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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

#91

Post by thaeli »

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.

Virginia here, but this should apply anywhere paper ballots are used. The voter is free to mark the ballot they hand back to be spoiled and replaced any way they want, including in a manner that obscures who they voted for. The ideal marking if someone was concerned about this would be to go through and check every box for every candidate before handing it in to be spoiled.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#92

Post by tptacek »

This squares with my experience in Illinois after a couple of elections.

* As a security/integrity issue, the ballots themselves are much less scary than the pollbooks, which are what we use to match voters against the voting rolls.

* Everything's ultimately on paper; there are bar codes, which nobody loves, but they're auditable against the readable printed ballot.

* Most of the security is physical/human; for us, each polling station (a location can have several precincts and thus several stations, each a giant rolling metal box) is sealed using numbered plastic seals before the polls open and after they're closed, and everything is recorded redundantly and signed off on by the poll workers.

* A matching count at the close of polls is a big deal, a nightmare big deal; in Illinois, we can't just shrug off a missing ballot and say "nothing we can do about it"; in March, I had to stay 3 hours late while we resolved a similar issue (IIRC, a mis-recorded provisional). Most pollworkers in my experience are there for the money (I've never bothered cashing the check) and the threat that they won't get paid if they count doesn't match is extremely powerful.

* The local police are not allowed to monitor polling places, and the municipality of the polling place is usually confused about that; in Cook County, it's the County Sheriff's Department that has authority over polling places. Our cops were very friendly and responsive.

* The drama of every election is the the "string line" that defined the 100 foot "no electioneering" radius of the polling place; the entertainment you can count on each cycle is the candidate whose people religiously move their lawn signs inside the string line, and freak out when you remove them.

It's an interesting system that derives a lot of resiliency from extreme complexity and maximal human touch points --- Illinois elections will never do something with 1 person when the same thing could be done with 2 --- which is sort of the opposite of how we reason about security online. It's simultaneously terrifying and reassuring.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#93

Post by Redoubts »

brandmeyer wrote: post #54
pontus wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be in your camp, but ultimately I think the decentralization and heterogeneity of the election processes provides a non-trivial layer of "security by obfuscation". In other words, if we streamline the process too well, we'll find ourselves with a system with a handful of highly vulnerable points of failure. I would much prefer a seemingly archaic system that, at the cost of annoyances and delays, at least p…

It also makes it much easier to directly observe which systems work better and which systems don't. Imagine for a moment that the entire country was using the exact same ballot process in 2000: The punch system that lead to so much ambiguity in FL. Its one thing to look at a system and say in the abstract "this could be much more reliable." Its another entirely to say "Look at states X, Y, and Z: Their process is act…

> Once things calm down, several states are going to improve their processes.

I hope so. But the annoying thing about American federalism is that we like to do things 50 different ways, long after the experiment should have been over.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#94

Post by patio11 »

tptacek wrote: post #92

This squares with my experience in Illinois after a couple of elections. * As a security/integrity issue, the ballots themselves are much less scary than the pollbooks, which are what we use to match voters against the voting rolls. * Everything's ultimately on paper; there are bar codes, which nobody loves, but they're auditable against the readable printed ballot. * Most of the security is physical/human; for us, e…

I remember as an election judge in IIRC 2000, while in high school, having to enforce the electioneering thing against someone in the facility. Some things never change.

I also came away from it thinking "Oh goodness it is amazing democracy survives, but kinda cool that it survives in an extremely participatory matter."

Edited: Would have been for the primary, not the general, so I was still in high school, and the youngest judge by 50 years or so for our polling place.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#95

Post by Redoubts »

pontus wrote: post #9
juanbyrge wrote: post #4

While reading this I got a sense that all of these anachronistic processes would not exist if voting would be moved online. So many of the contentious issues we see here (mail-in ballots arriving late, machines not printing receipts, etc..) would simply not exist. Online voting seems like such a simpler approach.

I used to be in your camp, but ultimately I think the decentralization and heterogeneity of the election processes provides a non-trivial layer of "security by obfuscation". In other words, if we streamline the process too well, we'll find ourselves with a system with a handful of highly vulnerable points of failure. I would much prefer a seemingly archaic system that, at the cost of annoyances and delays, at least p…

> we'll find ourselves with a system with a handful of highly vulnerable points of failure.

I'd say we have that now, since there may be 50 election systems, but we generally know which 5 are going to be important ahead of time. And that selection of states aren't necessarily the best equipped.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#96

Post by brandmeyer »

mindslight wrote: post #90
brandmeyer wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The vote and free speech remain powerful tools for meaningful expression. And they do have an impact. Even if it seems like you're being ignored, each voice really does matter, and policy does change in response.

But that policy flows from the civilian political realm. Military leadership doesn't decide which missions to take on. Congress and the President do. The military won't decide the fate of this election, no matter how contentious it gets. The civilian bodies will.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#97

Post by thedream »

Spivak wrote: post #89
thedream wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doing a thing that's "not a good look (according to Spivak)" != a violation of the stated rules

Being perceived as "an asshole (according to Spivak)" != a violation of the stated rules

Thanks for demonstrating my point so clearly ;]

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#98

Post by mindslight »

brandmeyer wrote: post #96
mindslight wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The vote and free speech remain powerful tools for meaningful expression. And they do have an impact. Even if it seems like you're being ignored, each voice really does matter, and policy does change in response. But that policy flows from the civilian political realm. Military leadership doesn't decide which missions to take on. Congress and the President do. The military won't decide the fate of this election, no m…

Voting between candidates that all support ongoing military actions is not meaningful. It's similar to the treasonous NSA - discussing it is simply outside of the mainstream Overton window, primary candidates who dare touch it are branded "unelectable" etc.

Speech gets swamped by mass propaganda. I don't see how it's possible to look at say the run up to the Iraq war and think that antiwar had a meaningful voice. When it comes down to it, the warmongers are just better funded, better connected, and take advantage of basic human nature.

Since it seems impossible to prevent the military from being used for elective wars, or even to simply downsize it, discouraging general support for the military makes sense (when voice fails, try exit). I'm not asking you to agree with my arguments above, but you don't get to make a unilateral call that this isn't a political viewpoint.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#99

Post by latchkey »

dx87 wrote: post #32
mmastrac wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem much different than a "thin blue line" flag. I'd feel the same way as Drew in this situation. If you want to wear a flag, wear a flag.

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.

https://www.police1.com/legal/articles/3-things-to-consider-...

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#100

Post by throwaway373438 »

nemosaltat wrote: post #47
sk5t wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd probably get upset as well if some poll worker tried to tell me I'm not allowed to wear the American flag on my clothes The flag of the United States is not adulterated with text or anything else in place of its stripes, stars, and field.

I think you may be referencing the US flag code, which yes, has a handful of explicit and implicit prohibitions against wearing the flag on clothing.

Whenever discussing the US flag code it's important to mention that the statute is unconstitutional as determined in United States v. Eichman.

What the flag code says about clothing is as irrelevant as any other hot take on the issue.

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