More election judge comments

A few things I forgot to mention in last night's posting on the election...

Precinct 47 had a M100 voting machine problem again this election. In the primary the problem was due to user (election judge) errors. This election their machine was bad and a new one was brought in. I believe the judges couldn't get their machine to even start up.

During the election the ballot numbers are entered in the poll book with the voter's name. Around noon Pam noticed our machine's count of ballots was one less than the poll book's count. She counted and recounted the poll book and the number was off by one. Carmen, Tom, and I took the ballot stubs with the numbers and sorted and searched them for a missing ballot number. We found one number missing.

About this time the chief election judge for precinct 47 came by to ask how we were doing. She claimed her poll book number matched her current ballot number. That doesn't mean a thing as the ballot number is written into the poll book. What matters is the poll book's count matches the machine's count. We then realized that with their non-working voting machine, our voter could have voted over there once they marked their ballot. When the machine works, it would recognize the ballot is not for that precinct and reject it. With their machine not working, no one would know. Sometimes we had so many people they would use other precinct's voting booths, then forget where they came from. We had to watch out for these occasional occurrences, mainly with the very old voters.

The precinct 47 judge checked their ballots for our precinct number (in small print at the bottom of the ballot) and found one for our precinct. Success! Now our vote totals matched.

The county provided our polling location (made up of three precincts) an official and a laptop computer with the county's database of registered voters. This reduced almost all of the problems of voters not sure which precinct was their precinct and showing up at our precinct when they were suppose to go to another precinct. Each precinct also had greeters - like in the primary election - to help guide the voters to the right precinct. But if the voter is not in that precinct's registered voter list, it is hard for the greeter help them find their right precinct.

We seemed to have less older voters this election. I would if it is because they voted using an absentee ballot, they are snowbirds and gone already for the winter, or there was an increase in younger people voting so it made it seem like there were less old people voting?

When Tom arrived around noon he brought some extra fajitas and burritos from Taco John. John had brought a large bag of Halloween candy. He had just moved back to Montana this summer and he didn't have as many kids for Halloween as he expected. At various times I was getting a sugar high as I am not use to eating candy.

When we had our 500th voter John and I decided to give the voter some candy as a reward. We decided this prior to the voter casting his ballot. We almost missed him. He was walking away when we realized he had already voted. Tom called him back from across the room. This caused a minor commotion as the voter thought something was wrong. He took the candy with a smile. After this we handed out candy to various other people who seemed to have a sense of humor. A few kids with parents voting in other precincts realized we had a candy and came over to our table while waiting for their parents to vote.

Our precinct had the last voter of the night. As long as the person was in the building they could take as long as they wanted to vote. Right after the polls closed at 8 pm we started taking down the signs and other stuff. Our precinct had 9 voting booths, and before the voter finished voting, Tom, John, and I had all but the final voter's booth dis-assembled and packed away in its case.

I enjoyed being an election judge and will do it again.