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My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

portal.drewdevault.com

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Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#81

Post by estebank »

stouset wrote: post #74
estebank wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just party affiliation (which is public I think in at least most states) but also the procedures in place for discarding incorrectly filled ballots. Poll workers need to recover them and mark them as voided. It is not terrible , but it has a lower threshold of security than other electoral systems I am familiar with. Dropping a mail-in ballot in person seemed to have no plausible subreptitious election integ…

At least in California, all of these voided ballots are counted at the end of the day and tallied with the number of recorded ballots, the number of ballots issued, the number of ballots remaining, and the number of people who physically showed up to vote. To be honest, the numbers are always off by 1-5 (in a precinct of ~1,500 registered voters, with ~100 physical ballots cast) simply because poll workers are genera…

My concern here isn't around integrity of the vote but secrecy of the vote for a given person in this event. It might just be that this is so different from what I've seen in other systems that it stood out.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#82

Post by brandmeyer »

ddevault wrote: post #69
dx87 wrote: post #15

This part seems incorrect: > There are strict laws regulating police and poll workers while the polls are open. Police are not allowed within 100 feet of the polling location, unless they're actively voting or there on official business at the request of the election board. Additionally, anyone working at the polls in an official capacity is not allowed to wear any clothing with political messaging. One of the office…

Author here. The military is a political entity, and different voters have different opinions on. It's better to err on the side of caution when acting in an official capacity for the election, especially when your organization (the police) are the subject of ballot measures this year. A tap on the shoulder and a polite comment seem well justified to me, and another poll worker agreed.

> The military is a political entity

Veteran here, served during the contentious 2000 election. The US military very strongly prides itself on being an apolitical entity.

There's an important distinction between the electorate having differing opinions about the role and size of the military and the scope of its missions, and the military itself being a political entity.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#83

Post by ddevault »

brandmeyer wrote: post #82
ddevault wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. The military is a political entity, and different voters have different opinions on. It's better to err on the side of caution when acting in an official capacity for the election, especially when your organization (the police) are the subject of ballot measures this year. A tap on the shoulder and a polite comment seem well justified to me, and another poll worker agreed.

> The military is a political entity Veteran here, served during the contentious 2000 election. The US military very strongly prides itself on being an apolitical entity. There's an important distinction between the electorate having differing opinions about the role and size of the military and the scope of its missions, and the military itself being a political entity.

This is not a universally held belief.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#84

Post by estebank »

ryanobjc wrote: post #31
estebank wrote: post #13

As a non-citizen who had a chance to observe how the process works in California, I was struck by how little emphasis is put in the secrecy of the vote. The whole system looks reasonable except for how easy it can be for poll workers to know what you voted for. Beyond that, the system is clearly geared towards increasing participation and enfranchising as many people as possible (a good thing in a democratic system).

As a non citizen who worked the polls as a clerk, there’s plenty of ballot secrecy. Many people don’t care. But there are procedures in place. Sometimes people do care and they can obscure it. Once the ballot is in the box, disassociated from the voter then there is no more secrecy concerns.

> Once the ballot is in the box, disassociated from the voter then there is no more secrecy concerns.

There are plenty of towns where "everyone knows everyone" and a system that requires trust on poll workers in this aspect is a bit alien to me. For example, one system I am familiar with the ballot itself is not special, the envelope is (it has signatures from the poll workers, which is also problematic because they can potentially surreptitiously mark the envelope in a special way to associate the vote to a specific person), which makes it unnecessary for poll workers to ever be in contact with the ballots themselves.

Overall, my qualms are minimal and am more concerned about the use of computers for the vote than anything else in the process.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#86

Post by kettro »

kev009 wrote: post #55
mmastrac wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a logo that is more strongly associated with one political party than another, being worn by someone who is presumably armed and in a position of authority. If you cannot see why this is a problem, I don't think I can explain it any more.

Since it is less incendiary to discuss, what if someone was wearing a Rastafarian style hat in places marijuana bills were on the ballot, is this a conflict?

Rastafarianism is a religion. I assume religious attire is not restricted.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#87

Post by heavyset_go »

ddevault wrote: post #69
dx87 wrote: post #15

This part seems incorrect: > There are strict laws regulating police and poll workers while the polls are open. Police are not allowed within 100 feet of the polling location, unless they're actively voting or there on official business at the request of the election board. Additionally, anyone working at the polls in an official capacity is not allowed to wear any clothing with political messaging. One of the office…

Author here. The military is a political entity, and different voters have different opinions on. It's better to err on the side of caution when acting in an official capacity for the election, especially when your organization (the police) are the subject of ballot measures this year. A tap on the shoulder and a polite comment seem well justified to me, and another poll worker agreed.

Thank you for upholding these principles and acting upon them. Having experienced how quickly disagreements with cops can escalate, I probably wouldn't have done anything. It's refreshing knowing that someone did, though.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#88

Post by stouset »

estebank wrote: post #81
stouset wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in California, all of these voided ballots are counted at the end of the day and tallied with the number of recorded ballots, the number of ballots issued, the number of ballots remaining, and the number of people who physically showed up to vote. To be honest, the numbers are always off by 1-5 (in a precinct of ~1,500 registered voters, with ~100 physical ballots cast) simply because poll workers are genera…

My concern here isn't around integrity of the vote but secrecy of the vote for a given person in this event. It might just be that this is so different from what I've seen in other systems that it stood out.

Ah, yeah. I do agree that that's a weakness here: you hand your ballots to the poll worker, they void it out, and that's placed into a bin to be counted at the end of the day.

Potentially a poll worker could use that opportunity to look at your ballot and see who you voted for. Perhaps it would be better if you were allowed to tear the ballot in half yourself and drop it into the slot but there may be a reason why it's not done that way.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#89

Post by Spivak »

thedream wrote: post #57
dx87 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "thin blue line" flag also doesn't fit any of the banned criteria. You guys are basically saying that supporting police and military is only done by republicans.

Imagine a group of programmers unable to tell the difference between "violates the rules" and "hurts my political feelings"... yikes.

And then imagine the group of programmers arguing with them trying rule-lawyer "keep the polls civil and don't sport inflammatory clothing or accessories."

It's not a good look when the best you can make is something isn't technically forbidden. Like it doesn't make you clever trying to argue that your "cry more snowflake" shirt isn't political -- you're just an asshole.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#90

Post by mindslight »

brandmeyer wrote: post #82
ddevault wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. The military is a political entity, and different voters have different opinions on. It's better to err on the side of caution when acting in an official capacity for the election, especially when your organization (the police) are the subject of ballot measures this year. A tap on the shoulder and a polite comment seem well justified to me, and another poll worker agreed.

> The military is a political entity Veteran here, served during the contentious 2000 election. The US military very strongly prides itself on being an apolitical entity. There's an important distinction between the electorate having differing opinions about the role and size of the military and the scope of its missions, and the military itself being a political entity.

The electorate isn't able to express meaningful opinions on the role and size of the military, thus support of the institution itself has become political.
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