In Focus This Week
Note: electionline.org is restarting our series of Election Administration Previews with a look at next week’s elections in Kentucky, Mississippi, New Jersey, San Francisco and Virginia. We will continue with previews as the 2008 primary season progresses. For a complete list, click here.
Quick election results in San Francisco? Don’t count on it
Ballot-by-ballot examination will keep election officials at work around the clock
By Kat Zambon
electionline.org
With Mayor Gavin Newsom (D) expected to coast to victory, only one candidate, Kamala Harris, running for district attorney and sheriff Michael Hennessey seeking his eighth term in office, this year’s San Francisco elections should run smoothly as voters will largely cast their ballots the same way they have in elections prior.
What happens once the polls close, however, is a different story. All of the various advances in voting technology will be secondary to human eyes. This year’s election will be a hands-on affair.
Controversy over the city’s voting system vendor led Secretary of State Debra Bowen (D) to issue a set of special conditions for the system’s use in the 2007 municipal elections. The conditions, detailed in a letter to voting machine manufacturer ES&S include inspections of all ballots prior to scanning and counting to ensure that they were marked with a Number 2 pencil, black ink or dark blue ink. If they do not conform, officials must duplicate the ballot so it will be properly counted. They must also manually audit all ballots from 10 percent of precincts and 25 percent of all mailed absentee ballots.
As a result, the only results to be released on election day will be from early and absentee voting, John Arntz, the city’s election director, told media outlets.
Instead of counting ballots at the 561 precincts in the city and county, all ballots will be counted at City Hall on five counters. Officials plan on counting ballots 24 hours a day starting immediately after the election with the goal of having 65 percent of absentee ballots and 75 percent of polling-place ballots counted by November 9, Arntz wrote in a report to Newsom and the Board of Supervisors.
Arntz expects that officials won’t be able to count more than 10,000 ballots daily. In the last mayor’s race, 209,723 ballots were cast.
Bowen also required that ES&S reimburse San Francisco for the additional costs associated with the extra scrutiny, estimated at about $300,000. In an October 30 letter to ES&S, Arntz challenged the company’s assertions that Bowen lacks the authority to require ES&S to reimburse the city for the costs of complying with the ranked-choice voting (RCV) system’s conditional certification.
“Once the election is complete, we will pursue our options to seek appropriate compensation from ES&S for all costs associated with the Secretary of State’s conditional certification and any costs incurred as a result of ES&S’ sale of uncertified AutoMark machines,” Arntz wrote. He also thanked ES&S for lending the city two more vote counters and personnel to help run the machines 24 hours a day from October 26 to November 14 if necessary.
Vendor issues lead to increased scrutiny
How did a city of nearly three-quarters of a million people end up having an election tabulated in a method more similar to Dixville Notch, New Hampshire than nearby Sacramento?
It started last spring, as the rest of California’s voting systems came under intense scrutiny.
On May 9, the same day that Bowen disclosed the details of her plan to conduct a top-to-bottom review of California voting systems, she also denied a request from ES&S for recertification of the RCV system used in San Francisco.
Bowen said that the ES&S system had been granted three stopgap certifications, “despite the fact that it has never even been federally qualified to the federal voting system standards” and invited ES&S to resubmit their request should the system successfully complete the top-to-bottom review.
ES&S chose not to submit the RCV system. Citing the concerns addressed in the last review of the RCV system in October 2006, Bowen conditionally recertified the system in September, albeit reluctantly.
“I would be remiss if I didn’t point out once again how troubled I continue to be by ES&S’s approach to both the voters of this state and the voting system certification process in California,” Bowen said in a letter following the certification.
Problems with the vendor did not end there, however.
During the state certification process for the AutoMark A200 voting machines, ES&S officials said that they had already sold the voting systems to San Francisco, Marin, Merced, Colusa and Solano counties, despite having only an older version of the machine – the A100 – certified for use in the state.
According to a San Francisco Chronicle article, Arntz said the documentation he received from ES&S stated that they had the AutoMark A100 voting machines.
The state could fine ES&S $10,000 per voting machine sold, order them to refund the $5 million the counties paid for the machines and ban them from doing business in the state for three years. ES&S argued that the newer machines, which are federally certified, are simply an upgrade of the state-certified version and they weren’t aware that they needed to notify the state.
When asked if the state will take legal action against ES&S for selling uncertified machines, Bowen spokeswoman Nicole Winger said that the secretary “has not yet made a decision about possible legal action against ES&S” though a decision will likely be made in the next few days.
Steven Hill, political reform program director at the New America Foundation said that at a hearing on the AutoMark, ES&S demonstrated that the only changes made to the machines were the placement of two circuit boards and removal of some cables. The lab where the machines are tested and the manufacturer both said that the changes were minor.
“While the secretary of state was right to be upset about what ES&S did …it should have been dealt with quietly,” Hill said. “You don’t read anywhere that this [the AutoMark] is [only] used by a handful of voters … When you crack down on a vendor, you crack down on a county” and the voters in the county.
Hill expressed concerns about a different requirement for this year’s election.
According to Bowen, because San Francisco uses ranked-choice voting, any ballots that don’t have three choices will have to be examined and remade. Since the incumbent mayor is competing with “11 or 12 also-rans that most people have never heard of … you could have 50 to 60 percent [of ballots] that won’t have a full three rankings” and will need to be remade, Hill said.
However, early indicators reveal there might not be as many ballots cast this year.
As of October 26, about 400 people had come in to vote early, compared to 1,200 early voters at the same time in 2003. Early voting is growing in popularity in California and early voters often make up a larger proportion of total turnout in lower level elections, said Paul Gronke, director of the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College and consultant to the Pew Center on the States’ Make Voting Work initiative.
“All of that would indicate that lower turnout in this year’s municipal elections in San Francisco would indicate lower turnout overall,” Gronke said.
Ultimately it’s unknown how the procedures for this year’s election and the delay in election results will affect voter confidence. “Secretary Bowen believes voters are most concerned with their ballots being counted accurately,” Winger said. “We are certain that Mr. Arntz is going to do everything he can to get those ballots counted quickly.”
Patty Senecal, a Democratic voter agreed. “I think that anything that makes sure that the votes are counted properly … I have no problem waiting for that.”
In Focus This Week Pt. 2
Secretaries of State positions on the ballot next week
Grayson of Kentucky vies to keep job; two newcomers square off in Mississippi
By M. Mindy Moretti
Electionline.org
With less than a week to go until the November 6 off-year election, two Secretaries of State races are moving into high-gear and how people vote is playing a key role in both races.
In Kentucky, Secretary of State Tray Grayson (R) is being challenged by Democrat Bruce Hendrickson, the former mayor of Pineville.
The candidates appeared in a televised debate at the end of September which highlighted their different approach to how Kentuckians should vote.
Grayson supports paper-ballot systems, whereas Hendrickson supports a system that would provide voters with a receipt of their vote.
“Our voting systems are fine now, but they can be made better and I think by having a voter verified paper record we can do that,” Grayson said in the debate.
The candidates have clashed over several voting procedures besides paper ballots with one major bone of contention being Kentucky’s practice of allowing straight ticket voting. Grayson opposes the practice saying it encourages “lazy voting” while Hendrickson supports it.
This week, Democrats in Kentucky accused Grayson of attempting to suppress the vote by not making provisional ballots available. Grayson released a statement later that day saying that state laws prevent him from making provisional ballots available for non-federal elections.
One thing both candidates seem to agree on is expanding Kentucky’s absentee voting system. Both support the state joining the nearly 30 states that allow no-excuse absentee voting.
Down in Mississippi, current Secretary of state Eric Clark is retiring and Democrat Rob Smith is facing Republican Delbert Hosemann. Despite the tough competition, the Sun Herald reports that race has remained largely upbeat with few negative attacks made by either candidate.
Smith told the paper that he believes election reform is a crisis issue with the presidential election in 2008 and a mandate from a federal judge to re-register all voters in the state.
Hosemann is a strong supporter of voter ID and told the Sun Herald that he has polling numbers which show that 86 percent of Mississippians agree with him.
Whoever wins the race next week will face ongoing problems with elections in Mississippi including tensions amongst local election officials, accusations of voting irregularities, and even the cancelation of a runoff election in one county.
Election Reform News This Week
- The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) announced this week that a new online tool will be available for public comment on the draft voluntary voting system guidelines. The public will also be able to view submitted comments. “The initial public comment phase is only the first step in EAC’s inclusive and thorough approach as we move toward the adoption of the next iteration of voluntary voting system guidelines,” said EAC Chair Donetta Davidson. The draft guidelines were prepared by the Technical Guidelines Development Committee and delivered to EAC in August and posted on the EAC’s Web site. The introduction of the public comment tool launches the first of four phases leading to the adoption of a final version.
- Election officials in Whatcom County, Wash. have found a way to fix more than 9,000 mail-ballots that were missing a necessary barcode. Elections staff will manually draw the line on the ballots. Elections Supervisor Pete Griffin said that costs could go up, but it would likely mean an extra hour a day for two temporary employees assigned to watch over the botched-bar code ballots. Elections watchdog groups told The Bellingham Herald that they are satisfied that voters will not be identifiable, but the issue shows that computers aren’t perfect. The group wants manual counting by hand to take place more often.
- In other vote-by-mail news, officials in Boulder County, Colo. said they are working with officials from the U.S. Postal Service to make sure that “kinks” in the mail ballot process get worked out. In this instance, a mail ballot was forwarded to a voter who had moved, something that according to the Daily Camera, is never supposed to happen. “What I think happened was there was a lapse of judgment,” Al DeSarro, spokesman for the postal service said. “A lot of times (postal employees) are keying literally hundreds of pieces, and they just missed it. This does not happen that often.” County election officials said they were satisfied that this was an isolated incident.
- After it was announced late last week that Pennsylvania would not make public the list of the state’s polling places due to potential threats from terrorists, Gov. Ed Rendell (R) opted to reverse the decision. “The agencies [Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and Office of Homeland Security] agreed it was appropriate not to release the statewide list to protect the public and the integrity of the voting process,” spokeswoman Leslie Amoros initially told The Associated Press. Gov. Ed Rendell rescinded the policy the following day noting that the information was already available on county Web sites.
Opinions This Week
National: Elections history, Presidential primaries, Email voting
Alabama: Voter registration database
California: Nevada County elections, Voting technology, Vote-by-mail
Colorado: Every vote counts
Connecticut: DemocracyWorks
Indiana: Voter registration, Municipal elections
Iowa: Poll workers
Kansas: Voter apathy
Michigan: Voter ID
Mississippi: Vote fraud, Accessible voting
North Carolina: District voting, Instant runoff-voting
Utah: Vote-by-mail
Virginia: Local elections
Some sites require registration
Job Postings This Week
All job listings must be received by 12 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday for publication in our Thursday newsletter. Job listings are free but may be edited for length. Whenever possible, include Internet information. Please email job postings to mmoretti@electionline.org
- Election Director — Orange County, N.C. Reporting to the Orange County Board of Elections, this position provides administrative, technical, and managerial support to the Board and directs the registration, voting and election activities for the County. The Director of Elections is appointed by the Orange County Board of Elections and approved by the State. The successful candidate will supervise a staff of three permanent employees and will direct and supervise precinct office operations to ensure compliance with all related laws and procedures. The position oversees pre-election activities and ensures that the elections are conducted efficiently and in compliance with federal, state, and local laws and regulations. Representative duties include: Preparing legal notices for publication in newspapers, television, radio and web pages; maintaining the timetable for board members’ duties established by the State Board of Elections; preparing and maintaining the calendar of required board meetings and training for board members and staff; serving as secretary to the Board of Elections; prepares resolutions, bond ballots, and other board-related legal matters, in consultation with attorneys; and prepares ballots for all elections, including overseeing printing and production and ensuring that all supplies, materials and equipment are available for voting on election days. Qualifications: Requires any combination of education and experience equivalent to graduation from an accredited college or university with a Bachelor’s degree in public administration, business administration or related field and at least five years progressively responsible experience in state or local government elections. One year of supervisory experience is preferred. Requires excellent computer skills. Prefer knowledge of election system software, including United Software. Excellent communications skills and demonstrated ability to effectively interact with the citizens, elected officials and candidates, and the Board are required. Possession of or the ability to obtain a North Carolina State Board of Elections certification within one year of hire is necessary. Salary: $65,014 – $84,473. Application: Send resume and county application to: Orange County Personnel Dept.; 208 South Cameron Street, Post Office Box 8181; Hillsborough, North Carolina 27278; Telephone: (919) 245-2550, Facsimile: (919) 644-3009; online at www.co.orange.nc.us Deadline: Nov. 5, 2007.
- Elections Manager — Multnomah County, Ore. (Portland). Responsible for managing, directing and coordinating the activities of the Elections Division staff; providing highly complex assistance to elected officials, public agencies and related jurisdictions, and informing the public in all issues involving election activities. Manage, direct and organize division activities including voter registration, maintenance of voter rolls, conduct of elections and implementation of contribution and expenditure report laws; lead the development and implementation of program budget, goals and objectives; develop and implement policies and procedures for an efficient and effective team environment and operation; monitor, develop and implement national and state election legislation and legal decisions; monitor and implement current election trends and technologies; manage the Division’s record and retention program. Represent Multnomah County Elections to the media; respond to questions or inquiries; resolve complaints from the public; manage Division communication with vendors and other outside agencies; lead a professionally open and transparent operational environment. Qualifications: Any relevant combination of the following educational background and experience would meet the minimum qualifications for the position: four years of increasingly responsible management experience, including two years of supervisory experience; history of proven leadership: managerial and supervisory skills are a must; management experience involving elections is highly desirable. Management experience involving vote by mail is preferred; equivalent to a Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university with major course work in public or business administration or a related field is required. Priority will be given to candidates who understand Federal policies and directives regarding elections, as well as the role of government in preparing for and responding to election needs and requirements. Salary is $64,166 to $89,831. Application: Send a cover letter and resume (e-mail preferred) to Jerry Petty at the following address: Multnomah County