DC Article: "Larimer Shows Up Boulder"

["Joe Pezzillo" <jpezzillo@xxxxxxxxx>]

Anybody else see this article?

http://dailycamera.com/news/2006/nov/09/larimer-shows-up-boulder/

Not only do we have to look at a picture of Tom Halicki soaking up  
the county payroll again for cleaning up the mess he made, we also  
have to endure a lack of memory about our voting system, evidenced by  
this quote from the article:

"So how did Larimer County get all of its votes — paper and otherwise  
— counted by 1:30 a.m. Wednesday while Boulder County didn't wrap up  
counting until after 7 p.m. Wednesday?"

I don't suppose Josh Liss (or Tom Halicki) bothered to mention to the  
reporter that 20+ hours is actually the vendor's quoted amount of  
time it takes to run our ballots through that system they love to  
throw money at so much, eh?

And poor elections worker Carrie Haverford, who probably didn't get  
the memo about the system either, only got three hours of sleep. Get  
out your violins people.
"Carrie Haverfield, voter education and outreach specialist for  
Boulder County, said the county may need to consider moving to a vote  
center system, in which the county's nearly 200 polling places would  
be consolidated into 40 or 50 vote centers, if it wants to expedite  
its vote tabulation.

"The hard thing about Boulder County is that we're one of the largest  
counties that still uses polling places where other counties use vote  
centers and can get their results in quicker," said Haverfield, who  
slept only three hours after tabulating votes all night."

For that matter, perhaps the county may also need to consider moving  
to a precinct based hand counted paper ballot, that would also make  
the vote go faster than using the system we've got, heck, we might  
have finished BEFORE Larimer County. But hey, that would require  
being able to figure out how to run an election without total  
dependence on a for-profit vendor from Texas, now, wouldn't it?  
Something our current elections staff is clearly incapable of doing.  
It's always "so much easier" to just buy whatever they have to sell  
us, isn't it?

Heck, look what a great job Denver did with their vote centers!

On second thought, put away your violins and start getting out some  
pink slips (and I don't mean Swiss ballots, either).

Thank heavens we've got a new clerk and recorder, I propose the first  
order of business should be to send all these people packing.

Joe



Joe Pezzillo
PO Box J
Boulder, CO 80306 USA
jpezzillo@xxxxxxxxx
303-938-8850