions to our office and to voice their concerns, complaints, and compliments.
Here are the primary concerns I received as I talked to voters on election day.
First, not all judges were being consistent in offering the privacy shield to voters. We will stress this more in the fall schools.
Second, in every polling place I was at judges were reminding voters about the back of the ballot. Nevertheless, some voters neglected to vote the back side so we need to communicate this better to voters.
We also were hoping to have results come in more quickly. Here are my thoughts on why they took two hours more than I anticipated.
First, we underestimated the time it would take judges to close out their precincts.
Second, the judges were taking their time to make sure that they were doing everything correctly. We should all thank them for taking the time to get it right. In future elections, as they become experienced, things will move faster.
Third, the shortage of judges resulted in it taking more time to process the end of the night ballots and paperwork.
I’ve already thought of lots of ideas to address these concerns. My staff, judges, and the public have already begun chiming in as well. Let me know your ideas and hopefully we can continue to improve things for the fall election.
The lack of the privacy shield was the main concern of people I’ve talked to, so it’s good to read that it was just an oversite on the part of the judges. It just seemed odd to have one for the punch cards but not for the easy-to-read paper ballots. I just didn’t realize it was missing until I was leaving the booth, and it didn’t occur to me to ask afterwards since I’d *always* received one with the punch card before.
Second, the shelf in the booth was too small for the ballot.
Finally, the scanner should say something like “Ballot OK” when accepting a ballot, not just increment the vote count.
This is the first I heard of the privacy shield; I’m glad that this had been thought of. As soon as I heard about it, though, I went and talked to my co-workers. One of them had gotten one, but she also had some comments:
1. The privacy shield was only a single sheet of paper, but the ballot was two-sided. It couldn’t cover both sides! This would be solved by using a manila folder, or similar.
2. Apparently, there was somebody at her polling place helping to feed the ballots into the ballot machine. While the sentiment of technical support is nice, it seems that all privacy has been lost to that helping person. Perhaps the helper could just help determine that the paper was going in right-side up (which could be done with the ballot inside the privacy folder), and some system could be set up to make viewing the ballot more difficult?
- Tim Skirvin (tskirvin@killfile.org)
Overall, it worked well but I agree that a minor inconvenience was that the ballot was too big for the counter inside the booth.
There is a big sign above the door to the room where the voting machines are that says “ENTER TO WORSHIP.”
I think that’s a little messed up.
I was a poll watcher and stayed to see the whole closing out process. The judges did a fantastic job, for what is a very involved process at the end of a very long day. Because the equipment is new, there was some hesitancy in the final phase, printing the results, even though there is a detailed instruction card. Maybe in the training, more time can be spent on this phase, to get judges used to the machines and so they know what to expect. We are lucky so many people put in the 18 hour day it takes to be an election judge.
Privacy was okay at the precinct I voted at–the election judges handed out a card to cover the front of the ballot, and it was possible to feed the ballot into the machine without the judges or poll watchers seeing who I voted for. Not quite as private as the punch cards, but with some improvements (maybe a sleeve instead of the card, so both sides of the ballot are covered) it could be made private.
In theory, the new system should make the process faster, right? Although the “unofficial totals” were done before midnight (still amazingly late for a low-turnout primary), many precincts didn’t have precinct results posted until well into Wednesday morning. It was even worse than in past years, when Champaign County has historically been the last of all Central Illinois counties to begin, to finish, and to post results. I hope these were just “maiden voyage” problems rather than an indication of things to come. If the count and website updates took more than 12 hours in a primary with minimal turnout, what’s going to happen in a general election with four times as many ballots?
I think most aspects of the process seemed to work fine, especially for a first attempt, but barring significant changes to the election-night procedure, we won’t know who won the Governor’s race until inauguration day.
Mark,
Thanks so much for all you’ve done this election. I think that people did well regardless of the privacy cover. Some people didn’t care and some people did care. However, no one should ever be scanning the ballot except the voter.
My observations…..I voted right behind friends of mine around 8a.m., When we arrived we were asked blue,yellow or green ballot….it wasn’t until and except for additional conversation after my friend mistakenly chose the “color” green that we inquired about specification. None of us were told about the “back” of the ballot or offered anything like a “privacy” shield. It is possible that the signs were posted…but certainly not prominently enough and the judges definetely didn’t encourage help or guidance….something that would have been not only “nice ” but essential with a new voting system.Although.