RE: Boulder website indicates that precinct ballots counted.

["Some Guy" <someguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Paul,

I'm new to this list and just seeing this thread for the first time with
the above email. So, please excuse any cluelessness about what has
already transpired.
[|>]
[|>] Visit http://coloradovoter.net/bcv-archive/ to see what's been said. It
starts 13 Oct 2003 and runs to the present.
[|>] ---------
I was supply judge at my precinct. There had been massive early voting
and massive absentee ballot requests in my precinct. There was a
really heavy turnout early in the morning. I don't think there is any
real evidence of criminal activity, but a lot of evidence of poor
planning and incompetance. So what's new? The median age of us poll
workers is 72 yrs. (I will be 72 in Dec., but I'm special.)
[|>]
[|>] The average age figure that you are telling us is information that was
told to you in your training session. I'm sorry to be the bearer of this
tiding to you, but that is crap. Subtract about 15 years to get closer to
the real figure.
The clerk staff has been repeating this bull for the past two years and it
is just not true. Along with the 72 yr old median age, we've been led to
believe that people your age are feeble and physically unfit. Considering
where we all live and the life expectancy of adults in the latter half of
the 20th century we are listening to myth. My dad was a sharp cookie and
interested in physics and math until his death at age 92, in 2002. Since
you're here using a computer; just served as an election judge; and don't
sound all that feeble to me, my guess is that your not all that uncommon for
a 72 year old in 2004.

I think that everyone here who has worked in an election of the past and
present will agree with you about poor planning and incompetence. Quite a
few of us worked on the inside before this debacle, and some during it.
The 2003 mail-in ballot elections were fraught with untested procedures that
were changed many times in mid-stream. The original plan was not followed as
designed in an effort to achieve efficiency against a time-deadline that was
imagined. There was no deadline then, just as there was no deadline now.
Forcing people to work for 18 hours with just potty breaks does not bode
well for accuracy. I don't care what age they are, but in truth those with
longer experience are the ones who are older and more likely to get tired
sooner. The plans then and the ones this time did not account for the human
factors.
Procedural systems breakdown when people fail to be able to operate them.
[|>] ----------

To me, a major purpose of activism about voting methods is to establish
a system that works, and can be seen to be working by ordinary voters.
Its not enough that it works. It has to be so transparent and simple
that we all really know that it works. Much of what I was required to
do as an election judge did not really address making the system work.
It was more related to old, rigid views of what must be done in
conducting an election. Its time for a review, but maybe State Law
mandates certain procedures. Even so, its time for a review.
[|>]
[|>] I think that most people here will agree with you. I want reforms, not
more silly laws. The more laws we have the more difficult they are to
interpret and follow. Soon they overlap and are impossible to unravel. We
have a mess and our legislature wants to make the mess bigger with the help
of the secretary of state.
The SoS keeps declaring election 'rules' which are called laws and held over
the heads of clerks and elections judges. They are not laws and they are not
inflexible. But the so-called law abiding citizens do not question these
mandates and blindly follow until they are waist deep in the morass.
The review and changes must happen now, not two weeks before the next
election. They must be tested again and again until we are pretty certain of
them working - before we actually have to use them.
[|>] ------

So, what am I saying? I doubt that there was massive ballot box stuffing
at the precinct level. Us old turkeys are not capable of such a scam.
But we are capable of screwing up somebody else's scam.
[|>]
[|>] I don't think that Ralph was suggesting that election judges were
stuffing the ballot boxes. Or at least I wouldn't believe that myself. I
would believe that those that chose to obtain absentee ballots could have
stuffed the box. In fact, if I consider the confusion at my own precinct it
would have been very easy for me to leave with my ballot, photocopy it
several times and then come back and stick it in the ballot box. That's the
simple scenario. I can think of a few others which I won't mention here that
would have allowed me to vote as many times as I would have liked.
Its because I know the systems from the inside that would let me get away
with ballot fraud, and because you don't that you would haven't been the
wiser to let me get away with it.
[|>] ----

On the other hand, it would be nice if the system were so well understood
that such dark worries were simply too silly to consider seriously.
[|>]
[|>] And that's why we need reforms and simplicity, not additional laws and
complexity.
The KISS approach all the way.
[|>] -----

just my $0.02 worth.
[|>]
[|>] I think it was worth more. Thanks for pitching in.

Some Guy who ran for clerk and probably will again ...


--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx