Paper trail TECHNOLOGY,OTHER ADVANCES STILL RELY ON THE POWER OF EACH BALLOT
Posted on Sunday, November 9, 2008
BROOKE McNEELY Northwest Arkansas Times Election worker Jerry Williams prepares ballots for voters during Tuesday’s general election. More than 45, 000 votes were cast that day, about 60 percent on paper ballots such as these.
For something so important, the ride is pretty inglorious. There is no armed personnel. No banners announce the occasion, either. The two galvanized metal crates are stuffed in the trunk of Millie Webster’s silver Buick LeSabre, above the spare tire and past a mesh cargo net. Two ballot boxes are being hauled in the back of Webster’s car, each on the way to help complete one of our basic civic duties: voting. More than 68, 000 Washington County residents voted in Tuesday’s general election. More than 22, 000 people voted early, meaning 46, 000 were cast on election day. Although many of those votes were recorded electronically, at least 25, 000 paper ballots, maybe more, were processed on election day alone. In the course of 16 hours, they were picked up, marked upon and will eventually be discarded. Such is the life cycle of an election ballot.
Creating a ballot The ballots given to voters in Washington County were made weeks before the election, in time to be distributed for absentee voting, which began Sept. 29. But to even see their names on the white and black forms, those seeking office had to first declare their intentions by registering with the county clerk’s office and supplying a petition with the names of registered voters eligible to cast a vote for the candidate in question. In the case of the Fayetteville mayor’s race, for instance, candidates had to have 30 signatures. Candidates were required to file their intentions to run by Aug. 26, nine weeks to the day before the election took place. Other ballot measures, such as an initiative to make marijuana possession a low law enforcement priority, also required that organizers receive signatures from registered voters — in this case, more than 3, 500 — before coming to a vote. Similarly, a constitutional amendment supporting the creation of lotteries in the state has been in the works for months and even had a lawsuit filed against it in hopes to keep it from reaching the polls. In all, 90, 000 ballots for Washington County were printed at a cost of 29 cents each by Electronic Systems and Software Inc. of Omaha, Neb., and have been kept in storage since.
Setting up As most of the county, and the country, too, went about business as normal on the day prior to the election, Webster was already in voting mode. As supervisor for the polling place at Sequoyah United Methodist Church on Old Wire Road in Fayetteville, it was her duty to pick up the ballots from the county courthouse and prepare the site for the lines of people who would visit the next day.
Once inside the polling place, the boxes, some with enough ballots for two precincts stuffed inside, remained sealed in a tamper-proof box. It is not until election morning — after the poll workers have gathered to serve as witnesses — that a supervisor such as Webster can open the unassuming box and take the ballots out.
Just before the polls open at 7: 30 a. m., a large pile of the ballots, empty of votes but full of promise, sit on a table, sheathed in thin plastic.
Voting Each voter has a choice to make, and not just regarding the candidates. Electronic voting has partially replaced the age-old paper balloting system.
At the location where Webster stood watch, it was about an even split between those choosing paper and electronic voting, but maybe slightly favoring physical ballots. In Washington County, about 40 percent of votes were cast electronically, said John Logan Burrow, chairman of county’s election commission.
Just moments after voting began, walking out the door of the Central United Methodist Church in Fayetteville after casting his vote, Bill Levine of Fayetteville speculated why paper remains popular.
“ It just seemed easier, even though I’m fairly computer literate, ” he said. “ It’s just filling in ovals. ”
Neither process is a complex one: show proof of identification, grab the proper ballot, make a choice and drop the ballot into the same gray box it came from. Or, conversely, stand in front of a electronic monitor, follow the prompts on the screen and confirm the choices that way.
On average, voters were spending between six and seven minutes with the ballots, although some, such as a woman who requested a magnifying glass to read some of the small print, took a little longer. After the last voter had exited the church on Old Wire Road’s polling station at 7: 30 p. m., Webster closed the trap door of the ballot box, clamped the hatches, and sealed it again with a tamper-indicating device.
Counting With the ballots safely locked in the box, and the paper receipts from the electronic voting machines stored in a blue mesh bag, it’s back into Webster’s car for a return trip to the courthouse. There, more than a dozen counters, loaders and other election employees await.
Burrow watches over the process, standing with his hands on his hips and cautioning a crowd largely composed of journalists and hopeful candidates that it could be until 4 a. m. until all the votes are counted. He might not have been exaggerating. In 1995, he recalls, he completed his duties and left the courthouse just before 7 a. m. the day following the election.
On election night, the ballot boxes are brought into the Quorum Courtroom in the Washington County Courthouse as they arrive from the polling locations. In the plain gray boxes they come, sometimes one at a time, then two, then six or seven all at once on a fourwheeled cart, until all 56 have arrived.
Three separate threeperson teams are stationed at counting machines, taking the ballots from the box and then placing them on a contraption that shakes and sorts them for uniformity. When the ballots are all properly aligned, votes are counted as the ballots are fed through a machine that detects where the pencil lead marks were placed, making a low “ whupping ” sound as the paper speeds through. On the other side of the courtroom, a group of workers are pulling data from and disassembling the electronic machines, then folding the equipment for storage so it can be used again. In just a few hours, 150 sets of votes are pulled from the data storage discs of the electronic machines, then added to the tally. As for the paper ballots, the first arrive from the precincts just a few minutes after 7: 30 p. m., when the polls closed; others, from outlying communities such as Cincinnati and Baldwin, don’t arrive until later, the last coming in sometime around 9: 30 p. m. In just more than four hours, all of the ballots are counted, at a rate exceeding 6, 900 per hour or 115 per minute.
Storing The ballots are kept close at hand for a few days, as the commission may audit any race that is exceptionally close, although Burrow said Wednesday that isn’t likely for any of Tuesday’s races. The election won’t be certified until Nov. 10, the last day that ballots from overseas military personnel can arrive and still be counted. Like ballots from previous elections, the thousands of slips of paper will be kept for two years. The ballots can be reviewed in the case of a lawsuit that would mandate such an activity to happen.
But for now, the counting machines are silenced, having just processed the most votes that Washington County has ever seen.
But they won’t be quiet long.
They will be ready once again, with more ballots on the way, for the runoff election on Nov. 25.
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